My grandmother is the family storyteller. “We didn’t have toys, so we played with tin cans and anything else that was laying around. There were these “Woolworth-five and dime” chains all over the city. Everything was either five or ten cents and as kids, we would just walk around the store thinking about all the things we could by for a dime or a nickel. There was even a song about these store, “I met a million-dollar baby in a five and ten cents store” by Bing Crosby.” As she mentions the song and immediately begins recollecting various verses and lyrics, I find a YouTube version and begin playing the old classic. At once, she begins singing along, remarking about just how easy it is to find anything on the web these days. The song is catchy and bares strong hints of the old-style music of the 30’s that I can nearly visualize streaming from a radio in the Willner apartment before bedtime in a room set aglow by street lamps.
