My earliest memories were growing up in Pueblo, Co. My maternal grandparents owned a business. It was called The Record Music Store. We lived in a small two bedroom house, but it had a basement. My father worked at the store, as we called it, with my uncle. The store sold records, at that time it was lp’s and 45’s. There were booths where the customer could pick a record and go inside to listen to it in private. Grandpa took those out when he expanded the store and started selling band instruments and then color TVs.
I can remember when I was 4 watching my older brother leave for school and I was home with just Mom. She was always busy cleaning and cooking and sewing so I was on my own and bored stiff until Bruce got home.
We went to a Baptist church, and we were to be still and quiet when the preacher got up. My mother had the wickedest pinch if we squirmed too much or tried to talk. There was a man who sat behind us and was blind, he had a seeing eye dog that would lie down under our pew. Mom let Bruce and I draw on paper during the sermon and once I dropped my pencil and the dog chewed it up. I wasn’t happy.
On Sunday nights after church we would drive to the store to watch Bonanza. It was the first tv show broadcast in color. The store was the only place in Pueblo to buy color TVs and when Saturday morning cartoons became color Grandpa gave my aunt and uncle one and we got one. We let the neighborhood know we had it and on Saturday mornings our living room would have five or ten friends come watch them, until of course they bought one. Grandpa knew pleasing children was a good sales tactic.
The store faced a busy street and had an alley behind it. Another street went along the side which had parking. When we parked on that street, I can’t remember the names, Mom always called it “the junction,” as it was the busiest intersection in town. Anyway, when we parked and went in the back door from the alley, there was candy store named Sambo’s. Getting out of the car you could smell the cinnamon apples. Walking by the storefront you could see the caramel and cinnamon apples and popcorn. We always begged to get one, but it was rare they bought us one. The smell of cinnamon always brings that candy store to mind.
Dad got a job working for IBM selling typewriters and Dictaphone machines. I remember him coming home with one of the machines and we’d talk into it and how funny it was to hear our own voice which sounded weird. You could whistle into it and then blow on the mic and it sounded like a missile landing and exploding.
When I was five I was chasing a ball into the street, the car didn’t hit me I ran into it. I hopped back to the grass and fell down. Cracked my right leg and had to walk in a cast for six weeks. Took a few days not to limp as I was used to the right leg being longer with the rubber tip on the bottom.
Bruce and me in front of the Record Music Store circa 1959. We had a Nipper stuffed dog. What I remember most about Pueblo was that it was really cold in winter.
P. M. Prescott Enterprises 