I was showing some folks the two Mary Lou Troutman paintings of Buzzy’s Country Store and was asked about the differences in the top logo on each sign. Here is Mary Lou’s original Return for Deposit with the Coke bottle sign shown:
Her second offering Days to Remember had a Texaco Fire Chief logo:
It sent me to the old black and white photo album where I found these two shots of Stevie and me with the signs/logos in the background:
The Coke sign that Mary Lou captured in her first painting is shown behind Stevie in a photo taken in 1957. I am in a 1960 photo with a Pepsi sign logo in the background. It leads me to conclude that Buzzy played the Coke and Pepsi folks off against one another to see who would give him the better deal on having their logo on his sign. Try as I did, I was unable to locate any photos showing the Texaco Fire Chief logo.
Maybe years from now someone will be examining photos of the two signs that I have had up during my tenure of owning Buzzy’s. Unlikely I guess, but you never know do you?
