Historian’s Corner

By Dan Shine

Voice Columnist

Fater’s Drug Store

Our thanks to Valerie Forte Vitali, who submitted these memories; Fater’s was located on Orange Avenue in Allingtown:

Fater’s smelled of vanilla, strawberry, and tobacco. I remember hearing the click, click, click, and one last click, the sound of the long spoon tapping, stirring inside a tall glass, and then the whoosh and fizz of effervescence from the soda fountain spigot.

Fater’s Drug Store was filled with smells and sounds and delicious treats for sale, and every day after school I was among the crowd of elementary school kids who rushed from 3:00pm dismissal down the sidewalk towards Fater’s soda fountain and penny candy counter.

Fater’s Drug Store

Patent Medicines

The plain façade and sign over the door faced Route One, Orange Avenue or The Old Post Road.  A customer might have noticed in the storefront windows, if they had ever stopped to look, remedies and magazines, merchandise that was crisped brown by the sun, the packaging faded to invisible despite the awning and tinted glass meant to compensate for the harsh exposure.  None of that merchandise was important to us.

As we left Forest School, our straight lines and composure gave way to a mob scene, as we gained momentum hurrying down the gradual decline of the hill, passing the library, the barber shop, Park Liquor, and Gabe’s Shoe store (where Murph, the assistant, stood at the workbench amidst the smell of leather and shoe polish, tap, tap, tapping a new heel on to a worn shoe).  We crowded past the A & P grocery which emitted the fragrance of freshly ground coffee and the slightly rancid smell of beef blood mixed with sawdust (grinds and sawdust trailing out onto the sidewalk), the French Bakery’s window display of cakes and pastries on paper doilies, Liggett’s Pharmacy, and Zonder’s Dry Goods store, where, on the day before Mother’s Day or my mother’s birthday, I lingered with indecision while shopping for a candy dish, an oven mitt or a vase.   Not a glance was wasted on the tailors, or the empty stools at the bar of the Allingtown Restaurant (which I never once entered) but I knew that those bar stools would soon be occupied by men returning home from work.  To be precise, they were not returning home just yet, if their routine for the end of the workday included a late afternoon hour or two at the bar.  None of that mattered to us, and we only paused when the crossing guard threw his arm out to stop us as traffic turned at the corner of the intersection.  Then we stopped, waited, then crossed the street and arrived at FATER’S.

As we entered, the first students to arrive would already be spinning on stools at the soda fountain. The rest of us would head to the back of the store, passing by perennial customers Paul and/or Joe, who would stand propped against the ice cream case.  They stood beside the wooden phone booth, with the newspaper open in front of them.

We might initially ignore the soda fountain, the tapping, scooping, clicking, stirring, and whooshing.   We’d pass by Mr. Fater (a small kindly man, hardly visible behind the counter) who was pleasantly asking his current customers, “Hello Gurls, sowhatsitgonnabe, today?’.  We’d swarm by the pre-occupied men, the cases of patent meds, and the two booths that the high school kids claimed as a right, and disregard (for the moment) the racks of bagged potato chips and Hostess cupcakes. 

Our adolescent appetite for sweets drove us towards a table at the back of the store that was covered with open boxes of penny candy, and beside that was a large wooden rack that displayed open boxes of 5 cent candy bars.  The choices were almost too good to be true.  Depending on how much allowance you had acquired, and saved, you could have penny candy, a candy bar, perhaps a bag of chips, and then sit at the counter for an ice cream soda or cone, a Pink Lady soda or a Vanilla Coke.   If it was your lucky day and you possessed a quarter, the combination of choices was nearly endless.

Once the early crowd had been served, older kids who were dismissed from school earlier or walked faster, then the more timid among us could climb up onto a vacant stool and order from Mr. Fater at the soda fountain.  Mr. Fater looked impeccable in his white coat, and was respectful to every customer.  We were the second generation of children who he treated like the children/grandchildren he and his wife never had.  To sit at the counter and watch Meyer Fater prepare, with precision and attention, the refreshment of your choice, was a special treat beyond the treat one was about to consume. 

Meyer Fater’s motions behind the counter were like choreography.  He’d place a soda glass on a perforated metal platform which was behind and a little lower than the counter.  With a small ladle he’d scoop thick syrup, pouring it up to the syrup line on the glass.  Before the ladle was set back into its container, he’d add a splash of milk from a carton which sat at arm’s length from him and then give the beverage a quick stir with a long-handled spoon that issued that sound I have never forgotten – the clicking as the spoon spun inside the glass– blending it together.  Next, nearly simultaneously, he’d reach up to the soda water spigot that was located high over his head, fill the remaining space in the glass with a gush of effervescence, and in one smooth motion he would let go of the spigot handle, give one last stir to the contents of the glass and slide the soda and a straw across the counter.  

Click, Click, click, and one last click, stirring, then a whoosh of fizz and froth. 

He placed your order in front of you, and he actually smiled. 

The least pleasant moments at Faters, during the early years of my visits, involved Mrs. Fater, who stood in her white uniform/dress and hair net at the penny candy counter, unsmiling, on her watch for candy bandits.  An inexplicable contrast to their attention to cleanliness and neatness was the presence of Mrs. Fater’s cat, who occasionally slept ON the penny candy!   Because of the threat of THE CAT, I had explicit instructions from my parents concerning the purchase of penny candy, an expenditure that my parents generally discouraged:  

~~ Only purchase penny candy that is wrapped (which excluded many of my favorites like wax lips, tiny wax bottles that contained fruit colored liquid, red hot dollars, individual red or black licorice sticks, orange circus peanuts, candy dots on strips of paper and sugary spearmint leaves). 

~~ Never purchase penny candy AT ALL if the cat is currently sleeping on it. 

I ignored those parental rules nearly every day.  Melt-in-your-mouth sweetness was just too much to pass up, fuzzy cat lint or not.  Nothing was more fun or delicious than unwrapped giant red wax lips; fun to wear wedged between one’s teeth in a freakish clown smile, delicious to chew, and finally, fun to spit onto the sidewalk, on the way home.  I believe that some of those blackened wax blobs might still be on the sidewalk there.

Mrs. Fater eventually disappeared–stayed home or died, I don’t know.  The cat left with her.

Meyer Fater remained patient and pleasant, his stern face brightened as he slid your made-to-order concoction, a chocolate soda, or a Pink Lady, frothy and colorful, toward you across the marble counter, and you slide a nickel towards him.  Now that I am older, probably older than Mr. Fater was back then, I imagine that he enjoyed it when a second-generation customer sat at the counter.  He knew our stories, and there was no question in my mind that I should offer him the same respect that my parents had, there was no reason not to. 

Mr. Fater ignored the bookies or booked with them. I don’t know.  Friends from back then tell me that he sold Playboy and other items from behind the counter, and cigarettes and chewing tobacco were in full view and available to all ages then.  Some contemporaries brag about the candy they stole, and a dog trained to silently enter through the back door to steal Twinkies. They like to think Mr. Fater didn’t know. 

Mr. Fater remained kind and respectful to a bunch of kids who filled his store with chaos daily, and he seemed not to mind.  He seemed to enjoy it.