Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories. With Marysville and Union County celebrating Bicentennial anniversaries in 2019 and 2020, respectively, these articles help depict what life was like in those early years.
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In the late 1920s and early 1930s, there was a man named Tom Randall, who worked at the O. M. Scott and Brother Hardware Store on South Main Street. He worked there for years.
Tom was a hard worker, and he always kept busy. For example, he also served as Marysville’s Street Commissioner. At the same time, he was the sexton at the Presbyterian Church. There was never any moss growing on Tom Randall.
On top of all that, he sometimes operated a peanut vendors cart on the south side of West 5th Street, maybe 50 feet or so west of Main Street. My sisters took me to see that cart once, but I was so young I have no memories of it. However, I do remember sitting around our dinner table as my sisters laughed about the antics of a monkey Tom often had tied to his cart. When someone bought a bag of peanuts, the monkey would beg for a nut, and that made all the kids laugh.
Although I never met Tom Randall, a few years later, in 1941, I met one of his sons, Floyd. Like his dad, Floyd was a hard worker. He operated a bakery on South Court Street adjacent to the alley between Seventh and Eighth streets. It is a vacant lot today. In the summer of that year, when I was nine years old, we moved from our house on West 5th Street, to 333 South Court. It was right next door to Randall’s Bakery (which later became the Court Street Grocery). In fact, those two buildings were only about two or three feet apart.
The day of our move, my sister and I carried boxes up and down the stairs, so I was really tired. I went to bed early, and I slept like a log. I will never forget waking up the next morning. It was as if I had died and gone to heaven.
You see, my upstairs bedroom window was only about 15 or 20 feet from the bakery’s kitchen screen door. I don’t know what they were baking, but a heavenly aroma wafted its way into my bedroom. And it was like that every morning, Monday through Saturday, for the next three years.
It made no difference what they were baking – pies, cakes, sweet rolls or bread. I just don’t know how I can describe that wonderful smell. I thought I was the luckiest kid in town to live so close to those bakery ovens.
But like all things in life, living so close to a bakery wasn’t all fun and games. You see, bakers start their day really early, sometime around 4 a.m. That gives them time to get all the mixing and preparations done before they heat the ovens.
A couple of Floyd’s bakers liked to sing. So every now and then, around 5 a.m., those guys would start singing. I’m not talking about the kind of muffled singing you might do in the shower. I’m talking about singing you might do if you were part of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They really belted it out.
I think the top song in the country that summer was something called “Chattanooga Choo Choo.” It was made popular by the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and I always liked their version. But I wouldn’t even want to hear Glenn Miller’s band perform it at 5 a.m. So I certainly didn’t enjoy hearing those guys in their white baker’s caps singing it.
Three years or so later, we moved again, and I had mixed emotions about that. I was glad I didn’t have to deal with those singing bakers anymore. But I sure did miss that heavenly smell every morning. It was a wonderful way to wake up.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at bill@davidwboyd.com