The other day I was sitting at the computer and I wrote about an incident that had occured during my childhood when my folks had a grocery store on Division St. (so well described in my sister's book THE DIVISION STREET PRINCESS by Elaine Soloway) . See below!
One Memorable Morning
It was about 5am, I was ten years old and as I did almost every
Morning, I slowly crawled from my bed rubbing my still sleepy eyes. I
tried to be as quiet as I could but I knew that my Mom would already
be awake and in the kitchen.
It was my daily routine to go downstairs to our grocery store
on the street level below our one bedroom apartment and let in the
milk man and the bread man who normally arrived about the same time
every weekday morning around 5:30. After they made their deliveries
I would go back upstairs, have breakfast and get ready for school.
This morning, something was wrong, I didn’t know what it was
but as I looked around the store looked like something or someone had
did some damage. Merchandise was all over the floor, our cash register
drawer was laying on the counter, cigarette packs were scattered, and
everything was a mess. I became scared immediately because I thought
whoever had done this might still be there.
I ran out the door yelling hoping that my Dad would hear me but
he was in the tub and didn’t hear me until I ran into the apartment.
“Dad, come quick, someone broke into the store.” He threw some clothes
on, and his apron, which it seems he always wore, and we ran back down
to the store. By that time both of the delivery drivers were in the store
and hollering, “Irv, you’ve been robbed.”
My Dad ran to the phone to call the police and report the burglary.
While waiting for them to arrive we continued checking the damage and
tried to see what damage had been done and what was taken. We got
to the back room that was also a kitchen and saw that the back door was
ripped from it’s hinges. My Dad’s cast iron 500 pound safe was gone and
as he looked through the back door he also noticed his Buick Roadmaster
was also gone.
A few minutes later my Mom and sister came in shaking their head
not believing the scene in front of them. The police soon arrived with
sirens blaring and I’m sure waking everbody in the building and
neighborhood. Two uniformed cops that we knew quite well came
rushing in asking if everyone was OK. Some of our awakened neighbors
also started into the store but were immediately stopped and asked to
please stay outside. A couple more plain clothes detectives soon arrived
and started asking questions and looking around.
Since I was the first one in the store that morning, most of the
questions were answered by me. Mom and Dad were walking around
the store trying to find what ever else might have been taken. My Mom
always left a one dollar bill in the register and even that was taken. The
checks that were underneath the cash drawer were still there evidently
useless to the thieves. I asked Mom many times why she always left that
dollar bill in the register. Her patent answer was always the same, “If
someone robs us they shouldn’t leave empty handed. Luckily the cash
was always taken upstairs every night when they closed the store.
About fifteen minutes later another officer comes running into the
store shouting “we found the car down the alley and the safe is still in
the back seat, unopened.” How they got that safe into the back seat of
the Buick remained an unanswered mystery. It seemed the old Buick
never made it to the end of the alley. I don’t know why, except maybe,
just maybe, it didn’t like the person who was driving.
When the car was towed to our backyard after the police had
checked for fingerprints we had to hire some people to remove the
safe from the backseat, I should say, where the back seat was supposed to
be. I guess they needed the extra room for the safe. Since there was no
cash taken except for the dollar bill and possibly a few cartons of smokes
the only claim to the insurance company was for the damage done in
the kitchen and the cost of cleanup.
My dad said later that day that he should have claimed a larger
loss and as usual my Mom said “Sure, that’s all we need, they would
find out you’re lying and throw You in jail.”
