A Supermarket in California (1955)

The supermarket this takes place at is now the Trader Joe's in Berkeley on University.

Also a radiolab episode opener takes place at Berkeley Bowl West (the ep on the paradox of choice, they try to decide what apples to get).

These have been your two Berkeley Grocery Store Facts of the day. Reply STOP to unsubscribe.

The Air Force didn't let kids into the base supermarket if they were too big to sit in the shopping cart, and under 10. So I had to hang out in front while my mom shopped.

Eventually I turned 10 and got a military ID and could go into the supermarket. My mom would buy a huge pile of groceries (because it was a bit of a drive to the base and she only shopped every 2 weeks), and the cashier's fingers would just fly over the mechanical keyboard. I'm surprised their fingers didn't bleed from doing that all day.

The laser scanners are sooo much better.

Can you imagine these days leaving your six year old outside while you shopped?

It’s best heard, as read by Allen Ginsberg himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKf3b9AXoG8

Wonderful. And another Ginsberg Berkeley poem, maybe my favorite:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49304/sunflower-sutra

Howl was the poem that spurred inspired a generation:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl

I remember growing up with supermarkets that had no sealed packaging, no pop-top drinks, just glass no plastic, no drinking water, the ice cream choices were only vanilla/strawberry/chocolate/neopolitan and maybe rocky road, chips were only plain, ruffles, fritos, or BBQ, there were no barcodes only price stickers, no nutrition labels, no microwave instructions, only oreo or hydrox, no expiration dates, no plastic bags, no security cameras, no self-serve checkout.

Sorry for the unrelated comment.

It seems that I saw "AI" when I glance "A" in the title, I'm like a LLM trained by news in recently years...

This is one of my favorite poems

Do I even want to know why Ginsberg is being posted to HN?

Go Bears

Apparently Mr Ginsberg was a friend to young men. And not in a good way:

https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/allen-ginsberg-pedophilia...