A pastoral holiday scene adorns the backwall of an IGA supermarket, circa 1968. It’s a tasteful depiction of a snow-flocked, apple-bearing cypress tree, standing proud while a lone reindeer looks askance from the side.Clearly, good taste wasn’t strictly confined to the holidays at this particular IGA - just look at the clean lines of the clock/light fixture/directory sign to the right. I’d love to hang one of these in my living room, minus the directory signs, of course. (Wouldn’t you?) Maybe one will turn up on eBay, and then all I’ll have to do is install $3000 worth of header steel in my ceiling!
In the foreground is the jams and jellies aisle, filled with brand names that still exist today, long before glass jars gave way to plastic. Of particular note are the “big three” peanut butter brands – check out the standard size jar prices, fitting every peanut butter budget – Peter Pan at 46 cents, Jif at 47 cents (and virtually the same label design as today) and Skippy at 48 cents. Gotta stock up for those peanut butter cookies! Then, of course, you had Smucker’s “Goober Grape” (69 cents) for affluent kids.
And in a stroke of IGA marketing genius, the iron-on patches are located right next to the peanut butter display, perfect for exasperated mothers (like mine) who constantly had to patch holes in our jeans. My brother might have been the world record holder - he would wear a hole in a new pair within 4.7 days on average, sledding season or not.
