Let's Go to Quik-Trip

Who doesn’t have fond memories of their “happy places”? What’s a happy place? My definition of a happy place is a thought that lights up your face with a smile! A happy place doesn’t have to be a literal place – it can also be a beloved person or cherished memory.

When you think about an old friend or grandparent, does a smile light up your face? That’s a happy place. Do beautiful flowers and the memory of walking through a lovely garden bring a smile? That’s a happy place, too. What about a pleasant memory? Do you remember that time we laughed so hard we cried? Happy place!

I’m fortunate to have many happy-place memories accumulated over the decades. Many of my happy places involve coins, coin shops, coin shows, and all the interesting folks I’ve met over the years. And who doesn’t remember their best coin deals? What about all those interesting people I’ve met over the years? Yes, there have been some real characters – especially at coin shows!

Having had a pretty great childhood, many of my stories start with the line “when I was a kid…” OK, here we go…

When I was a kid in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, everything seemed to be a lot less complicated. I heard a statistic a few years ago that in the 1960s an average grocery store might have 5,000 different products, including all the different packaging variations. Fast forward to 2021 and even a relatively modest grocery store carries 50,000 different items. My numbers might be off, but you get the point – ten times as many choices and variations. Seems kind of confusing right?

Back to the story… In the ‘60s, the convenience store was a new invention. Like interstate highways and drive-in restaurants, government and entrepreneurs had seen the need and filled it. My dad, having been a child of the ‘40s and ‘50s and growing up on a farm, loved anything new. He loved all the fast-food places – McDonalds, Dog & Suds, Dairy Queen, and Kentucky Fried Chicken… You get the point – instant gratification.

My grandmother was a fabulous cook and most often my dad had a couple of homemade roast beef or ham sandwiches in his lunch box for school. I don’t know how the story was related originally, but evidently my dad never got lunch meat like bologna or salami at home. Numerous friends of my dad commented over the years about how good my grandmother’s sandwiches were. He wasn’t eating his mom’s sandwiches because he’d traded for a bologna or salami sandwich.

So many of our memories are subject to interpretation. Were things really that good back then? Maybe not, but they were simpler. In my small hometown in 1970, there was one convenience store and it stayed open 24/7. We didn’t have a Mickey D’s until 1973 or ‘74. You might be able to buy a pack of smokes and a soda at a local gas station, but after 10 at night if you wanted anything to eat Quik Trip was it. It would be another 10 years before this particular Quik Trip added gas pumps. The convenience stores we have today are indeed convenient, but in 1970 gas stations were gas stations and you went to the grocery store for food.

I think most kids from any generation develop a quick interest in any store having candy, chips, soda, or anything kids like. Kids quickly learn if they behave, they’re more likely to get a treat – especially when visiting the grocery or drug store. There is an evolution. I quickly learned that money represented a pass or ticket when I wanted something. I might not have been able to count it, but at some level I knew that with money, I could get that which I wanted.

Early on the candy and toys grab a kid’s attention, but the desires get more complicated. Baseball cards, coins, stamps, and comics were all involved in my happy place evolution. Like the evolution from pinball to video games, they were both happy places, just different times.

Jeff Gay was the local manager of our Quik Trip. The Quik Trip in my hometown of Warrensburg, Missouri, was built about 1969. The corner lot where the store was located was on Missouri State Highway 13 and was originally owned by my grandfather. Did I mention that my dad wanted my grandfather to open a convenience store? Great idea, but no support.

As a small child I lived in a house on this same corner lot. My grandfather paid house movers to physically move this house to another location. This house, along with another duplex on the same lot, were moved when the Quik Trip was built. The block of property was originally the home of my great-great grandfather. His family’s adjacent original farmhouse was razed several years later to double the parking lot size of the Quik Trip.

In fifth and sixth grade, my school – Southeast Elementary – was three blocks from Quik Trip. Although my house was five blocks in the opposite direction, I would go to Quik Trip two or three days a week after school to buy “stuff.” Although I liked my candy, by this age I was more interested in baseball cards and comics. I did have a very strong interest in coins, but I didn’t have many resources to take it anywhere – no money.

My interest in baseball cards were for Kansas City Royals players in the early ‘70s, although I followed the Kansas City Athletics before Charlie Finley (my dad always called him a traitor) took them to Oakland. I bought a few football and basketball cards, but Topps baseball cards were a big part of my childhood. I sporadically bought comic books with Sgt. Rock being an early favorite. I do remember being given some Archie comics when I was home sick and thinking they were pretty lame (ha ha). I liked the action comics!

Regardless, I was always a collector. For the most part, other than gluing some of my early baseball cards onto notebook paper so I could put them in a binder, I took care of my toys. I would beg my parents and grandparents for any old boxes (usually shoe and cigar boxes) to house my collections. My interests were all over the board, but coins always got my attention.

One afternoon after school, I went to the Quik Trip to shop. I had a routine. I would go through the magazine rack, the two comic book stand racks, and then see if they had stocked any new baseball cards. Because I visited the store often, I had a pretty good idea when new stuff arrived, but by the time I was in Junior High Jeff Gay the manager would tell me when the comics were restocked. In fifth and sixth grade I rarely had more than a couple of bucks in my pocket. No, I didn’t have a wallet yet, I was 11.

It was around 3:30 in the afternoon, but I couldn’t tell you what day of the week or month it was. The original Quik Trip was a very small store with a rectangular counter sitting in the middle of the store near the front door. The counter had two registers facing south and west. That afternoon business was slow. When busy both registers would be open, but that afternoon the front side register was closed. Jeff was using the front counter space to count a massive pile of nickels. I said “hello” to Jeff and started to walk by the front counter towards the comics racks.

I did know a little about coins at this point. My dad collected. Although he did encourage me later, he was a little standoffish about his coins when I was a little kid. You know the deal: “get outta my way kid, you’re bothering me.” Seriously, looking back on it 50 years later, I wasn’t really mature enough to collect coins until I was 12 or 13. I realize he just didn’t like my brother or me getting into his stuff.

My double take walking by the counter had to be hilarious. I can still remember Jeff laughing. I’m certain today that but for knowing Jeff and being from a small town, the reaction would most likely have been different when I asked, “Can I look?” Instead of the ol’ “get lost” or “mind your own business,” I could have received, Jeff just said “OK.” Evidently the night before Jeff had won big in a weekly poker game. They had used Buffalo Nickels as chips and Jeff had roughly a bag of nickels, which is 4,000 pieces or $200 face value. I can’t remember the exact count, but it was a big pile!

I helped Jeff count the nickels into piles of 10 coins each while I furiously schemed in my head on how to acquire some of these coins. I’m not sure exactly how much cash I had in my pocket, but it was roughly $2. In any case, Jeff allowed me to pick out $2 worth of his nickels for helping him count and roll them. I know I stuffed the coins in my pocket and ran most of the way home. I couldn’t wait to look them up in my Red Book (A Guidebook of United States Coins) and put them in my Whitman trifold Buffalo Nickel album.

As typical for Buffalo Nickels, this enormous pile of coins had a huge percentage of dateless examples, but there were some strong detail coins in the pile too. I knew enough to look for “full horns” and complete dates, but that was about the extent of my numismatic knowledge at the time. I do remember telling my dad about being able to buy these Buffalo Nickels at face value several days later. He was incredulous. “Why didn’t you call me?”

I was so ecstatic to have been able to buy 40 Buffalo Nickels at face value that I completely missed out on the opportunity to buy all $200 at face value. After all, Jeff was rolling them up to take to the bank or put in the register. Over the decades I’ve often asked myself why I didn’t try to call my dad and buy them all.

It’s simple really. I was so thrilled to have been able to get what I thought was a huge windfall that I didn’t even press the advantage. I was just a kid who already had a pocket full of treasures!