At age 14, cousins Sim Brown Jr. and Joe Nathan found a job sacking groceries and delivering them to customers on bicycle.
Little did they know that 46 years later, at age 60, they would still be working side by side in a grocery store.
Brown is the grocery manager at Greenwood Market Place and Nathan stocks the shelves there. Both have been with the Food Giant company for 30 years, according to Derrick Simpson, store manager. They've been at Market Place for eight years. Prior to that, they worked at two different Piggly Wiggly stores in Greenwood, one on Mississippi 7 and one downtown.
Brown and Nathan began their lifelong careers at Piggly Wiggly on Cotton Street working for Bill Gillespie.
"We were just looking for something to do and ran across that," Brown said.
"We delivered groceries on a bicycle. It was simpler back then. It wasn't like it is now," he said.
The job also has gotten easier with technology, they said.
Before there were bar codes to scan the food, workers had to hand stamp every item in the store. Everything also was unloaded by hand.
Staying at any job 46 years is unusual these days, but Nathan and Brown said they stayed in the business because they just liked it.
"I never thought about doing anything else," Brown said.
"Now it's just like home," Nathan said. "We have a home away from home."
Nathan said things were definitely cheaper when they started out in the grocery store. Cokes were 5 cents. Eggs were 60 cents, and flour was 59 cents, they said.
"You could buy 10 cents worth of cheese and couldn't eat it all," Nathan said.
Today, the stores are bigger. They carry a larger varieties of foods, and the prices are higher, Brown said.
Back in the old days, customers would give tips, Brown said. Now, employees can't take them from customers.
But when tips were allowed, store workers would turn them in to the office, and they would be divided among all the employees on the weekend, Brown said.
"But I had mine in my shoe," Nathan laughed.
One of the most memorable times for Brown and Nathan was the food war of 1983.
The food war was started by Jitney Jungle, Brown said. "Jitney Jungle started it, and we finished it."
Groceries were really cheap during the war, Brown said. Ketchup was 5 cents. Blue Plate mayonnaise was 10 cents.
Nathan said they would take a pallet of groceries onto the floor and wouldn't have time to shelve it because people were taking the food so fast.
"We worked all night and would go home and sleep a couple of hours and come back to work," Nathan said.
"People from four states would come and get groceries," Nathan said.
Brown said the store would have as many as five trucks a night delivering food.
"We had customers who would give us $1 if we would give them a buggy," Nathan said.
The thing Brown and Nathan enjoy most about working for the grocery store is meeting people and helping customers.
"We've made plenty of friends," Brown said.
Through the years Brown and Nathan have seen a lot of people come and go, but they have been dedicated to their jobs," Simpson said. "I've worked with them since I was a teenager myself."
Simpson started out stocking shelves with Nathan and Brown 18 years ago. Now he is their manager.
Simpson estimates that Nathan and Brown have come in contact with well over a million people. That's based on how many years they've worked in the store and the average number of customers who come through on a daily basis.
"They enjoy interacting with the people who shop with us," Simpson said.
The two men plan on retiring in two years.
Simpson said he would like them to stay at least four more years to make it an even 50.
"I wouldn't trade it for nothing," Nathan said.
And Brown just laughed and said, "In two more years, I'm gonna be happy."
Brown and Nathan are part owners of the employee-owned company, Simpson said. "When they retire, they can sell their part back to the company for their retirement."
Former owner Kenneth Storey sold the company back to itself five years ago, Simpson said, making it 100 percent employee-owned.
Brown and Nathan were born and raised in Leflore County, and they've been successful in working in the grocery business, Simpson said.
They have a great work ethic, and Simpson said he considers himself fortunate to have them working in his store.
