Alpha Beta Bakery

On our loop, my great grandmother would sometimes stop to say hi to family friend Chuck Otool the manager at the Alpa Beta market. Chuck was a friendly mid entry guy, with a neat haircut and a large pair of aviator Stu frames for his persecution. Chuck was one of those characters you don’t see anymore. He always gave me a ginger bread man cookie before we would go a round a shop. When I was a few years older I remember waiting for a cookie and when he asked how I was doing I said “good, but can I have a cookie” and he look at me and said… “sure, but your getting kind of old for cookies” hard truths. My cousin Lynn worked at the bakery and she was always sweet to hook us up. When I was eleven, big bear market had closed so the closes market was Alpha beta which was now called Lucky’s Market. An ironic change of name given the rest of this story. My great grandmother and I were making plans for dinner and we saw a commercial for staffers manacatte and that was that, we were in the car and on our way to lucky’s. Unfortunately it was a busy Friday night and for whatever reason the had stacked the carts so we could’ve walk on the walkway. So we tried to step around the columns and my great grandmother tripped and fell breaker her hip. I went inside to find Chuck but he was already out for the day. My grandmother was 92 and was really stubborn, she insisted she was fine and she convinced me to help her back in the car so we could go home. She was unable ti drive, so it fell into me to drive us home. Luckily she had taught me to dive in dirt lots and empty deadens streets. I planned my navigation to minimize the amount of distance I would be on actual road. We turned onto a side road and made a yielded right turn onto vista way traveling about 1/25 mile to the paper bark place entrance. Turning left on the green light. I maneuvered the vehicle past the Chevy dealer, past the closed market, dominos, video world and the dry cleaners, crowing one more street before entering the parking lot of her apartment complex. She has kept a basket from the big bear maker she used to collect newspapers for my cousin.