When I was eleven years old, I would ride my bicycle across town to Vic Rains. Vic ran a grocery store and meat market, and had probally the largest magazine and comic book selection in southwestern Oklahoma. Huge wooden shelves lined the northeast corner of his store, at least 6 of them, all fully stocked with every type of periodical you could want. Think of the magazine selection at a Hastings or Barnes & Noble TODAY....... and that's what we had back in 1969, at Vic Rains Food Market. Old concrete floors, the aroma of homemade BBQ and chili simmering every time you walked in the store.
And between the sports magazines and the detective fiction magazines, near the very corner of the store, were 3 comic spinner racks. 3 of them. Stuffed full of comics.
My friend Ricky and I would pedal our bikes there every Tuesday and Thursday. Vic always had the new books on the racks by noon... and if he didn't, we would ask if we could "help" put them out for him. He always smiled that smile, and let us.
In 1969, you could buy 8 comics for one dollar. Actually, after sales tax, you would have 2 cents in change to buy that really good grape bubble gum that came in the clear cellophane wrappers. There is no entertainment on earth that could possibly be as value-filled, as those trips I made to Vic's.
Once I got my drivers licence, the bicycle was retired, but the Tuesday and Thursday trips remained a constant. Vic, now in semi-retirement, had his son Rusty running the store. Rusty removed one of the spinner racks, and took out two of the old wooden magazine shelving units. Times were changing....... kids weren't buying as many comics as they used to. I offered to buy the unused spinner rack off of Vic, and he just smiled that same old smile and insisted I take it home with me at no charge. He told me it would just end up in a junkyard otherwise.... and besides, I had always been one of his best customers, and it just seemed like the right thing to do, he said.
Vic and his son closed their store down in the mid-1980's. By that time, he was down to only one spinner rack.... and virtually no magazines at all. A couple of video games sat where my friend Ricky and I used to sit, crouched down, counting our change, chewing that grape bubble gum and organizing our four-color treasures. I was a customer of Vic's until the day he closed up shop.
Vic passed away about 5 years ago. A widower for quite awhile, he would come into my restaurant that I manage, to eat regularly, until his health got bad. He always asked for me by name, and loved telling my crew that I was his most loyal customer. I still have the spinner rack that dear old man gave to me, it sits here in my office, filled with comics from my youth. I give it a spin occasionally and close my eyes. I can smell the homemade BBQ.... and can feel the concrete floor beneath my feet. Thats the beauty of this hobby, comic collecting. It's an escapist literature in many regards. Vic Rains always helped me to escape.
And I miss him.
From the Escape Archives... Originally Posted on 5/31/04
3 comments:
My place was Herb & Charlie's in Ramsey, New Jersey. It was an old-fashioned sweet shop, with a soda fountain, a battered old pinball machine, and tons of magazines and newspapers. They had a long bookcase that was crammed with comics. Apparently they never sent back books that hadn't sold, so sometimes you could get 5-6 issues in a row of a title. I also remember they were pretty good about letting you read a book or two, so you could keep up with titles that you couldn't afford on your comics' budget. They also let me buy Savage Tales #1 when I was about 15 despite the "Mature Readers" warning on the cover.
Sounds like your place was a kid's haven.... It got me to thinking, tho. All of the mom & pop shops have closed down here in small town America. Replaced by 7-11's, Circle-K's and the like, who have pulled comics from their shelves the past few years. Fewer comics being purchased, fewer outlets..... its a vicious circle. I'm not usually someone who yearns for the Good Ol' Days... but it is indeed a shame that kids today aren't even given the option of experiencing what we experienced as children.
It was good times, indeed.
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