Hardware stores, indeed small variety stores, did not outnumber the large chain stores in this Irish City of Strangers at they once did.
Sad to say, the corner hardware store, candy store and neighborhood family-operated shops were fading quickly ever since the 1960’s in Ireland and the States as well.
Although Galway is a city, it is not as "city-fied" as such in Pennsylvania. There has always been and remains vestiges of small stores. You know you are in the right place when you are welcomed by name by the owner. Another small store example:
“Hello, George, back in Galway again. You’ve been away to long,” he said as he picked a theatre book off the shelf.
“Hi Des,” I said to Desmond Kenny in the book store/gallery.
“Here’s the newest book on the Abbey Theatre by Chris Fitzsimon.”
Of course that was three years ago, Kenny’s Bookstore has since closed or reinvented itself as Kenny’s Gallery for contemporary Irish art. Des’ brother is there, but I don’t know him as well, I don’t feel as comfortable there anymore.When I visited last Thursday, on opening the door I did notice a bell attached overhead which tingled when I entered.
Ting-a-ling !
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Stevie Vahovitich’s corner store, nestled on the Southeast corner of Third and Ridge Street , Coaldale, Pa., was a smaller store than most. A store in a house in fact.
A thin small built man with wire glasses appeared from the yellow flowered curtains behind the counter of the narrow aisled store. His gray and thinning hair, was neatly combed parted on the right, too far, into the top of his head. He pulled at the sleeves of his brown sweater with the quarter-sized holes in the elbows. His wife, we never knew her name, peeked around the closed curtain, and said something that sounded like “hmmarmya.”
“You want candy ?” Stevie said in what seemed to be an Czechoslavakian
American accent.
Penny candies scattered in small cardboard boxes at the front of the glass encased counter. Candies ready to jump into your pocket and awaiting the pennies in your pocket to jump into Stevie’s hand.
Pink peppermint tablets, MaryJanes, black nigger babies, and red fiery lozenges. Occasionally a square of chocolate or very small pillow like candies that tasted like licorice mints called Sen Sens.
“So,” he would say as he leaned on the counter awaiting the decision of the eight year boy from Ruddle Street.
“I’ll have….. three of those….and….one of those…no,no, those red things shaped like quarters….yeah. Ahh, that’s it.” A hungry pause. “And five of them…how much is that?”
“Nine cents, you got nine cents ?” Stevie would smile. He must have had false teeth from the same dentist as my dad had, they looked the same. Stevie’s choppers were perfect.
My God, I thought, Stevie was old, he must have been at least fifty and he had one golden incisor ! Wow !
“Ahhh, six of those there jaw breakers.”
Ahhh, the jawbreakers, round hard sugared flavors of lemon, lime, orange and cherry filled with what seemed to be plastic chewing gum. Lucky if this good cheek full of artifical flavor didn’t actually break your jaw or a tooth along the way of bubble blowing fun.
There , I did it, spent the entire 15 cents mom gave me. The change from buying milk, bread and butter at Nardini’s Market two doors away. I almost tripped and broke the milk bottle running passed the druggist store in my eagerness to get to Stevie’s.
The milk...oh for the days when we had milk delivered tio the dior.
Usually we would get our milk from Harry Boles. His red truck with the golden lettering would regularly stop on Ruddle Street on Tuesdays.
Harry, a gentle chubby Santa Claus for all seasons, would blow the old Chevy truck horn twice and walk up to the house. He always carried a wire bottle holder to our side porch door in the his left hand. In the square holes was buttermilk, white homogenized milk and an occasion, a bottle of chocolate milk.
He would leave a bottle of white next to our basement window and pick up the empties. He’d carefully jump over the chicken wire fence between our house and Buehla’s making sure his pants didn’t catch a grasping wire end, and then he’d continue his deliveries.
I never actually saw Harry do this during the school year. He’s come about 9 am to deliver, but from June to August when school was out for the summer, I’d sit and wait for him. In that summer of 1952, something happened that would have every kid in Coaldale repeat the embarassing song.
“Georgie Porgie Puddin N’ Pie, Kissed the Girls and made them cry, when the girls came out to play…”
I would repeat the last line of the well known jeer along with him…
“Georgie Porgie ran away.”
He’d laugh- a few months later later when I was 11, and all grown up, I would see him coming to deliver and shout out at him…
“Harry Boles, pudding N;’ Cakes
Kissed the ladies for goodness sake
When the ladies came out to play
Harry Boles drove away.
Okay, so it wasn’t very clever. I laughed.
Harry was not laughing. He stopped calling me Georgie Porgie after that.
“Today, I got strawberry milk,” he said showing me the pink ambrosia.
I ran into the house and pleaded with mom to buy just a quart of this dairy delicacy. She’s gave me 23 cents and I bought the pink milk knowing that would be the week's candy money. I would be happy for a full week. I’d drink only a small amount each day to prolong this rare tasty treat. One Sunday afternoon I gave Darryl Sharpe a taste and his mom ordered two bottles. His sister Connie could down a quart in three gulps !
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Stevie Vahoitch took the 15 cents, put it in a green jar where all the candy money apparently lived.
After I was finished buying as much candy as my change would allow, he would ask whether my mom needed thread or yarn for her crocheting.
“No, not today Stevie. See you tomorrow, if I get any worn out pennies.”
It would take seventeen steps to go back through his red painted front door centered in between two large showroom windows filled with tablecloths, mouse traps, a tricycle, tools and paints. The magic would begin when you stepped inside. The door bell attached to the top of the door would ring as you entered and when you escaped.
He never said goodbye, he just disappeared behind that flowered curtain again just like the Lone Ranger would disappear before anyone could say thank you. Back into his wonderful cabbage, onion and potatoe smelling Slovak kitchen with Helen…oh yes, I just remembered, her name was Helen.
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When Kate and I visit Kenny’s Gallery, Galway, nowadays, we can still imagine the bulging book shelves on the walls replaced now by abstract prints of Connemara. We can still hear Des’ voice and his mother as she calls for him to answer the phone. The atmosphere is different but they are still there, in our imaginations. If only there were books !
Back in the hardware store, it was 8 Euro 70 for the electrical tape and the screws. Costly , yes...but well worth knowing the store was there, at least for another two years I hoped.
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