[Update: The efforts of locating images of the poster at Piggly Wiggly were a success! A huge thank you to Ian Dunn at the State Archives for all his aid in this research. If you would like to purchase a print of these photos or any of the others I am including on the media page, please email the state archives. I have provided call numbers in the captions.]
It's with pleasure that I share with you my story and research, as it's fitting for Thanksgiving. Hopefully it brings a smile or sparks a fond memory in this terrible covid year. I've been awaiting this opportunity to share this here, with y'all. People who grew up here in Raleigh, spanning several generations "get it", we understand that what we had and what we hold on to WAS and IS special. There's nothing much different to this story than what I'm sure many generations experienced here in Raleigh. And that's the experience of living in a smaller town. A town where we had the freedom to explore the city on bikes without risking getting mowed down. We'd go just about anywhere. We could get away with just about anything. Hell, our parents trusted us, but they trusted the town too. My best friend and I were nomadic--we biked everywhere. Without fail we often ended up at Five Points (home base). We ended up and at the entrance of the piggly wiggly. We'd jump on the magic black rubber mat, watch the automatic door spring open and ding. I'm sure this tested the manager's patience. The manager, an old man with a red nose, tinted glasses, grey haired-comb over. His hands grasping the broom that he rested under his chin. He stood by the corner in the store, near the kiosk near the safe. He didn't smile, carried a look of non-amusement, perhaps thinking about patience and dealing with kids. Then Richard, the kindest person on the earth, always smiling, could be overheard asking the old lady with blue hair that was checking out if "he could walk her groceries out to the car". Okay now PAUSE for a moment. You're in the store. Behind you to the left is the ice cream (freezer bins) with sliding glass doors. Above those bins to the left, hung a framed copy of this poster. You were 13 years old then. You're now 37. All you can recall at this age is the word "Remington" and a picture of the piggly wiggly. Fast forward now. Move past the Patel ownership and the butchery of the inside of the piggly wiggly's beautiful aesthetics. You're eating at Nofo, you look up and there's the picture from the ad! But is it? You email the kind owner of the NOFO, Jean, and leave a message, only to discover several years later that she actually left you a VM! Jean, who is not only old fashioned but incredibly kind explains that Remington hired McKinney-Silver to do a 1990 holidays ad. McKinney-Silver "dolled up" the PW to look real "nostalgic" placing hand painted signs in the windows, and an old bike up to the curb. Cool! But hold on, where can you get a copy of this ad? Well...you can't. You grasp at straws getting no response from Remington or the ad agency. And then one night a friend to whom you share your frustrations with sends you an eBay link. BAM! There's the ad, your jaw drops. It's for sale. You buy it instantly from a guy in Pennsylvania clearing out an old man's gun store---it was to be trashed. That best friend of yours, the one you grew up your whole life, riding bikes to piggly wiggly. The one who also wrote his name in the concrete across the street from the pig. Well by sure small town coincidence is now working across the street from the PW (NOFO-presently). I'll look forward to giving him that poster this Christmas, he'll likely (hoping) be too busy to catch this imperative thanksgiving post (share). God bless everyone, take care of your relationships with your friends. Don't forget what makes this place special, it's the people. Be thankful to all those people that keep our memories alive, and make this still the best place to have ever lived. Until then, I'll keep doing my digging, hopefully I'll share some photos down the road.
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Matt Busch, Author
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