Charlotte wasn’t a bottled water kind of town

“When I first came to Charlotte [in 1941], I was the only poor Jew in town. I lived in drab bungalows whose siding often sprang for want of nails and there were occasions when I couldn’t meet the rent for my room in a semi-transient hotel whose curtains were stiff from a decade’s dirt. When I wore tan and brown summer shoes in December, Gentiles thought me eccentric.

“They were right. I was trying to make a living by selling Pure Midas Spring Water to folks who drank Coca-Cola for breakfast.”

— From “Travels Through Jewish America” by Harry Golden with Richard Goldhurst  (1973)