Arvin Cowboy
Life in Rural Arvin in the 50's
Real Name: David L. Norris Gender: male Member Since: June 17, 2007 Last Signed In: April 21, 2009 Profile Views: 410 Blog Views: 1518 Walking to the Library Mr. Barle and the Hearing Aid Trick-or-Treat The El Rancho Theater The Law of Supply and Demand The Contact Lense Locking your Doors Arvin's First Community Center The 500 yard Dash Accident Momma and the Pillsbury Poppin Biscuits July 07 August 07 September 07 October 07 November 07 December 07 January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 June 08 July 08 August 08 September 08 October 08 November 08 December 08 January 09 February 09 March 09 April 09 May 09 June 09 July 09 August 09 September 09 October 09 November 09 
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Momma and the Pillsbury Poppin Biscuits
If you have ever lived in a small town such as Arvin, California, you know the value of advanced planning. With a single hardware store so poorly stocked that you had as good a chance finding what you needed next door at the Sprouse Riese five and dime cent store. When the family went to Bakersfield, twenty miles away, everyone made the most of their trips. My mother would spend the best of a day contacting all of her friends before going and would develop elaborate list and plans with various things to pick up for each of her friends. Grocery shopping was equally a challenge because while Arvin had a Safeway Supermarket the prices of various food items were very high.
In Bakersfield where the grocery markets actually competed against each other they had coupon sales. But this meant taking your food home in cars before air conditioning, when the outside temperature often rose above 108o F. The only cooling was 4-60 (four-windows/ sixty miles per hour) this limited the time you could spend or the amount of perishable fruits, vegetables or meats you could purchase.
In 1954, Pillsbury introduced their new creation “Poppin Fresh Biscuits” which were canned in a spiral wound cardboard tube which you hit against the edge of the kitchen counter, it would pop open and voila, ten instant biscuits, ready for the oven. Not as good as momma’s biscuits made from scratch with yeast and Gold Medal Flour, mind you, but a pleasant change, regardless.
One day momma noticed a super sale coupon at the Green Frog Market which was located on the corner of Brundage Lane and South “H” Street in Bakersfield. “Pillsbury Poppin Fresh Biscuits – Regular – eight cents per can, ON SALE !!! Three cans for twenty five cents – Limit nine cans per person.” Now this was a big sale and it required a lot of planning and scheming. She called all of her friends, and begged for the coupons from all of our neighbor’s newspapers. They had six checkout stands at the market so she had to buy several extra newspapers so that she would have enough coupons.
Finally all of the orders were received and coupons procured. Mom and I drove to Bakersfield. She carefully explained her plan as we drove. By each of us going once to each of the checkers in a random pattern carrying our nine cans of biscuits, the busy checkers would not realize we had already gotten our limit of nine cans of biscuits each. We would then meet up out in the parking lot, lock the bags of cans in the car and she would give me the exact change for the next round so that they could not cheat me, and we would repeat the process again and again.
The checkers were probably wondering what a eight year old boy was doing buying all of those biscuits, but Oh well, this was the big city where stranger things, I am told, happen. We finally got our quota of biscuits and started home. Momma was so proud of how she had “beat-the-system” until she realized 3 x 8 cents = 24 cents. We had lost 3 cents each coupon we used over their regular price, not counting the newspapers she bought, the gas and our time. We had really made a killing. Not only that, she had cheated so she could not even go back and complain.
She was still shaking her head about how bad she had screwed up, when there came a Giant “Kapow”!! I said “Momma they are shooting at us!” I just knew that the grocery store clerks had figured out our deception and were following us with guns to get their biscuits back, or maybe they had called the police and they were chasing us. I had visions of a criminal career and rap sheet at the tender age of eight. “Pow, POP, Pop”; “They are shooting at us again!!!” Mom was swerving all over the road looking back, but there were no other cars close to us. Then we began smelling the unmistakable odor of biscuit dough.
The first cans of frozen biscuits we had taken to the car had completely thawed, expanded and were exploding. With each bump, jostle and every turn, one can would explode, setting off its neighboring cans. “POW!, Pop, Pop, Poof” Now the race was on. Mom had no time for stop signs or traffic. I think that was the fastest I had ever seen my mother drive. It was kinda like Mr. Toad’s Wild Adventure Ride at Disneyland. When we got home, we rushed the bags into the house.
Mom tried to pry the unexploded cans from the grasp of the congealed biscuit dough. She greased every cookie pan she had in the house and started the oven. “Alright Mom!! – Poppin fresh biscuits and it wasn’t even dinnertime.” I ate so many buttered biscuits that I thought I was going to explode and yet when dinnertime came there, in the center of the table, was another giant bowl of Poppin biscuits with momma encouraging everyone to “Eat up! – There is a lot of food here!”
The following morning, Yep! you guessed it, Biscuits and Gravy. Mom always said, “I hate to waste food more than anyone.” By noon we were all having constipation problems in the bathroom and the biscuits that were left were beginning to resemble flaky hockey pucks in the summer heat, but momma wasn’t about to give up. She would say there are people going hungry down in Mexico tonight, so eat up!”
I think I burst her bubble when I brought her a small box and suggested that we should send those people down in Mexico the rest of the biscuits. I am not sure what she did with the rest of the biscuits, but you know, I don’t ever remember eating another Poppin Fresh biscuit until I got married and moved away from home.
THE END
7 comments from 7 users
1
posted by
Rettchr
on Aug 14, 2007 at 01:06 AM
Your stories are always delightful reminders of growing up in the years before all the electronic gadgets kids have today. Please keep sharing them. Are you compiling a collection of your stories to pass on to your children and grandchildren?
posted by
Sloigo
on Aug 14, 2007 at 06:25 AM
I have promised myself that I am going to publish a book called, "Say Fuzzy Pickles!" which is what my Momma always said when she took your picture. It is now in the heavy planning stage. I have a collection of over 50 short stories that I have written along with a 13 chapter childrens book "Alfred and Joey goes Camping" that I also want to publish. It was originally written as a "To be Continued" story for a trailer Park newsletter but has been spit polished. I have thought of publishing it here one chapter at a time about 3 days to a week apart. I have started another book called "Fish Tales" about a young seaman that accidently gets stranded on a deserted Island but it got stalled at page 35. There is too much of "It" and too little of "Me"
posted by
NancyII
on Aug 14, 2007 at 07:26 AM
Slo..I'm really looking forward to you getting a book published. People enjoy reading something that's fun and that they can relate to from their own youth. Your stories are always a delight. posted by
robbwillis
on Aug 14, 2007 at 07:35 AM
Put me down for a copy. Funny stuff!
posted by
sagefever
on Aug 14, 2007 at 10:27 AM
"Ditto". Great story.
posted by
woofwoof
on Aug 14, 2007 at 03:34 PM
You took me there with you....love your stories....more, please.
posted by
damitjanet
on Aug 14, 2007 at 05:23 PM
Fantastic story. I always look forward to reading them. I just hated those pops... still to this day when you have to give them a wack on the counter the pop scars me..
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