Saratoga News

An advertisement for the firm Corpstein & Metzger appeared in the "Saratoga Star" in March 1922. Metzger's was one of four food stores in downtown Saratoga at the time the author worked there as a delivery boy in 1941.

Saratoga Stereopticon

Willys Peck

Insignificant details stand out in bas-relief

It must be a concomitant of old age, this memory lapse concerning recent events while long-past, insignificant details stand out in throbbing bas-relief. I may already have mentioned in a previous column (memory lapse) how I find myself referring to a pocket engagement calendar to recall what I was doing a day or so previously, at the same time being able to summon up instantly the seven-digit serial number on my World War II rifle.

Or, I could go into the Studio Kicks martial arts center on Big Basin Way and point out the exact spot where the Richardson & Robbins boned chicken used to be shelved, at a somewhat overpriced 55 cents a can, when the place was occupied by Metzger's, the predecessor of what is today's Buy & Save Market. Are we talking trivia here or what?

However, there was nothing trivial about Metzger's, one of four food stores in downtown Saratoga at the time I worked there in 1941, as a high school senior and a recent graduate. Free delivery was the standard back then, and that was one of my main duties. The truck was a 1936 Dodge pickup, which, if not actually run nearly to death by earlier drivers, was certainly very well broken in.

It was the custom for people to phone in their orders in the morning, and deliveries would be made shortly before noon.

There was no formality to it; back doors were always unlocked, and we delivery boys would just walk in and deposit the groceries in the kitchen. Tipping was unheard of.

Only once was I challenged over my tactless entry without knocking. I dismissed the reprimand as coming from a crass newcomer who didn't know any better, but I didn't tell him that. One episode I couldn't dismiss, though, was when I accidentally kicked over an open can of paint on the back porch of a house on Oak Street. It's a day that lives in infamy.

Awkward episodes aside, there was a certain recreational aspect to delivering groceries. The morning run often would cover several miles, what with widely spaced ranch houses, and there were some straight stretches that invited a test of the old truck's speed capability. One of these was Shumer Road, now known as Reid Lane, which was bordered by orchards. Another was Douglass Lane, which had only two or three houses fronting on it at the lower end. The Douglass Lane exploits ended when a woman who lived in one of those houses stormed into the store and vowed loudly to shoot anyone who hit her dog. Thereafter, my fellow employee and I were models of decorum. On Douglass Lane.

The store's proprietor was Artus Metzger, a former schoolteacher who came to Saratoga in 1907 and went into the mercantile business with one Joe Corpstein.

After the latter's death, Corpstein & Metzger, which had been pretty much a general merchandise store, became simply A. Metzger, Groceries, Meats, Hardware, Paints.

There were remnants of that earlier general stock stored in the back room during my time there; I even was able to buy a pair of shoes at Metzger's (eat your heart out, Longs Drug Stores).

Deliveries took only a small part of the 10-hour day; I would also fill in as a clerk, stock shelves, pick up merchandise in San Jose and help the butcher, George McCloskey. My most exotic task had to be the building of a small bonfire outside to singe the pinfeathers off chickens, a process that took real talent.

About that rifle number. It was an M-1, known as a Garand, serial number 1744853.

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