Stuff; Occasional
Thought About Stuff that Goes On
By
Editors
South Central LA 1969
Jerome
1969: July through December:
I was working for a market research firm, based in the San Fernando
Valley. One project I had was to visit all the liquor stores on
certain streets in certain locals throughout the metropolitan
area. There I would look at the labels on beer bottles for a few
given brands of beer. The labels had cuts or marks that indicated
the dates of the bottles. I would record the locations of the
marks onto a master template. The purpose of this, I supposed,
was to trace the distributions and sales patterns of the beer. I
spent some days or weeks, I do not remember which, on the broad streets
which run east to west from the University of Southern
California/Harbor Freeway area. I remember Exposition Boulevard,
and there were a few others beside and in between; maybe I went as far
north as Pico Boulevard. At times I was in residential areas
where the only stores were liquor stores. The population would be
predominantly African-American. The persons behind the counters
in the liquor stores would be not. The store keepers all spoke
English with accents which seemed to me to be from central or eastern
Europe or from the Middle East. These liquor stores sold snack
foods of various kinds. It was not unusual to see children come
into the store to buy snacks; typically there would be several small
children with a girl on her younger teens. I do not remember
these children as anything other than quiet and well-behaved. As
the older one would pay for the snacks at the counter the proprietor
would say something to the effect of: “Give me the money.
Here. Now get out.” “Give me the money. Here. Now get
out.” “Give me the money. Here. Take it. Now get out.” This
would happen in store after store. “Give me the money. Here. Take
it. Now get out. Out.” Street after street.
