PhilaPlace

The Cigar Shop

18th and Hoffman streets

I remember when . . .

I often ran out to buy Pop a plug of George Washington’s chewing tobacco at a store on the corner of 18th and Hoffman streets . . . a very dirty store with a smell of its own . . . the proprietor, an elderly man with peculiar store glasses and a fuzzy gray mustache and I believe one leg, God bless him, waited on me the majority of the times. It seems he was always battling with his poor old wife . . . often, I shivered at the thought of him throwing my Pop’s plug of tobacco at her. . . . He would wave it at her while shouting during the heat of an argument; well he never did throw it at her, at least not in my presence. He had a daughter who floated around the store – a queen. . . . Who wouldn’t dare handle a dirty plug of tobacco . . . I sometimes wonder what ever became of her . . . well anyway this little errand put a penny in my pocket and I always more or less looked forward and felt mighty proud to run to the store for pop. As long as I had that penny I only had the use of one arm . . . my other arm had its hand in my pocket holding on to the penny . . . I was holding it for a rainy day, I’ll be darn if it didn’t always look like the following day, always. . . .