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The Blessing of Shopkeepers

Posted by on July 29, 2014

Ram Das

I have reflected in other musings on the power and freedom of being a ten year old on a bike in the WLA of the ‘50s. Especially riding with a pack of friends, it seemed there was adventure to be had at every turn. A simple excursion from point A to B might include any number of detours into exploration: construction sites, boxcars, someone’s junk dumped in alleys…each provided the opportunity for entertainment, often mischief and, frequently,  trouble that we did not see coming. But I don’t think that we were considered “troubled youths”, by others or ourselves. We were simply on a path of exploration, free in the world from immediate supervision and hungry to test boundaries on so many levels.

Yet, for all of the times that I fondly recall wheeling through the neighborhoods of the Westside with my pals, I have recently begun to realize that I spent most of my exploratory afternoons on my own. I think that young people today (please forgive me the old cronyism) have been robbed of the experience of walking places. From the time I was six, I walked to school…at first just a few blocks, but later, about 20 blocks, and I fell into the habit of visiting people along the way. The lady on Pearl St who was always watering her lawn. The old fellow who seemed to spend his life on a bench on Federal. The woman who, when you knocked on her milk door (houses had little milk doors), would always extend a hand with a cookie. I think her name was Mrs. Campbell. I never saw Mr. Campbell. They were each always good for a kind word and often a brief conversation. Those must have been the days when you could not get reported for talking to a kid, or even, God forbid, showing him your garden.

When I was eight, my folks signed me up for Little League at Stoner Park, a field a couple of miles from my house, and I would walk to practice and walk to games on Saturday, sometimes with a friend, but most often on my own and I developed a regular series of stops along the way. Pico Blvd was full of interesting shops: an electronics store, the precursor to Radio Shack, where a fellow surrounded by boxes and tubes would always take a minute to tell me what he was doing; an ice cream shop named Ralph’s Nut House (yes, he also sold roasted nuts)…a place where I scored my first job, killing flies in trade for a cone…; a lovely little comic book shop where the guy did not care if you sat on the floor and read for an hour without buying anything. These outposts were visited with the purposeful intention of the Stations of the Cross, which I was also learning at the time. I could have genuflected outside of each door. Outside of baseball season, our Saturday afternoons were spent at the Bundy theater….15 cents for the double feature  and 10 cents for popcorn and a drink. But for some reason, the trip home always took us down the alleys. Perhaps this was because I was with my cousin, Brian, and we liked alleys. I smoked my first cigarette, a Viceroy, on one of those walks. As I recall, I had to sit down from the dizziness.

When I was 12, we moved to Santa Monica and the walk to school was about 19 blocks. Our mom would often drive us in the morning, but I was usually on my own to get home, due to one activity or another. The preferred route was up Wilshire Blvd. Again, I developed touch points along the route. Tex’s Sporting Goods was always full of fascinating equipment and macho older guys with athletic bodies. The Jaguar place never did appreciate my sitting in their XKEs, but I did it when I could. Snug Harbor was and possibly still is the milk shake capital of the Westside…with a burger in a basket smothered in grilled onions for those nights that I was too late for dinner at home. Yet, the two stops that rest most clearly in my mind seem as diverse as…well as the person I was becoming at the time. The first was on about 10th or 11th. It was called the Emerald Shop and it was run by a large, kind man named Wayne Moye. The shop sold a variety of religious goods: rosaries, statuary, crucifixes…it was like a Catholic Central Supply. There was something about Mr. Moye that made a kid want to talk to him. I suspect it was that he listened. He asked real questions and he always seemed interested in my answers. He was an adult who actually showed interest in what I thought. I clearly recall an evening when I was walking home late, maybe 9pm, coming from a Dramateer rehearsal of The Monkey’s Paw at St. Monica’s. I must have been a sophomore. At any rate, it was late and no shops were open. I saw a light in the Emerald Shop and Mr. Moye waved me in from a chair where he just seemed to be sitting and reading, though perhaps he was going over the books. The best way to describe my current state is that I was going through a sort of Holden Caulfield period. I was becoming distant from my family and certain friends. I was struggling with the faith in which I was raised, feeling more and more at odds with who I was and who I wanted to be. I did not know this. I can say this now because it all came out as I spoke to him. I sat down and just explained to him and to myself, my state of existential crisis. What he did was a gift. He simply listened to me. He did not advise me that I recall. He just listened for well over an hour. Then, as I was leaving, he pressed a 50 cent piece into my hand and told me that a person cannot be picked up as a vagrant as long as he has .50 in his pocket. I took it as gospel and have no idea if it was ever true. All I know is that I walked the remaining blocks home feeling much better.

The other stop was Jerry’s Jewelry, at 24thst, where I began to hang out after school and learned to clean watches and rings. Jerry was a one man shop and he seemed to relate to me as if I was much older than I was. After some time, he began to let me mind the store while he ran errands. I later discovered that Jerry was a bit of a cocksman and he was going off for afternoon dalliances while I covered for him. This worked for him and for me until a woman came in one afternoon and placed her significant cleavage on the counter while I replaced a battery in her watch. Meanwhile, her friend stole a handful of expensive rings from the showcase. Thus ended my career in jewelry and slightly dented my relationship with Jerry.

I think that I am writing this out of appreciation for the random relationships of my young wanderings. From the characters that I came to know from my paper route to the long lists of people who sat bored behind the counters of myriad little shops of my youth and were happy to engage me, as I was happy to seek them out. These were not formal teachers or coaches or even people who I came to know by name. But something in my made me want to stop and pay my respects and something in them made them willing to show me kindness. As I said, I don’t think kids get much of that these days. Perhaps we know too much, for we now choreograph our children’s lives and God knows we would not let them form friendships with strangers, visit their workshops, accept a free candy bar or even kill their flies for them. But when I was a young man, I was blessed by shopkeepers and I am grateful for it.

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