Hell Freezing Over

I don't normally blog about politics as this is a family blog and our extended family are, I suspect, all over the political spectrum, but I'll post soon about my reactions to Obama's election. Meanwhile I want to note, following on my immediately previous post citing the Joplin Globe, about an unusual blizzard in the nether regions.

Joplin, Missouri, my home town, is a conservative, Bible Belt place. Congressman Roy Blunt, who just stepped down as House Republican Whip, is from there, and the local Congressional district I think elected one democrat in the whole 20th century, for a single term. It's John Ashcroft's home district. Southwest Missouri's best known Congressman before Blunt was Dewey Short, a fierce opponent of FDR and the New Deal.

The Joplin Globe, reflecting the basic conservative Republican views of the area, last endorsed a Democrat in 1908, when they went for William Jennings Bryan. They opposed Roosevelt all four times, and in 1948 they opposed Harry Truman, the only Missourian to run for President, who was born the next county to the north.

On October 28, the Joplin Globe endorsed Barack Obama. That was the moment (though I didn't learn of it right away) when I realized something unexpected was going on out there. I know, Missouri's seventh district went solidly for McCain anyway, and McCain carried the state by a hair. But for the first time since free silver, the Globe supported a Democrat, and a black one at that. (Joplin's black population is under three percent; there was one black guy in my high school class. They've named a street after Langston Hughes, who was born in Joplin, but they don't usually mention his family left when he was five due to a race riot. It's not a bigoted place, it's just that blacks aren't a big part of the landscape.) I'll post more on the theme later. I love Joplin as my home town, but I was startled when the Globe endorsed Obama.

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Remembering Johnny Rose's Grocery Store in Joplin

Every now and then meandering about in the Internet one stumbles on something that awakens deep, old, nearly forgotten memories. Because the Internet lets one read one's hometown newspaper, I do so from time to time. The Joplin Globe, my hometown paper.

Somebody wrote in about the old Johnny Rose grocery store at the corner of 18th and Connor in Joplin. If y0u click on the link, you'll see that I posted a short comment to the letter. "Johnny's" was a place I remember extremely well. Read the post at the link or the rest may make little sense to you.

The earliest home I remember was at 912 West 16th Street in Joplin, on 16th between Connor and Bird, or just about two blocks from Johnny's store. When I was in the third grade (Sarah's current age and grade) we moved to 1618 Murphy, maybe three blocks from Johnny's. Johnny's was an old time mom and pop grocery: no refrigerated cases I can remember, just bulk groceries and, the key point, a big glass cabinet up front with candy and gum and a coke case. Across the street was the Lafayette public school, and Johnny's was, as the letter writer notes, a retreat and resource for the kids at Lafatette, I went to the Catholic school, but Johnny's was still the place to go for candy, baseball card bubble gum (Topps of course), and other treats. In an age before convenience stores these little neighborhood groceries were the convenience stores. And as I note in my comment, after a certain age, in that era when predators and child molesters were unheard of, I was allowed to walk to Johnny's on my own.

Johnny knew everybody by name. He was a classic old-style grocer. (Did he have a mustache? I'm not sure but part of me wants to think so. Black hair, usually in a white grocer's outfit I think.) The store was an old-time frame building with a (concrete or wood?) front porch. When you walked in there was the big candy case right in front of you, a coke case on one side, the big red refrigerated tub kind, and groceries on shelves around the walls. Just maybe there was a meat case in the back but I wouldn't swear to it now.

As the letter writer notes eventually Johnny moved to Range Line Road, Joplin's "bypass" which became its main shopping district. I don't think I went to the new store more than once or twice, just to say hello. I don't know when he went out of business.

Odd what ancient memories the Internet can surface. Johnny Rose, no doubt long gone, will be somewhere in my subconscious as long as I live.

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