Summerhill Market

Over the last six months, I have cut out most of the carbs and sugar, and walked each night after work. And, predictably, I have lost 40 pounds. This morning, someone at work commented on how I should shop for new clothes because the ones I had on were swimming on me. I responded, "Yeah, I feel like Dondi." The look I got back at that comment let me know that they had never heard about the Italian orphan from World War II that was adopted by US soldiers and brought back to the United States. In short, he didn't have a clue what I meant. And I began to think about the little orphan, and a lot of other memories I have of the past, memories that I find fewer and fewer people each day to share with.

When I was 11 years old, we moved from a housing project in Queens to Spotswood, NJ. It was the first house I had ever lived in. And the red Schwinn was the first two-wheel bike I ever owned. And at any opportunity I could find, I rode down the hill to Summerhill Market, a grocery store that slaughtered its own meat and made its own ice cream. It was 1957.

Summerhill Market
Christopher Bogart

It was a bright red Schwinn bicycle that took me on that beautiful spring day in the May of my twelfth year to Summerhill Market on the important errand of replenishing the milk and bread supply. I felt the hot sun beat on my back as I cut through Clover Estates, traveling downhill on the fastest route to the only grocery store for miles. As I approached the bend in the road, I saw the market ahead of me, a small squat red brick building surrounded by fields of cattle waiting to be slaughtered by the butcher from the abattoir in the back of the store. I rode up to the silver bicycle rack in front of the store and braked, throwing gray gravel in all directions. Once I had pulled the bike into the silver rack, I entered the store.

The light was dim. It took me awhile to adjust my eyes from the bright sunlight of the world outside to the muted light within. The cool smell of damp wood and raw meat permeated the place. As I walked down the aisle to fetch the gallon jug of milk and the loaf of bread, I heard the muffled voices of the register clerk discussing the day’s events with a lone customer, punctuated only by the tapping of the keys and the register bell’s plaintive ring. Once my purchases were in hand, I had one more stop to make before checking out. In a deep freezer in the front of the store, I plunged my hand through frozen mists to emerge with a container of homemade, vanilla bean ice cream. Pulling off the container lid, the cool sweet smell of vanilla bean flecks assailed my nose, masking for a minute, all of the dank smells of the store. As I deeply inhaled the top of the container, visions of dessert tonight invaded my thoughts, driving out all that preceded them. I flipped the cover back on, bottling the ice cream genie for now, and proceeding to the counter to pay for my purchases.

Once outside the store, I mounted my trusty red Schwinn and with a push, I coasted across Summerhill Road and started peddling up the long hill to home, careless, carefree and warm with the sun on my face, and secure in the safety of my youth, a time that would turn out to be much shorter than I had realized.

From the window of my car I now see that there is a strip mall there on Summerhill Road. The field of cows and the squat brick building are gone. Replacing them are a video store, a Quick Check, a dry cleaners, and a place that offers a wide selection of CDs.