Saturday, September 06, 2003
Stop Thief!
Having spent many years avoiding it, I barely recognized the building that once housed the variety store on 7th Street.
When I was a barefoot lad of 6 and Mickey and Chuck were big kids (about 10), I wanted to hang around them but they never let me.
One day they were playing with model cars and cameras. I watched as they mashed the cars together, put a little airplane glue on them, lit a match to it and then photographed the fiery crash. These little disasters were more than real to me and I could have watched them all day and they didn't seem to mind but were running out of airplane glue. Would I go down to the Variety Store and get some?
If that's the price I had to pay.... They gave me a quarter and as I was almost out of earshot, Chuck yelled that I should get two. At the Variety Store on the east side of Seventh street, just south of Hulman, it was no problem finding the glue and I took it to the check out counter and laid it and the quarter out flat. I could hardly wait to get back to the tragic events the big guys were making to scale.
I was shocked when the bald-headed man at the counter said, "That will be 30 cents."
How could that be? They only gave me a quarter!
The counter was armpit high on me and I stared at the quarter and the two tubes and decided. I beat feet for the door, scooping the tubes of glue in my hand as I went.
Coach Garmong, at Sarah Scott told me that I ran too long in the same place. He should have seen me that day. The baldheaded man in the shopkeeper's apron was no match for me. He was yelling and I could hear him chase me but I didn't look back.
I didn't go back either. I stayed clear of that store until after it closed sometime in the late 50s and although I returned to my 8th Street block in record time, Mickey and Chuck had lost interest in tragedy but they took the "discounted" airplane glue for future use.
These days when I go to the store I have at least twice what I intend to spend. I'm not as fast as I used to be.
