Walking Through a 1958 Woolworth — Counter by Counter

Walking Through a 1958 Woolworth — Counter by Counter Saturday, the 4th of October, 1958. Twenty past nine in the morning, on the main street of an American town, with the awnings already cranked out over the windows and a man in an apron sweeping the sidewalk in front of the doors. The gold letters on the red front say five and ten cent store, and they have said that on this street since before the First World War. Down at the far end of the store, past every counter in the building, there is a row of stools bolted to the floor in front of a long counter. One of them, the last one, has been spun by somebody walking past and is still turning slowly, and nobody is sitting on it. This was the store everybody in town came into at least once a week. One floor, wooden boards underfoot, twenty-odd counters with a woman behind each one, and a lunch counter along the back wall. We are going to walk through it in the order you would actually have walked through it, starting at the sidewalk and finishing at that last stool. We are not skipping a counter.