Life at Check Stand 3 (Texas 1955)

James Higgins

March 1, 2026

School’s out at 3:30 so home by four (if there’s no detention

hall) a glance at homework, a quick meal, get that white shirt

and clip-on bow tie on, then dropped off at the big HEB

supermarket for that five to ten shift.  I was 15 by then

promoted to checker from boxboy so from 40 to 75 cents an

hour doing three nights a week, sometimes four & a ten-hour

shift on Saturday & the dairy case was mine to keep full so 

spent a lot of time in the cooler with a helper or two putting 

eggs that survived a crash into clean unbranded cartons to

sell with deep discounts, of course, then had to keep that 

milk section full and always rotate that date. 

When things got busy lines would form so I’d hear Jimmy

checkstand 3 please & I hustle up front to meet, greet and 

collect that money, make change since there were no credit 

cards and no computers back then, lots of checks to be ok’d 

by the boss and Larry’s in the next check stand on Saturday 

so it’s a race to see who checks out more people. Lines are 

long, no codes for lettuce, apples, carrots or potatoes had to 

weigh them all. We each had a produce list we made daily 

with a grease pencil on a plastic pad & you had better 

get those prices right. The customer knows.

Born in Abilene, James Higgins spent the first fifteen years of his life in Texas, living in San Antonio during the school year, then spending most summers with his dad in the little town of Merkel, where both his parents were born. Two different worlds, city life vs. small town.