-ROBINSON TOWNSHIP HISTORICAL SOCIETY-
When Robinson native J. Thomas Uranker read our article about Bob’s Market in the Nov. 11 issue of Gazette 2.0, he wrote to us with this interesting account of what it was like to work at the Moon Run store as a teen.
“Bob Macek was a nice guy to work for. In the mid-1950s, from ages 14-17, I was his overall ‘what needs done’ boy. My schedule after school on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday
from 4 to 6:30 p.m. included stocking shelves, sprinkling dust-free absorbent on the front porch and sweeping it clean, and washing the store’s large front windows every Thursday, to make a good impression on shoppers who came on Friday and Saturday. On Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., in addition to my many regular chores, I helped customers get products from the upper shelves of stock-loaded products. Late in the afternoon, I took the trash box full of papers from the meat cutting section to the lower backyard burn barrel and carefully burned them. When I began to drive, I also delivered chicken feed to the large number of Moon Run customers who had backyard hen houses.”
Uranker’s career at Bob’s Market ended at age 17 when a car crash resulted in serious injuries, including a broken leg. He graduated from Robinson Township High School in the Class of 1956, and after three years on the Army Intelligence Corps, he embarked on a career at Dravo Corporation on Neville Island. His years working at Bob’s Market—at a time when the minimum wage in America had just gone from 75 cents to a whopping $1 per hour—had prepared him well for the working world.
Thank you, Thomas, for sharing this look back in time.