Part of the Prange empire, detailed here.
Mom and I often took the bus there. She'd shop in the grocery and pay, and Prange's would deliver it later that day. Almost anything else we needed, or wanted, could be found on the floors of that store. And of course Dad always stopped in the bakery on Friday or Saturday to bring home the Sunday sour cream coffee cake.
The Christmas window displays drew in everyone starting the day after Thanksgiving.
Northeast of the store directly across the street from the parking lot was a Standard Oil gasoline station owned by family friend Norm Voigt, who did a brisk business at the pumps and in the service bay. He had a Coca Cola bottle machine cooler, into which you plunked a dime, opened the lid and slid out a shorty bottle, the cap of which you prised off with the opener on the side of it. You couldn't enjoy this without some salted peanuts from his little dispenser, either. A nickel a turn, if I remember right.
A little oyster of a world, and it was all ours.
