In the 50's and 60's Chestnut Ridge Rd merged into Chili Avenue just past Fenton. Just before that merge, heading east from SPX, one passed The Bungalow just before Fenton and the Pop Stand at Fenton. Each had an impact on our lives. The Bungalow's site is now a modern day convenience store, the Pop Stand is no more and Chestnut Ridge no longer merges into Chili Ave.in the same way. So this will just serve as a reminder of how things used to be.
The Bungalow was the one and only commercial place we could go sans parents as elementary school kids. Either walking home from school or out cruising with friends it was a place to buy a candy bar or baseball cards or a popsicle with the nickels or dimes or even quarters we might have on us from allowance, paper routes, odd jobs or whatever means we might have come upon some change. The great thing was the feeling of independence it gave us ... to walk in and pick out something we wanted and get it without any questions asked. The store was smaller than the modern day store and it faced Chestnut Ridge with its small entrance door. We didn't know the grownups who ran it but I'm sure in retrospect they knew us well. Maybe they put up with our shenanigans because they knew we would be future customers of greater monetary worth.
I don't remember a lot about the Pop Stand. It was a large wooden structure, like a large garage, or barn, with a sloping floor (?) in the main pop crate storage area and a little checkout area next to the storage area. As I recall it, the pop was sort of generic, and maybe it was meant for mostly bulk purchases. I'm kind of fuzzy on the specifics of the place (even though we passed by it a million times), but I do remember one eventful day at the Pop Stand. One of our Class of '64 members had an older brother who was working there (it's possible his family had some interest in the place). One Saturday, I'm guessing we were in 6th or maybe even 7th grade, we were roaming around in one of our street-walking bands and we ended up sitting around on the crates in the storage area while this older brother was waiting for business. It was a slow day and boys were just being boys. What I've never forgotten was how surprised I was by what his older brother told us that day.... the whole story of the birds and the bees straight from this teenager - the expert of Chili. Who knows what he told us and who knows if others were as naive as I was but I do remember hearing things I never imagined before were part of this world. After that our buddy had new status as the source for all such information.
At some point, probably related to the increased traffic volume from the new Bright Oaks neighborhood and the new houses being constructed off Chestnut Ridge Rd., the merge was changed and Chestnut Ridge was re-routed to Chili Ave through the current convenience store lot. Chili was growing fast in the 50's and 60's, as was all of Rochester and its surrounding towns. The days before the big increases in development were days that had some charm in their simplicity.
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