It seems to come around every year around this time. Spring starts to feel more like Summer and I long for my school holidays. I used to spend every Summer at my Grandma's house, helping my Aunt at the local school where she was Librarian. We would dust all the shelves, adjust the books just so and make bulletin boards to welcome the kids back in the Fall - I can still smell the Mister Sketch markers and Pine Sol. There were very few kids my age so I spent most of my free time with my grandma and her friends, going 'to town' to go to K-Mart and for a bite to eat at Bojangle's and hitting the library on Sundays to get enough books for the week. In those days Piggly Wiggly was the only grocery store nearby. When I saw these photographs from PW's in the 1940s and 50s I couldn't help but smile and get that Summer feeling all over again. The Piggly Wiggly of my childhood is still there and they'll take your bags out to the car - no tip expected. It's certainly not the most luxurious supermarket and doesn't always have everything you need, but The Pig makes up for what it lacks with good ol' Southern charm. And a country-style eat-in deli!
All photographs taken from the North Carolina State Archives' flickr page. You can also go inside an exact replica of the first ever 1916 Piggly Wiggly store at the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. According to the museum, the origin of “Piggly Wiggly” isn’t clear. Sometimes Saunders said it just came to him; at other times he said he got the idea after seeing a group of piglets pushing and wiggling as they nursed. Whatever the origin, the name has always caught people’s attention.
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