Scampstress: "Raise your hand if you remember The Potpourri or Reed Runners, Wills, The Sweet Shop, and if you remember when Fleet-Plummer was a real hardware store in Friendly Center."

I had to put my hand down to type, but I do remember.

As I once wrote in the newspaper, I remember things about this town that were gone before I was born:

My internal map of Greensboro has overlays of the town as sketched by my father and his parents, inherited memories of things I never saw. It is a ghost city where street cars run on tracks through a busy downtown, the swells live in big houses on Summit Avenue, and Hamilton Lakes and the mill villages lie outside the city limits. It seems real to me...

Comments

[Fred Gregory]

Even this old coot can still remember the sign in Fleet-Plummer: " If we don't have it, you don't need it " or something like that.

[Cara Michele]

"Raise your hand if you remember The Potpourri or Reed Runners, Wills, The Sweet Shop, and if you remember when Fleet-Plummer was a real hardware store in Friendly Center. Don't forget Swensen's, Prego-Guys, Laurie's, Thalheimer's, and Eckerd on the corner. "

Yes, hand raised to all that. My siblings and I all had our first jobs at Friendly, as did my own son. Ah, memories. Lovely way to start the morning. Thanks for the link, Ed. :)

[Kim]

I remember The Sweet Shop, however it was on Park Row in Clinton, New York, so somehow I think it's not the same one you're talking about. ;-) It was a great place, though - run by a guy named Stan. Had a waitress named Joyce who made incredible chocolate milkshakes. I bet the one here was great, too...you just can't have a place called The Sweet Shop and not have it be wonderful.

[Danny Wright]

That Eckerd's on the corner at Friendly was around as recently as 1995 -- but it seems like a lot longer ago than that.

[Mad Dog]

I remember when you couldn't buy beer on Sunday in Winston-Salem, so we drove over to Greensboro where you could after 1:00pm. Sunday afternoon at Ham's on Friendly was really crowded, especially the parking lot. That's when they had curb service and the big round Coca Cola signs on the side of the building. We would also cruise the Boar & Castle and maybe stop for a Castleburger or a Buttered Steak Sandwich.

If you want to go back further, I can tell you about Fred Koury's Plantation Supper Club on High Point Road.

I gotta stop now. I'm sounding like my father.

Mad Dog

[Billy The Blogging Poet]

I vaguely remember dirt track races on the ground where the Colliseum (Can't spell that right on my best days) Anyway, dirt track races off Lee and Chatman, a Shell Station in the middle of Lee Street and shopping for seconds in the basement of the Blue Bell store where Ed's office is today.

Oh, and I think I remember trolleys but... well you know.