A few letters from longtime readers
Today, I have some reader letters to share, rounding up memories of Food Fair (if you couldn’t guess by the photo above!) as well as Spangler’s supermarket, B&B Garage and Spurg’s Drive-In. I hope you’ll enjoy them!
Reader Debbie Stuebi noted about Food Fair that she passed it walking to school in the ’50s. It was on the right-hand side of South George Street, by an alley (or maybe Boundary Avenue, she added), before Cottage Place. “I worked at the Disc-O-Rama with my old friends Bernie and Rodney on weekends in the ’60s, and also worked at the old Gazette & Daily for Eli Sliver,” she added.
We’ve talked a lot about Food Fair in past posts like this one, so if you’ve missed those, be sure to check them out!
I also heard from my third-grade teacher Shirley (Coble) Hite in reference to some businesses in the Dover area. In a column last summer, reader Judy Welsh had asked if anyone remembered the B&B Garage in Dover. Well, Mrs. Hite (sorry, I cannot call my amazing third-grade teacher Shirley, no matter what) recalled, “My family and I lived across the street on the diagonal from the garage when I was growing up as a young girl. The garage was originally located in what is the parking lot of the former Spangler’s Supermarket. I think the garage was owned and operated by Bill Bollinger and a Mr. Baker. It was one of the first garages that repaired cars and sold gas in the Weigelstown area. My father had his car work done there.”
She continued, “As children my brothers and I were allowed to buy ‘squeezies’ once in a while. I think the ‘squeezies,’ usually lime or orange, cost about 5 cents. That was a lot of money for us. (Or maybe a nickel candy bar.) Shortly before we moved from our home across the street from the garage, it (B&B Garage) was torn down and Spangler’s Supermarket was built. Again, the end of another era.”
Thank you so much for those B&B memories!
Finally today, I have a letter to share from Connie Haller, who wrote in response to a previous post on Spurg’s Drive-In on South Queen Street near the Spry area of York Township. Connie noted, “I was a car hop in the summer, between my junior/senior year in high school, 1958-1959. A patron who stands out in my mind was a guy named ‘Flash’ who rode a motorcycle. Also on Monday evenings, bingo was held in an attached building, and we would take the people’s orders and then serve them their food as they played bingo. After we closed the restaurant in the evening, we all would sit around a table with our sandwiches and discussed the day. So about 1 a.m. I would travel home – never worried about anything happening… There will never be any time better than the 1950s.”
Connie, thank you so much for sharing those fond memories of Spurg’s!
