Unsolved Mystery--Flashy Trash

When I was about ten years old, I discovered an antique and collectibles store a couple blocks from where my maternal grandmother lived, called Flashy Trash, located at 3336 Hennepin Avenue in South Minneapolis. It was up the block from Von's Superette, where I frequently walked when at Grandma's (and yes, nobody raised an eyebrow over a young kid going to the store by himself in those days). The owner was a 30-ish guy named Harold Norquist, who went by the name John. He had lots of neat vintage advertising stuff in his store and he was super nice to me. 

Collectibles I got from John's Flashy Trash store in Minneapolis.

His prices were very reasonable. He sold me a Planters Peanuts retail display box dated 1937--considered a rarity now--for $1.50 on July 27, 1977 (I still have his handwritten receipt inside the box.) He also sold me for just a buck or two a 1920s H and H soap package, an old pump sprayer with the brand name Spa (probably from the 1940s), and some Standard Oil and Union 76 road maps from the late '30s. One thing he had that I really wanted to get but it was a bit too pricey for me was a 1940s 7-Up diecut cardboard display sign. I loved 7-Up memorabilia, but he had a whole TEN DOLLARS on that one (it would probably go for at least $150 now). 

I made several visits over the next year or so when I was staying at Grandma's, and he knew my name and was always welcoming. I think he thought I was pretty cool to be such a young kid who was genuinely interested in vintage advertising.

Another anecdote: one time in the summer of '78 I came into his store eating Pop Rocks, a candy that was popular at the time that fizzed and popped in your mouth when you ate it. He was curious about it, so I gave him some, and he liked it so much he gave me some change to run over to Von's to get him a packet (plus a little extra for me to get another packet as well).

Then in the early hours of September 4, 1978 he was found stabbed to death by someone he picked up after a party at the Northern Sun bar, who attempted to rob him of a jar full of change he had in his apartment, according to accounts in the Minneapolis Tribune. The case, apparently, was never solved. He was openly gay (something I wasn't really aware of, or cared about, when I knew him) and with the adversarial relationship the gay community had with police in those days, there was very little cooperation from those who might have known something. In looking him up in the Star Tribune archives, I was surprised to find a picture of him included in an article from Nov. 26, 1978.

Sears Folklore from 1915

Sears, Roebuck & Company was founded in Chicago as a mail-order retailer in 1892, offering merchandise at reasonable prices to a mostly rural nation. In the beginning they sold watches and jewelry but soon they were offering through their catalogs sent out across the United States almost everything one could possibly want, including groceries, at a time when much of the population was far from the nearest town let alone big city, and transportation was still mostly by horse. 

The Sears, Roebuck catalog was a big part of American life going into the 20th Century and beyond, and became a big part of the American folklore. The early editions have been reprinted as books, with their whimsical descriptions of the merchandise offered and other interesting tidbits that were included in the pages of the old catalogs.

Here's a quaint short story found in the 1915 Sears, Roebuck grocery catalog, in the coffee section. It conjures up a time when one traveling between towns in rural America on a snowy winter day might actually be able to stop at a farmhouse somewhere along the way and be offered a cup of coffee by the farmer's wife, both having no worries about something going terribly wrong. 

How a Good Cup of Coffee Won Us a Customer

     A SALESMAN who was traveling through the country between two small towns stopped at a farmhouse and asked the good housewife to make him a cup of coffee. A few moments later he was entering the house where the pleasant cheer of the warm and comfortable dining room was indeed a delightful contrast to the cold, blustering snowstorm of that December day. To the salesman the room was made even more inviting by the pervading aroma of coffee, a beverage which he loved. A look of delight and surprise played over his face as he drank the steaming hot coffee, between raids on a large sugary cinnamon roll, and accepted the housewife's invitation for another cup.

   

 "Pardon me, madam, but that's the finest cup of coffee I've tasted since I came West. It has that particular coffee flavor I like. Would you tell me, please, what brand of coffee you use? Or maybe it's the way you make it," he added.

     "Oh, it must be the coffee," the woman responded, "for I don't go to any 'extras' in making it, except that I'm particular about not letting it boil, and I never use over old grounds. It's the kind of coffee, I'm sure, that makes you like it so much. This is Montclair Brand, which we get from Sears, Roebuck and Co., of Chicago, where we order all our groceries. Just write a card, asking them for their Grocery Catalog, and they'll send it very promptly."

     "Oh, that's fine," the salesman replied; "then I, too, can get it very easily. But tell me, will your second order have the same flavor as your first? So many brands of coffee on the market do not remain uniform from month to month or year to year. That's been my greatest trouble after I found a coffee I liked."

     "Oh, yes, indeed, a brand of coffee remains uniform when you get it of Sears, Roebuck and Co.," the housewife said quickly. "They make pretty strong claims on that point, and we've been able to prove them out. We've used Montclair Brand for about a year now, and have never noticed any change all the while."

     "Well, you've won a customer for that firm, and I shall count this a good day's work. Thank you so much," the salesman finished.