Memoirs of a Toledo Childhood: “Going rate”

"Memoirs of a Toledo Childhood" follows the recollections and reflections of Michael Murray, a Toledoan born in 1944 and raised in the South Side. These snippets of childhood from the previous generation, released as moments rather than a chronological timeline, remind us of what once was and the experiences and legacies that built our present. The excerpts are adapted from Murray's Memoir of a Toledoan and are released with permission of the author.

Acme Drugs building (formerly Southard’s Dry Goods, currently Bogart Bar) (Block Card 1402 South Avenue c. 1937, courtesy of the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, obtained from http:///images2.toledolibrary.org/.) [left]; Photograph courtesy of Google Maps [right]). Graphic by Bethany Morgan.

When I earned a quarter, I rode my bike to the Acme drugstore at South and Spencer streets and bought a vanilla milkshake to fill my stomach. When I was 12 years old, I had a weekly babysitting job on Saturday nights for Mrs. Yost’s son Gary. The going rate was twenty-five cents an hour, but she usually gave me fifty cents an hour. A dollar would buy four milkshakes.

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