The Market Before the shopping center came to town, a little market is where everybody’s coffee beans were ground and boys wore aprons. My father got paid on Thursdays, so we walked there every Friday, my mother and I. She’d put me in the basket seat until I got too big and then I got to push the cart up and down but not too fast and if I bump one more lady I’m goin’ home. I could look but not touch anything on the shelves and absolutely NOTHING good like candy ever went in the cart. She picked out lima beans, wax beans, red beets, stewed tomatoes but never canned potatoes since they are too expensive-- just buy a bag and peel them yourself. If I was very good the entire time and didn’t whine, my mother gave me twelve cents to spend at the corner store for an ice cream cone. Then I'd cause troublesome excitement until I got there.