A Day in the Life of a Tree

These two photos are of Wagners as it looks today, and how it looked in the early 1950's. In the almost 60 years since the two photos were taken, the store (house) has hardly changed a bit.

What has changed is the size of the tree!

Mrs Horn told me the photo of the house from the early 1950's was taken the day they planted the young tree in their yard. Could the Wagners have predicted that tree would still be standing (and going strong) sixty years later?

Think of how many kids that tree saw walk in and out of Wagners store? How many kids rested underneath the branches in the shade on hot summer days? Perhaps you were one of those kids?

Gigantic trees, 50-60 years old, are not rare in Manor Ridge. I myself have two pin oak trees, probably planted around the same time (early 1950's) which stand well over 50 feet tall.

These types of slow growing, but long living trees were the types planted by our parents when Manor Ridge was a young and brand new development. They were planted by people who knew it would take decades for these trees to fully develop, decades until they could begin to enjoy the shade and fruit of these trees. But it was their belief in the future, patience, and knowledge that they would still be living in their home (and enjoying the trees planted around it) for forty or more years, that led them to plant these types of trees.

Sadly, in new developments today, if people plant trees at all, they are typically the fast-growing but short lived variety, trees like the Bradford Pear. People today don't think forty or fifty years into the future, and certainly do not expect to still be living in the house where they are planting a tree, that far into the future.

There is something to be said for the stability, the routine, and the certainty of the era we grew up in, the era of the 1950's-1970's. The pace of life was slow, like the speed at which these trees grew. But the culture our parents built in Manor Ridge, like the trees, was made to last, to persevere, to grow straight and tall and strong and last for a very long time.

Like the Wagners house, and their tree, and the memories we still have of those days.

A Wacky Shared Memory

From my friend Terri:

I remember: the smell ( not in a bad way! ) when you walked in the door.

Going behind the counter with your little brown bag and counting out your pieces of candy on the "honor" system - Do you think our hands were clean?

Grape shoestring licorice

Comic books

Buying wacky cards

Oh the good old days.

Yes, Terri, they were the good old days. I still laugh at some of those old Wacky packages cards to this day. But then I still laugh at Mad Magazine too (which I am proud to say both of my teenage sons still find to be hilarious - good old Mad humor, it is timeless).

Here is a great book that shows the history of those old Wacky Trading Cards.

And from the book:

Wacky Packages—a series of collectible stickers featuring parodies of consumer products and well-known brands and packaging—were first produced by the Topps company in 1967, then revived in 1973 for a highly successful run. In fact, for the first two years they were published, Wacky Packages were the only Topps product to achieve higher sales than their flagship line of baseball cards. The series has been relaunched several times over the years, most recently to great success in 2007.

Known affectionately among collectors as “Wacky Packs,” as a creative force with artist Art Spiegelman, the stickers were illustrated by such notable comics artists as Kim Deitch, , Bill Griffith, Jay Lynch, and Norm Saunders.

This first-ever collection of Series One through Series Seven (from 1973 and 1974) celebrates the 35th anniversary of Wacky Packages and is sure to amuse collectors and fans young and old.

Pretty impressive that Wacky Packages cards out sold Topps baseball cards, especially as that was the era of classic baseball cards.

And you will be happy to know Terri that you can still buy grape shoestring licorice though I am sure it would not have the same great flavor as that which you bought and ate at Wagners. Nothing ever can.

Hurry Home Early, Hurry On Home...

Wee Willie Weber's cartoon show has come on.....

And hurry on home we did, every day after school ended at Hambright, straight to our parents old black and white TV sets in the basement so we could catch the very end of Kimba the White Lion before settling in for a full round of cartoons that are today, legendary:

• Astro Boy
• Marine Boy
• Speed Racer
• Ultra Man

To name just a few. And Wee Willie Weber, all 6' 5" of him, was always there to show them to us.

Weber passed away yesterday at the age of 80. To say that he was a household name and friend to our generation would be a huge understatement. Our older brothers and sisters may have had the Mickey Mouse Club and Howdie Doodie, but we had Wee Willie Weber and great early anime and other cartoons from 3:00 - 6:30 PM every Monday - Friday.

Weber hosted the Wee Willie Webber Colorful Cartoon Club on Channel 17 out of Philadelphia from 1965-1975. And from 1976-1979 he was on Channel 48 with his "Kids Block" from 4 to 7 p.m.

It's hard to imagine today when there is so much entertainment on TV aimed at and made for kids. But back in the 60's-70's, all we had were shows like Sally Star or Wee Willie Weber, and the wonderful Saturday morning TV line up of cartoons. If you got up early before school you could catch The Mighty Hercules and of course there was Captain Kangaroo and Channel 8's Percy Platypus show. Sunday mornings before church you could watch Hector Heathcoat and the Hashimoto-san. And once a year you got to see How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Charlie Brown's Christmas, and Rudolph.

But that was pretty much it. There was not much choice, but what little there was, we found it, watched it, and ate it up.

I watched a great deal of after school cartoons on Wee Willie Webers show while holding a small brown paper bag filled with ten cents of penny candy from Wagners.

Goodbye Wee Willie and thanks for all the fun and the memories.

First Shared Wagners Memory

I received the first official memory of Wagners days from my good friend Norm (the one who had to make the long journey from fairway park to reach Wagners). I hope more of you will share your memories. Here is his what he sent me:

I remember the dust covered house hold gadgets that hung above the cooler and behind the penny candy. Sockets, screws, fuses...

They may have hardly ever been needed, but by golly, Wagner's sold them just in case. Mrs. Wagner got pissed off at me once when she over heard me say to someone that this stuff is covered with dust and never gets sold.

Also, there was a moment in all the neighborhood kid's life when the big realization came into being...that is that Wagners simply turned their living room into a store!!!! As a kid, your thinking...how great is that!!! Living in a house with all those goodies!!!

Yeah, those were the days. You would wait all week in anticipation of getting your "allowance". All 12 cents! And then make the arduous trek (it was an expedition for those of us from Fairway Park) the whole way to Wagners. 12 cents...and you had choices! Should I spend it all on penny candy and get a whole 12 pieces! Or should I get a 12 ounce soda? I could, if I drank it there, get the soda for 10 cents and spend the other two on penny candy. Or maybe buy two bags of Stehmans chips for 5 cents each! And still have two cents left over. Ahhhh Stehmans. You bit into the chip and the fine "juices" of grease would coat your tongue. Sometimes, if you were lucky, when the chip was made during the frying process, it created a bubble. Inside that bubble was a reservoir of grease. You would bite into it and the "dam burst"! Delicious!

I sill buy a bag when I am in Lancaster at Subs and Suds.

I could not find a photo of Stehmans Chips so I made do with the venerable Charles Chips we all remember from our youth (the big metal Charles Chips cans that, once empty, our moms would save and use for various other things such as storing their home-baked Christmas cookies). Apparently the Stehmans Chips Norm recalls were made in Ephrata, PA and no longer exist. But Stehmans Chips are still made in Mohnton, PA.

Thanks to monkeytime at Flickr for the use of the photo

Short and Long Walks and Other Journeys

Some of us were lucky enough to have our homes close to Wagners. Others lived further away.

In this photo from 1972 we have both the lucky and the unlucky.

In the foreground is my friend Glenn who was luckiest of all. His house was just across the intersection from Wagners on Manor Ridge Drive.

Standing in the back is me, I was next closest - I lived just up the street on Hawthorn. For me, a trip to Wagners consisted of walking one full block.

At the far end wearing the life jacket is my friend Matt who lived two blocks away on Manor Ridge Drive.

The guy holding the board (which were our makeshift paddles for our inner tube journey down the Conestoga River (Conestoga Creek is what we all called it, and still do) is my friend Norm who was the unlucky one. He lived all the way south in Fairway Park. For him, and kids like him who did not live close, a trip to Wagners was a real journey.

In an age where our parents did not drive us where we wanted to go, our only means of transportation was a bike, or our feet.

If we road our bikes, it was not uncommon to see the front yard of Wagners store five deep in various kinds of bicycles of the day. Mine was a blue Schwinn 3-speed. Glenn's was a green Sting Ray with banana seat. Matt road a red Schwinn with racer handle bars and I can't remember what Norm rode.

More often than not, we walked to Wagners, especially in the summer vacation months. Unlike today where kids have busy summer schedules, we had next to nothing to do all summer vacation (except form maybe the one week family trip to the mountains or the shore). Therefore, we were in no particular hurry to get there, or back. Besides, it was far easier to eat a bag of penny candy walking home from Wagners than riding a bike.

Summer vacations for us was a fantastic month of June where the weather was still not too hot and muggy and the newness and joy of being out of school for the summer was still fresh. This was followed by the slow, hot, but still fun month of July which we spent a lot of time playing board games, exploring the neighborhood, and playing flashlight tag at night.

If not at Wagners, many a hot summer day was spent in the relative cool of family basements, especially my basement because we had a pinball machine. A real "Williams Jungle" pinball machine. My dad got it second hand from some guy in Lancaster city my grandfather knew. My grandfather knew everyone in the city.

In an age where no one even thought to make any fun for us, we were left for three glorious months to make our own fun. Which brings me to the photo.......

It was the summer of 1972. That June, Tropical Storm Agnes devastated Lancaster County and much of the eastern USA. Especially hard hit was eastern Pennsylvania.

That July, after days of playing Risk, we needed something new to do. That's when, sitting at Glenn's house - we conjured up an idea for a real adventure. We would use several large inner tubes his family had and float down the Conestoga Creek! We spent days planning the expedition, using pieces of wood for paddles, getting life jackets, even fashioning our own anchor out of an empty gallon milk jug filled with gravel and tied to a rope.

But first we had to find four of our friends who would (and could) make the trip. Glenn, Matt and I were instantly in, but the other two members of our "gang", Tim and Greg, were not allowed to go. For some odd reason their parents must have thought it unwise to let a bunch of 13 year old boys risk their lives floating down a river. But not our parents!

Still - we needed a fourth friend for the fourth inner tube. One of us, probably Matt, came up with the idea of asking Norm who lived all the way up in Fairway Park. So the three of us walked or rode our bikes to Norm's house. His mom answered the door that sunny summer afternoon (as mom's always did when moms were almost always home makers) and we asked if Norm was home. She said he was and fetched him for us. We proposed the idea to Norm then and there and being the sport that he is - he promptly posed the question to his mom - could he risk his life and float with us down the Conestoga? His mom said - yes he could. That was it! We now had our full compliment of mariners.

We christened our inner tube raft "The Titanic" and set the day. Matt's father had a station wagon, standard suburban transportation in those days, and he agreed to transport all of us and the inner tubes to the Conestoga Country Club where we would put in at one of the foot bridges (for golf carts) over the Conestoga. He would also pick us up at our expected finish point - Groff's Sporting Goods store (what is today Scheid Funeral Home). It is Matt's father who snapped the photo of us on the bridge just before we put in.

Being 13 year old boys, we knew where the Conestoga Country Club foot bridge was, and where Groffs Sporting Goods was, and figured - how long could it possibly take to go from point A to point B? The distance as the crow flies between the two is only four or five miles. Of course we neglected to take into consideration the fact that rivers and creeks don't flow in straight lines. In fact, the Conestoga takes a huge sweeping turn away from Groffs Sporting Goods before doubling back - making out watery trip three times as long as we had calculated.

But no matter - hope springs eternal and we had all the confidence in the world of our ability to complete the journey.

We set off and the first "big" set of rapids we encounter was a hard left hand turn the creek makes in the Conestoga Country Club. It was thrilling to go through this fast water and The Titanic managed just fine. Later on, near what is now the Manor Township park on Charlestown Road, we encountered a tree that was blocking the entire creek except for the one side. This made it just possible for us to raft through, and the water fast. It to was thrilling and fun.

Little did we know that not only the distance of the journey would confound us and our best laid plans, but also the slow current of the Conestoga in other parts. We drifted along slow, sometimes hardly moving at all.

But the worst miscalculation of all was deciding to set out on our journey after Agnes. The storm had knocked down what seemed to be dozens of trees, fully blocking our path. Time and again we had to ford around these blockages, scampering up muddy and burn hazel infested bank, porting our inner tubes across land, to put back in. Then, a short time later, another tree blocking the creek and we had to do it all over again.

But press on we did.

The dangers of drowning in the Conestoga in late July are minimal because the water depth is seldom about three feet. In fact, many places were so shallow our tubes would bottom out and we'd have to push ourselves along with our improvised paddles, or stand up and walk the inner tubes to deeper water.

As the hours passed we had no idea where we were or how much longer it would be until we got to Groffs. We would try to stand on the tubes and peer over the creek banks, trying to get a fix on our location, but it was hopeless. All we could see were trees and endless fields of corn.

Then we realized we failed to bring food or water. Matt had brought along a bagged lunch, but it became water logged and unfit to eat. This left only Norm who had the sense to bring a can of Potato Stix. Dry, salted, Potato Sticks. But it was all we had, so we ate the salty snack food.

Finally, somewhere near what is the Bowling Green housing development off Charlestown Road, we decided enough was enough and got out of the water one last time at a huge tree blocking our way. We carried our inner tubes up and out of some farmers corn field, not knowing where we were or where we needed to walk to find civilization. We stumbled out onto a road, figured out where we were, and somehow called Matt's dad to come pick us up, which he did.

We figured me must have gone, what? Easy twenty, thirty miles? In fact, in the many hours of floating we had covered a distance of barely two miles as the crow flies from where we put in.

We never did reach our goal of Groffs. But the following year - Titanic II did make it all the way to Groffs!

That is the story behind the photo, a story of kids entertaining themselves over summer vacation. A summer vacation made all the more wonderful by the presence of Wagners.

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Thing of Beauty

Bring back memories?

"Tab" is "Bat" Spelled Backwards

And the makers of Tab (see below) deserved the same punishment dished out to the Coca-Cola vending machine, administered by Colonel Bat Guano.

Let's face it. Diet sodas of the 60's-70's were what you drank if there was absolutely nothing left to drink and you were just dying for a soft drink. Often you would raid your friends refrigerator hoping to score a Pepsi or a Sprite or 7up only to find bottles of Diet Rite or Fresca or worst of all - Tab.

It's surprising how popular diet sodas were in the 60's-70's - given their awful taste, and especially as the labels sometimes said.....:

"Use of this product may be hazardous to your health. This product contains saccharin which has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals."

But the Wagners cooler had Tab, as well as other diet soft drinks of the era including Diet Pepsi, Fresca, and Diet Rite. To my discerning taste buds, Diet Rite was the best of the "faux colas", and Fresca was the most drinkable of them all.

I found this interesting history of Tab soda here.

The development of Tab - which was the first major diet soda, is an interesting one. The story began in 1958 when diet soda controlled merely 1.5% of the soda market. By 1962, this percentage had doubled. Coca-Cola decided that it was time to get involved. The development of Tab began in June of 1962. The workers had until April 1, 1963 to have the drink, its bottle, and its brand identity ready for market.

After hundreds of taste tests, researchers narrowed the choices for flavor down to two. They sent the candidates to families around the country to find the one people liked better. Naming this new drink was also a problem. Market research said the name should be something short and easily remembered (three to six letters). They configured an IBM 1401 computer to print all four letter word combinations that had a vowel. This generated over 250,000 words; they also added names suggested by employees. Coca-Cola narrowed the list to 600 possibilities and checked each of these against existing trademarks. By the time of the final selection, there were less than two dozen choices left. TAB was the final choice.

The original Tab bottle was a complete departure from all the previous bottles. They wanted a completely radical design, but it had to be compatible with all of the automated equipment in use at the time (bottle fillers, packagers, vending machines, etc.). It had to be "unique but the same." A textured bottle was the final decision. Although this took some engineering skill to design, the bottle was also ready by the deadline.

In short - after years of product development, consumer research and taste testing, Coca-Cola came up with the foulest tasting swill ever to be placed inside a bottle and sold as "soda".

As I would not part with precious money to actually buy a diet soda at Wagners (why would any sane kid do so when he/she could gulp down a delicious sugar-laden bottle of Pepsi or Dr Pepper?), my first encounter with diet sodas came from hanging out at a friends house during long hot summer vacations. He and his family were all overweight so his parents always had diet soda in the refrigerator while we, if we had soft drinks in the house, always had the good stuff - Weis markets, A-Treat, and other low-cost generic brands (but which tasted fabulous!).

So if we wanted a soda at my friends house it had to be Diet Rite, Fresca, or Tab. Punished by the heat, weakened by thirst, we would grovel and drink (or at least, try to drink) a bottle of Fresca or Tab. I quickly learned Tab was bitter and essentially undrinkable. My scrounged from the refrigerator drink of choice fell to Fresca. Fresca had a surprisingly palatable and decent citrus/lemon-lime type taste. And the saccharine after taste was short-lived and somewhat masked by the flavor.

Obviously, Wagners patrons were like me, they seldom parted with their hard earned cash to buy a Tab or Fresca out of the Wagners cooler. This was evident by the disproportionate number of diet soft drinks crammed into the cooler. Also - many of these were covered with a thick layer of frost - a 60's-70's era form of carbon-14 dating indicating the length of time the diet sodas sat in the cooler. A very long time indeed.

Glass Steel and Aluminum

These are some old soda crates Mrs. Horn (the Wagners daughter) gave me along with the cooler.

Today it is hard for people who did not grow up in the 50's-70's to believe that soft drinks used to come in two forms:

1. The bottle - which had no screw off cap - you needed a bottle opener to open it up.

2. The can - which had no pop top or tab opener so again, you needed a can opener to open it up.

The Wagners cooler only held bottles - at least I do not recall there ever being cans of soda in it. Of course this made sense since the cooler had a bottle opener right there on the machine. All you had to do was pop off the cap, hear it 'clink clink clink" as it fell down into the bottle cap holder, and drink away.

There was just nothing like the taste of soda from one of these ice cold bottles. Of course, those from an earlier generation would scoff at that - they would say the real soda came from a soda fountain, hand made for you by the "soda jerk". This is probably so, but by my generations time, the soda jerk was about as common as the Polio virus. By the 1960's-1970's they were all but gone.

We drank plenty of canned soda too of course - mostly A Treat (which you can still buy today here in Pennsylvania - though you can find it only in plastic). Trust me - the good taste of soft drink does not come in plastic. Also - Two Guys Department store and Weis Super Market soda. Those of course because they were cheap and all our parents could afford to buy and bring home from the grocery store/department store.

I recall the early variations and experimentation to develop pull tabs for soda cans. The first ones you lifted and pulled off, having a nice little "key" in your one hand, the soda can ready to drink in the other. These pull tabs usually ended up on the ground. People with metal detectors looking for coins are still finding these early pull off steel tabs today like we still find Native American arrow heads. The pull tabs will probably last even longer.

With the first Earth Day and the environmental craze of the 70's, can manufacturers were trying to come up with a pull tab that did not separate from the can itself (so millions of soft drink and beer can tabs did not end up on the ground). The first such "pop tops" didn't work too well, and one could easily cut their finger pushing these awkward devices into the can. Sometimes the little "pop top" circle of steel or aluminum ended up in the can (as a matter of fact, I seem to recall that happening quite a lot) where they could be swallowed by those who liked to chug their beverage.

Finally, after many tries, the can manufacturers came up with the pop top opener that stays with the can (but does not separate and fall into the can) that we have today. Ah....evolution.

Once of the many great thing about those old soft drink cans was they were made of steel - none of these aluminum cans you find today that puncture if you sneeze on them the metal is so thin. No - these were steel cans made of thick sturdy steel. And as such, they were useful for something all kids created back in the 60's-70's - the soda can cannon. Simply cut the tops and bottoms off about six or seven soft drink cans (using the electric or hand operated can opener every house had back then) - tape them all together end to end using black electricians tape - leave the bottom can with the bottom still on - puncture s small hole in the center of this bottom can - add liberal amounts of lighter fluid - put in a tennis ball - strike a match to the pin hole at the bottom, and Boom! One ready made soda can cannon.

I recall vividly when the old steel can began to be replaced by the thin aluminum ones. Not only did the soft drink not taste as good out of an aluminum can - you could not construct a cannon out of them.

Many years later (well, it wasn't that many years really) I discovered the fine taste of Fosters Lager beer out of the steel cans we called 'oil cans". They were large steel cans of beer containing about 25 ounces - similar to the old oil cans that had metal tops that needed an oil can spout to open and pour (another long forgotten tool that was replaced by screw caps and pull tabs). Then Fosters stopped shipping their beer to the US in steel cans and switched to aluminum. Once again, something was lost in the taste. I have not had Fosters in an "oil can" since they switched to aluminum.

When it comes to beverages - give me the good taste of steel any day.

The Coke Cooler

Perhaps the two greatest memories of Wagners Store, of all the great memories, were the penny candy cabinet, and the old Coke cooler.

The Coke cooler was a 1951 Westinghouse Electric Coca Cola Cooler - Cabinet Serial #1353054. It was designed to keep the soda bottles at a temperature of about 32 degrees fahrenheit. Anyone who enjoyed a Frostie root beer, RC Cola, or a 7 Up on a hot summer day will tell you, the sodas that came out of that cooler were good, and they were cold.

And enjoy them we did. We bought Pepsi, Coke, Sprite, Tab, Diet Rite, Fresca, Upper 10, Yoo-Hoo, Dr. Pepper, Crush, Hires, White Rock, Squirt, A&W, Fanta, Mountain Dew, and many more - some of which are still with us, most have long since gone from the market.

Sodas, or soft drinks as we called them here in Lancaster, Pa, cost between $0.05 (yes, that's a nickel) to $0.25 a bottle in the 1950's - 1960's, to more than $0.25 by the time Wagners closed in the 1970's. And of course, the bottles were returnable for a deposit! Drink it right there in the store, turn the bottle back in, and get some of your money right back! Or go out and dig up old bottles from the ground, bring them into Mr Wagner filled with packed dirt and covered with mud, and he'd still give you the deposit money (which you promptly spent on baseball cards, a candy bar, or penny candy).

It was great to open the top of the cooler, and behold the plethora of soda bottles, all crammed into the machine in no order at all. You never knew what might be in there, or if your favorite soft drink would be available. Often you had to dig through the piles of unwanted Fresca and Tab bottles to get that sweet 7 ounce Sprite bottle (the one with the dimples on it) that you wanted.

The cooler had two large side compartments with a smaller center compartment. Often the cooler was in need of a serious defrosting - frost covered the sides of both storage shelves - taking up much needed room for your favorite soft drinks. The cooler is equipped with a drain plug for defrosting.

As all Wagners Dwellers knew the cooler was located just inside the Manor Ridge Drive side door - immediately to the right. It's hallowed position never changed. The Wagners kept empty six pack holders to the left of the cooler (as you faced it), on the floor - for those who could afford to make their own "mix-and-match" six pack of sodas.

Only once was I ever on the receiving end of such great philanthropy. One hot summer day I was hanging out with two friends who lived down the street. Like most of your summer vacation, it was hot, and nothing was going on. Nothing going on was what was going on all the time when we were kids in the 60's and 70's. So the mother of these two friends hands one of them a dollar, a full one dollar bill, and tells us to go to Wagners and get a six pack of soft drinks and bring them back. She wanted an RC Cola as I recall, and she didn't care what we got for the other five. This was too good to be true!

So off we went on our soft drink shopping journey (we had to walk all of 1/2 block to get there from their house). We took our time and each selected a soft drink for ourselves (mine was a Sprite - 12 ounce bottle), her RC Cola, and then two more. My friends got to pick the other two sodas, it was, after all, their mothers money. I was just thrilled to not only have an ice cold Sprite (and a 12 ouncer too boot!) on a hot day, as well as being part of such a momentous event.

Of course, we kids could not afford to buy six soft drinks from the cooler all at once - we never had a full dollar. But we could always scrounge together a couple of nickels, a dime, and some pennies, and we could afford one soda (and maybe a few pieces of penny candy).

To this day, no soda I have had tasted as good as the sodas tht came out of the Wagners cooler.

Wagners Community Store

Anyone who grew up during the 1950's-1970's in Manor Ridge (Lancaster County Pennsylvania) will remember the Wagners Community Store.

The actual name of the store was the Manor Ridge Community Store, but everyone simply called it "Wagners" or for us kids it was simply "Wags".

Owned and operated by Mr and Mrs Wagner, the store was located at the intersection of Manor Ridge Drive and Hawthorn (sometimes spelled Hawthorne) Drive. It operated from the early 1950's until it closed around 1976-1977.

This blog will be a place for people to come and reminesce about the store, the times, the neighborhood, the community, and the Wagners.