Peanuts by Charles Schulz for August 22, 2017

you’re a hoot, Snoopy, when it comes to being various world-famous personae

Nostalgia! Should we talk about the prices or how long it’s been since anyone has seen a grocery clerk actually having to key all the items in?

What’s a grocery clerk?

Mr. Whipple was one.

How about Mr. Hooper?

This strip is dated 1970.

By then, 20 years after Peanuts began, (with Snoopy as almost a regular dog, on four paws) we thought grocery prices had already shot up outrageously.

In 1962 a loaf of bread was still a dime!

Now that same, store-brand, fluffy white stuff is about a dollar and a half,

and I just bought a decent loaf of whole wheat bread on sale for twice that….

which is almost as much as the whole imaginary order Snoopy just rang up in 1970.

But then, he’d have been making $3 an hour.

No wonder this particular fantasy of his didn’t last long.

I can’t think of one real life famous grocery clerk

There was a time when the grocery clerk would bag your groceries for you. And a time when there were contests to see which clerk could bag the fastest and the most bags in a certain amount of time. “Those were the days.”

Grocery clerks across the nation cut this strip out and put the first three panels on the fridge.

when he was in high school, David Letterman was a grocery store clerk

Somewhat before today’s UPC scanners, I surmise.

There should be more world-famous grocery clerks.

One wonders why.

Those prices are straight out of the 60s.

Here we call them “Shop Assistants” or “Retail Assistants”

Both a bit of a mouthful to say but Hey Ho.

xxx

I sold a number of those $0.19 per loaf bread, $0.09 per can for Campbell’s tomato soup. Worked for $0.50 per hour. I remember my dad telling me we would see a loaf of bread cost a $1 and I laughed. $1 sounds pretty good now!

I still remember the first time I went grocery shopping with my uncle, circa 1950. Being a small town, he knew everybody, and talked to several we met while strolling the aisles, putting things in the cart along the way. What I really remember is after the clerk totaled the bill on the cash register, my uncle corrected her (verified by reusing the cash register). He had kept a running total in his head while talking to others about all sorts of things. Smartest man I ever knew.

Ninety eight twice.. i bet Schultz cashiered in a grocery.