That got me to thinking of how my dad was a great recycler when it wasn’t even trendy.
The wholesale produce market was in San Antonio, and Dad and my uncle would go there about twice a week, sometimes only once a week. When my uncle was not working with Daddy anymore a driver was hired because Daddy never learned to drive. The bananas were bought by the entire stalk, not cut into bunches as you see in the produce markets today. Watermelons, cantaloupes, melons, and pineapples were also loose, not in big containers. To protect the produce in transit, especially the bananas, the material used was excelsior. Excelsior is old newspaper that has been shredded. Looks a lot like a newspaper run through the ubiquitous paper shredders in today’s offices. It was fun to play with the excelsior, but it was messy when the printer ink came off on our hands.
One other recycling that my dad practiced was the recycling of comic books. Comic books were the Nintendo of the 1940s and the 1950s. It didn’t matter if it was Superman, Katy Keene, Little Lulu, or my favorites—the love comics, the price for a new, uncirculated comic book was ten cents. Most of us could not afford to spend that much on a comic book. My dad would buy comics that were in good condition at two for a nickel, and then he would sell them at a nickel a piece. Great recycling and a great profit!
But the best recycling that I now realize was recycling was the use of used motor oil. There used to be a Texaco filling station next to our fruit stand in the early years (the early 1940s). They kept the used motor oil in a big drum and Daddy would either purchase or get the oil for free to mop the floor of our store. The first few days after the oil was applied, it was really messy. If the wooden floor did not soak up the oil after so many days, I remember that sawdust was used to soak up the excess. I never saw any other stores ever having oil-stained floors, and I never bothered to ask why he did the floors that way. But my brother has told me that he did, and that the reply was “so the bugs don’t get into the wood.” That makes sense now, since the weather of the Texas coastal bend area is friendly to termites, roaches, and other such.
Even after Dad no longer had the store, I remember he would save soda cans for my nephew to take to the recycling places.
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My pretty Mom and my Daddy are on the left. My Tío is on the right. Notice the stalks of bananas way in the back, the heater in foreground by Mom, and the oil-stained floor. This photo was probably taken in the late 1940s.
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My uncle was the driver of the truck. The building is the cold storage. It was elevated so that unloading could be done at the same level as the backside of the truck. During the summer months Dad and/or my uncle would send young boys into the barrio selling ice cream for a nickel a piece.
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Dad liked to wear white shirts and his white apron when he was at the store. My kid brother enjoyed playing on the watermelons. Mom enjoyed soda pop—even if it ruined her teeth. This photo was taken in the mid to late 1950s.
