The Times

Wednesday, July 14, 1976, page 15 (of 32)

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From bag boy to manager of 17 stores

By ELIZABETH OWEN Staff Writer Norman Wetmore has a simple, practical philosophy. "There ain't but two or three things in life you have to do to live," he said, matter-of-factly. "You have to breath and you have to eat. "So I'm right in the middle - grocery stores will never go out of business, because no matter how scarce money gets, people are still gonna have to eat." At 18, Wetmore, a native Miamian, figured this out. He started as a bag boy for Piggly Wiggly groceries, and wound up as a supervisor for Winn-Dixie stores. He is part of an evolution and a revolution that few others have been privy to. After serving his time as a bag boy, Wetmore got on with the W.M. Davis family's Table Supply Company - now known as the Winn-Dixie food chain. He started in produce, then worked his way up to store manager. "The company had four general stores in Miami then. The one I managed was about the size of this room," he recalled, looking around his tiny, one-desk office. "I remember when we had to write up big grocery orders on a tablet. Now, everything's computerized we have code numbers on a tape. They'll pull an order at 5 p.m. and the groceries will be at the store's back door the next day at 6 a.m." For the next few years, Wetmore said he moved with one of the Davis brothers to open new grocery stores in West Palm Beach, Lake Worth, Ft. Pierce and back to Miami. "While I was in Ft. Pierce, Davis merged with another company and the name was changed to Winn-Lovett," he said. "Then, back in Miami, Davis purchased Dixie Home Stores in North Carolina and we became Winn-Dixie. "In the meantime, we had also bought Margaret Ann Stores here." The stores kept getting bigger, the operation kept getting more mechanized and Wetmore kept adjusting. "We started going self-service, having pre-packaged meat, pre-packaged produce, and all that sort of stuff. "But back in the the old days, it was different," he recalled. "You had to weigh everything - your beans, your rice, your meal and your sugar. "You even had to cut up your own butter and cheese and package it. "I guess inflation and population growth had caused the grocery store business to grow like it has." In spite of the changes he's seen, Wetmore said one thing has not changed: store robberies. He said they are so frequent, and always have been, that a store merely tries to keep its cash on hand to a minimum and comply with gun-weilding intruders. "When I was managing a store in Allapattah, there was a gang of thieves that hit stores in the area," he said. "Once, three or four of them came in with guns. - it was a Friday night at 7:30 p.m. and we had about 100 customers in the store - and they made everyone freeze as they took the cash. "One of the robbers even stood at the door to keep people from coming in. He would say, 'There's a robbery going on in there, you can't go in.' "Between armed robberies and shoplifting, it's no picnic to run grocery stores anymore." Wetmore, who just turned 65, retired last month. He said he was recently supervisor of five Winn-Dixies in Miami and has supervised as many as 17 stores at a time. "I used to oversee every store from Miami to Key West," he said proudly. He and his wife Autry plan to buy an air boat and go fishing in the Everglades. His son, Bruce, an assistant manager for Winn-Dixie, will carry on his father's work. "In the future, this grocery store business is going to be something else," said the pioneer. "But in spite of the computers, I still think you're going to have to have people to get the job done. "I'd advise any young man to look into the grocery business. Every store manager I know of has started out as a bag boy or in produce and worked his way up. "That's the only way we get our employees." "There ain't but two or three things in life you have to do to live . . . you have to breathe and you have to eat." Norman Wetmore

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