Molasses, Eggs, and Cigarettes

Recently, I prepared a memoir for Ed Murphy about his family owned grocery business. His grandfather, W.J. Murphy, established the business. Ed spent a lot of time in the store as a child and started working there in 1960…a story worth telling. Here is the opening chapter.

When I was young, I’d often be at the store with my father. My favourite place was the back room where we stored all the bulk goods. One time, Dad was closing the store for the Wednesday half-holiday. I was nowhere to be found.

Dad opened the door to the back room and entered. Immediately, his feet stuck to thick, sweet liquid. Dad looked around. He found me with my hand on the big molasses barrel. I had turned on the tap and released the dark, fragrant syrup.

“What the…?” I didn’t give Dad a chance to finish his sentence. I darted into the house!

Dad was left to figure out how to get the molasses off the floor. There was no way of scooping it up. He decided to drill through the wooden floor, so the molasses would go down into the basement. I suppose he threw down sawdust and cleaned up the rest.

Another time, Dad was working in the store. From the back room, he heard, “Splat! Splat!” He thought to himself, “Oh God, what’s Ed up to?”

Slowly, he walked into the back room. Bright yellow gooh oozed down the wall. He turned my way. I was caught with a handful of eggs ready to fire. I had lots of ammunition. Sixty dozen MicMac eggs were stored in a big wooden case. They were all loose!

“Ed, what do you think you’re doing?!”

“Um…,” I started, but quickly realized I had no reply. I scooted out of the room. Dad was again left to clean up the mess.

When I was older, a couple of the boys pressured me to try smoking. “Go in the store now and get a few cigarettes.”

Cigarettes in those days were sold separately. I went in the store and swiped a few. We went over to the garage and started to smoke. The next minute, I heard the back door of the house open and I looked out the window.

“Oh cripes! Dad’s coming!”

We threw the cigarettes behind sacks of sawdust. I closed the door to the garage. We beat it down to Bannerman Park. Soon it dawned on me. We forgot to put out the cigarettes!

“Boys, we threw the cigarettes behind those sacks of sawdust. We gotta go back.”

We had to shift the sawdust out of the way to see where the cigarettes were. Sure enough, they were down at the bottom and the sacks were starting to smoulder. Because they were wet, they didn’t catch on fire. We cleaned it all up. Thankfully we got out of that without being killed!

So began my time at the store.