Goat milk and Pet milk both played a part in my life.

Back in the early 1900s my grandmother raised her brood of 6 children on goat's milk taken from the family goat kept in their yard near near W 29th Street in the Remington section of Baltimore.
Oddly enough because of the many immigrants who kept goats in that area it was known as Goat Hill.
My father's version of walking to and from school uphill both ways was his story of having to milk a goat before he could have breakfast and it tasted terrible compared to the cow's milk I could get out of the ice box. Refrigerator was never in his vocabulary.

My hard luck story usually took place on Wednesday (the day before dad's payday) when we would be out of the regular Sealtest milk for my morning Wheaties and I would have to mix the condensed Pet milk (used in coffee mainly) with tap water. It was an acquired taste and by age 10 or so I got to like it but I always told Dad it tasted terrible just like his goat's milk.

And you still won't find better grocery stores. Although, Vons in California is pretty close.

I served in the military and have been stationed across the US. I grew up in central Texas, Piggly Wiggly and Safeway were the stores I remember as a child.

Despite the problems of the North, Meijer was one of the best but none rival Publix.

They are really stocked up on baby food!

I shop at Publix's stores around Nashville, TN.Yes, it is a pleasure to shop at their stores.

I remember my mother taking me to Publix every Friday to grocery shop at the Publix in College Park, a section of Orlando. Before we would leave, I would always take a turn on the big Toledo scale just inside the door and I spent many happy hours gluing all of our Green Stamps into a book so we could save up for some sort of item in the Green Stamps catalog. I can still remember the minty taste of that horrib glue. I'm no longer a "Floridiot" now living in Asheville, NC for the past 30 years, but about two years ago, we got our first Publix p here uand the town went absolutely mad for it. You couldn't even get a parking space the first three months it was open. Certainly a testament to what a great store it was and continues to be.

Despite any problems the South may have, at least we have Publix Supermarkets, "Where Shopping is a Pleasure". It's everybody's favorite store.

Now, if only they'd just starting giving out those S&H Green Stamps again!

Sorry to go on and on, but please notice the terrazzo floor in this photo. They were always seen in the Publixes of my day--green and white were the colors--and it was a point of pride to have them gleaming clean and polished at all times. For those unfamiliar with terrazzo, it was made of marble chips set in concrete and it took a high shine when sealed correctly before waxing.

Other Publix things were auto-opening doors and a big free Toledo scale just inside them.

Also, please note the window sign on the far right: S&H Green Stamps were given at Publix for years, and I still have a drill I "bought" with those stamps in about 1970.

With his super-clean, air-conditioned, and well-lit stores, Mr. George certainly did his best to make shopping a pleasure.

EDIT: The reason we used the term "Mr. George" was that George's brother, Charles, was also a visitor to our stores. So it was Mr. George and Mr. Charlie. Mr. Charlie was, in my experiences with him, a bit more outgoing than his brother. Once, when he was visiting Publix #51 in Tampa, he caught me and two of my produce workers in a bit of horseplay that was absolutely over the top. I won't describe it, but he had every right to fire us all on the spot.

Instead, he burst out laughing and said, "Boys, if you can't have fun at work you're in the wrong job." Then, shaking his head at our insane antics, he walked away.

Back when you could see across the top of shelves into the next aisle.

I worked in the admin side of a large retailer for nearly a dozen years and would always hear the merchants on the operational side of the business talking about the "power aisle", the open area down the middle of the retail floor where displays and promos were placed. Here, it looks as though Publix used that space to sell breakfast cereal, which seems stacked out and perhaps not on shelves - an interesting way to display it.

Interesting to see the predecessor to plastic wrap, Scott's Cut-Rite wax paper, in such quantity. My mom used to wrap my lunchbox sandwiches in that stuff. Also, a bunch of choices of malted milk products, with Ovaltine, my favorite Carnation brand, and one other brand I cannot identify. It seems that is no longer very popular as it was back then, but I loved it as a kid.

Pretty grainy, and not talking about the cereal. Not up to Shorpy's usual standards.

[That's because it's a relatively tiny 35mm negative, and high-speed film to boot, not a gigantic 8x10 inch glass plate such as used by the Detroit Publishing Company, for example. -tterrace]

I would love to have some of that 1963 Ovaltine, the kind that left a layer of crunchy, Chocolaty debris floating on top.

Stunning photo. So many things to see and remember. The comment title was what a "stockman" would be told to do on his aisle; keep those shelves stocked! Look at the number of facings Maxwell House coffee has. Also,"eye level is buy level" on those shelves.

The stockman with Mr. George is using an old green "float" to bring his stock to the shelves (we in produce used chrome two-level ones), and is using a Garvey flip-stamp pricer. It used a purple ink that could be wiped off the can tops with ammonia if the price changed on a Thursday morning. Both stockmen have feather dusters in their back pockets and, in those days, would be wearing a white shirt and black tie.

Being involved making displays, I remember that corrugated brick-paper, the fluffy pastel paper streamers, the fancy paper hanging eye-catchers that folded out to make different shapes. In produce, we used miles of fake grass made of paper (I think it was) on our displays, and that stuff wouldn't bruise the fruit.

Seeing the bottled salad dressings reminds me of an initiation trick every "bagboy" would have played on him in his early days: Being told to stay busy on the salad dressing/pickle aisle by keeping the oil-and-vineger dressings shaken up and unseparated.

Mr. George hated to see empty Coke bottles on his shelves, and would sometimes put a silver dollar under ones he'd see when visiting a store. Lucky stockmen who remembered to put those Coke bottles in the basket of his float would be happy to discover those!