Jung's Bakery

And Shirley wrote regarding Nina Bloom: One of the happy memories I will always remember is when she worked at Jung's Bakery, which was between Montgomery Ward's and Red Owl Grocery store. (Now Penney's and Napa Auto Parts).I can still taste those little, round powder sugar coated Russian Tea Cakes. They cost $.05 for 3 of 'em! MMMM good!

How fun to remember Jung's Bakery. It was an old building and when you walked in, the floor was some slanted and the wooden boards creaked as you walked across them.

I too, remember Nina at the bakery.

My recall is from past 1952 when I stopped reading the Times. If I would have read farther, I am certain it would have said, "Mrs. Carl Bloom is working at Jung's Bakery" in the Rosewood News!

Let's go back 50 years or so, and imagine a group of little girls dressed in brown dresses and beanies. It was winter. Our Brownie leader was Mrs. Kvivstad and she took us on several field trips. It was before permission slips and car pools. We simply walked from the Washington School where we had our meetings in the basement lunch room to Jungs, it was less than two blocks away.

I had just gotten a new storm coat. For those of you who do not know what a storm coat is, it is a very warm coat with a quilted lining. It had inserts in the sleeves near the wrist to keep the cold air from getting on your arm. The fabric was wool, often tweed. The collar was fake fur and it was belted at the waist. At that time, a coat was considered anything past your knees. So while Mother was wearing high heeled shoes, now called Stiletto Heels, in the early 1950s to align her body to make her bust stick out as well as her butt, I was wearing something that made me look like a teddy bear.

And it came to pass that the Brownie Troop went to Jungs for a tour. Nina Bloom asked if we would like to take our coats off. Being proud of my new coat, elected to wear it. It was really warm in the bakery! I was really warm in my storm coat. After the tour through the building, we were each offered a baked good from the class case.

It was late in the afternoon and the doughnuts were considered a day old by then, but I didn't learn about day old doughnuts until much later when Tim Albertson would ride his bicycle past our house on 21st Street with garbage bags full of doughnuts he had picked up outside the door at the doughnut store on 23rd Street. He used to use them to throw at his Doberman. The dog loved them.

One day I got curious. Although I wasn't going to Carol's Doughnuts for old pastry, I did want to see what he had. Tim stopped his bike, and opened one of the bags. The contents were pretty beat up but YUM they still tasted good.

Then, I remembered. I remembered I chose a jelly filled roll as my treat at Jung's that day. I took one bite and the jelly slid out of the pastry and landed between the ribbing on my inner sleeve and the cuff. Nina wiped out the jelly as best she could and I was thinking about how I was going to tell my mother about the jelly.

It didn't show that much, it was just really stiff. I decided not to tell anyone about it. And every day the rest of the winter, I felt that stiff part whenever I wore the coat. When I was sitting on the porch eating the doughnuts that Tim offered, I was NOT WEARING LONG SLEEVES! And, yes, I still love jelly filled pastry!