Being a college arts major in the 1970s
required creative survival strategies.
This was true in every arts field--visual, music, theater,
whatever. As a rule of thumb, few who studied
art had rich parents. Most, particularly
at a state university, were surviving on student aid, loans, money saved from
summer and part time jobs, some subtle forms of grift, and, in my case, my GI
Bill. (In the 1970s, the Bill allotment
paid a whopping $175 a month--during the school year only.) But I could live on it, paying $80 a month in
rent, and was going to a state school that charged $150 a semester full time
tuition.
We all lived in cheap old housing, almost
slums, with lots of roommates; our clothing consisted of blue jeans, t shirts,
sweatshirts, and winter coats from Goodwill--males and females. And, of course, we had multiple strategies
for eating on the cheap. No one was
better at this than Big R.
Don’t get me wrong. We were pretty much happy as could be, doing art we loved with people we loved--and the group produced some VERY successful people, including two academy award winners, a couple of Golden Globe winners, and successful people in a variety of arts-related jobs and industries. As they say, “Do what you love. The success will follow.”
But we were poor. There certainly weren’t any Frat boys or Sorority girls hobnobbing with the “hippie artsy fartsy bunch.”
Back to the food strategies, and the stomach tactics of Big R. Some of the group had found ways to qualify for Government Commodities--a forerunner of Food Stamps, and picked up weekly boxes of pasta, cheese blocks, and peanut butter from a county loading dock down on Commercial Street, and we all share communally. And, of course, student frugality also meant knowing where to get the cheapest beer and Strawberry Hill wine. Our supermarket safaris consisted of searches for cheap, bulk, on sale food, or near food, like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese at five boxes for a dollar. Spam on sale, (and even some of the “house brand” Spam knock offs). We ALL gathered at a local greasy spoon named “Casper’s” on every Friday. The café was housed in a surplus WWII metal building. Casper’s great claim to fame was their grilled ham sandwich on a bun. They sold more than you’d imagine. Every Friday, they would take all of the leftover ham bones from that week and make them up with Navy Beans to offer as an “all you can eat” with corn bread for 99 cents. Since Casper’s was owned by a local artist, Chuck Lederer, it was the default Friday dining destination—the finest in Quonset Hut Cuisine.
Don’t get me wrong. We were pretty much happy as could be, doing art we loved with people we loved--and the group produced some VERY successful people, including two academy award winners, a couple of Golden Globe winners, and successful people in a variety of arts-related jobs and industries. As they say, “Do what you love. The success will follow.”
But we were poor. There certainly weren’t any Frat boys or Sorority girls hobnobbing with the “hippie artsy fartsy bunch.”
Back to the food strategies, and the stomach tactics of Big R. Some of the group had found ways to qualify for Government Commodities--a forerunner of Food Stamps, and picked up weekly boxes of pasta, cheese blocks, and peanut butter from a county loading dock down on Commercial Street, and we all share communally. And, of course, student frugality also meant knowing where to get the cheapest beer and Strawberry Hill wine. Our supermarket safaris consisted of searches for cheap, bulk, on sale food, or near food, like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese at five boxes for a dollar. Spam on sale, (and even some of the “house brand” Spam knock offs). We ALL gathered at a local greasy spoon named “Casper’s” on every Friday. The café was housed in a surplus WWII metal building. Casper’s great claim to fame was their grilled ham sandwich on a bun. They sold more than you’d imagine. Every Friday, they would take all of the leftover ham bones from that week and make them up with Navy Beans to offer as an “all you can eat” with corn bread for 99 cents. Since Casper’s was owned by a local artist, Chuck Lederer, it was the default Friday dining destination—the finest in Quonset Hut Cuisine.
A couple of other strategies Big R followed, and
some of the rest joined in with, was the Tuesday 15 Cent Coney Day at the
A&W drive in--and a carhop brought them out to you. R would eat several sitting in his car on the
parking lot, then get a bag to go, and eat them cold from his refrigerator for
several days. AND there was the Wednesday Pizza Buffet at the Pizza Hut. (No
CiCi’s in those antediluvian days.) It
ran from 11:00 til 3:00, and The R would take full advantage. He’d arrive at about 30 seconds past eleven,
and feast until three. Getting up and
walking around occasionally to “take a smoke and shake it down.” If he was on his game, he’d need no dinner
that night, nor breakfast or lunch on Thursday. He could get that full. As luck would have it, these two
establishments were right across the street from each other on Sunshine just
West of Campbell. Maybe two miles from
the campus.
The previously noted supermarket strategies
were mostly practiced at an older neighborhood Safeway. This was a small store by supermarket
standards--especially today’s standards.
It was a 50s throwback to the beginnings of the transition from corner
grocery stores to supermarkets. Some of
the group would arrive for an evening shopping excursion in a chemically
altered state--usually involving having been in proximity to small quantities
of Mexican weeds burning in Zig Zag papers.
On those trips, in addition to the bulk sale items, the checkout clerk
was likely to see bags of Fritos, Doritos, Potato Chips, boxes of Screaming
Yellow Zonkers, cans of Vienna Weiners, and even, occasionally, fried pork
rinds and Tabasco—one must temper one’s frugality with attention to existential
needs.
It was such an early evening trip that I write about. Three or 4 of us went in, and scattered throughout the store. Big R marching to a REALLY cosmic drummer. In those days, in that type of store, all frozen foods were sold from “coffin freezers”. Open top freezers running down the middle of the store. Specials and such were announced by hand-lettered poster board signs. Any one of an age will remember the signage style of inch wide red, blue, and black markers on the white board.
It was such an early evening trip that I write about. Three or 4 of us went in, and scattered throughout the store. Big R marching to a REALLY cosmic drummer. In those days, in that type of store, all frozen foods were sold from “coffin freezers”. Open top freezers running down the middle of the store. Specials and such were announced by hand-lettered poster board signs. Any one of an age will remember the signage style of inch wide red, blue, and black markers on the white board.
