PLEASANT GROVE

Pleasant Grove was a small town situated to the right of the New Kaufman Highway just before it crossed the bridge over the Trinity River on the way to Dallas. Small as it was, it was a few times bigger than Rylie. There was a department store about three stories high with a painting that showed a can of house paint pouring paint down onto the world. If it wasn't the Sherwin-Williams icon, it sure looked like it. The name of the store was, "The World Store" and, compared to the rest of the buildings in Pleasant Grove, it was a skyscraper.

Once, I had a very bad toothache and Mom took me to a dentist whose office was in a building close to The World Store. He examined my tooth, said that I had a big cavity and asked if I wanted it filled or pulled. I said that I'd rather have it filled, but Mom said that it would have to be pulled because we didn't have enough money to pay for a filling....besides, it was a baby tooth and, in a while, a new and better tooth would grow in.

Thinking of teeth growing in, a new incisor emerged in back of one of my middle lower baby incisors and, for a while, I had two teeth in that spot. Eventually, the old one was pushed out so much that it was loose. I sat on a log in the back yard while Dad knelt and pulled the loose one by hand with no pain. The new one always stayed to the back as the two beside it had closed toward each other. That made a distinct bite pattern when I bit into anything. Until the time I was about fifty, I never noticed anyone with a tooth like that; then, I started noticing that many others had a similar tooth in the same location.

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A little further beyond the doctor's office was a movie house which, if memory serves me correctly, was only open Friday night and Saturday. Uncle Dorsey and his family would go once in a while and, sometimes, would invite me to join them. Of course, Uncle Dorsey drove, Velma and LaQuita would ride on the single seat while Willard and I would each sit on one of the fenders beside and hanging onto the headlight which was between the engine compartment and the fender. I don't recall what movies I saw there; I do know it was always fun to ride the fender. I also remember coming out of the theater and seeing all the other people going, many of them running, to their cars and leaving the dirt parking area creating a huge dust cloud. Uncle Dorsey didn't join the race to leave; he waited a few minutes so we could make a peaceful exit.

I searched the internet and, on eBay, found a side view and a front view of a Ford Model T 1930 Model A Soft Top Coupe w/ rumble seat which is not the model Uncle Dorsey had but, it's very similar. It is green and has a soft top while his was black with a hard top. It was usually close to twilight when we traveled to the movie and dark for the return.

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Across the street from the World Store, there was a raised wooden walkway that ran along in front of the various shops and stores, the kind you see in movies about the old west. One of these stores sold general merchandise, much of which was displayed in various sized divided horizontally sections, the likes of which aren't seen in stores today. Nowadays, most items are displayed vertically on shelves, part of which are difficult to reach because you have to bend and reach to the back of the shelf and some that are too high for many customers to reach. Back then, unless you were a small person or a little child, the merchandise was where you could look down at it and reach straight out to pick up whatever you wanted. As it was with many stores not in the big city back then, the floors were wooden. Not far from where I live today, there is an old grocery store with wooden floors. Every time I go there, I think back to my childhood days.

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Last Updated 17 February 2005

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