It was a Christmas tradition

It was a Christmas ritual.
One night a week or two before the holiday, my father would head out for a shopping trip. And more often than not, my little sister and I would tag along.
His goal was to find an appropriate Christmas gift for our mother, and when we were small that meant he was also shopping for gifts for us to give her.
He had a circuit, and it’s a sad commentary that almost none of the places on his shopping route are still in business in this “big box” era we live in.
Miller’s Dress Shop, just west of the Hines Theatre, was one of his stops. Then, he’d probably head over to Goodman’s, another dress shop, on Meridian Street.
And while he’d shop, he would visit. There was always something to talk about, especially with the Goodmans.
My sister and I would occupy ourselves by making faces in the mirrors or by hiding in the racks of dresses.
From there, he’d probably head over to the Weiler Store, Jay County’s version of a department store, now the site of John Jay Center for Learning.
There, we’d amuse ourselves listening to the endless click-click-click of the cash carrier that sent every transaction up to the bookkeeper’s office on the mezzanine.
Or he’d stop by the Boston Store, a still smaller dry goods merchandise chain. That store burned down in the late 1960s, and I think the chain went out of business in the 1970s.
(Years later, I learned that the father of one of my newspaper buddies, Bob Zaltsberg, editor of the Bloomington paper, was manager of the Portland Boston Store at the time of the fire.)
If jewelry happened to be on Dad’s list, he tended to favor Arn’s Jewelry Store. He was fond of Claudia Arn, the matriarch of the business, and the jeweler/watch repair specialist was Don Schoenlein, who lived just down the street.
By now, my sister and I were getting impatient and bored.
Because after awhile, it seemed that Dad was just as interested in talking and visiting as he was in shopping.
Politics was always on the agenda, but the health of the local economy usually topped the list. “How’s business?” wasn’t just a pleasantry.
Dad was taking the temperature of every shop like a doctor making his rounds.
After that, the conversation could turn anywhere: High school basketball, bits of gossip, the state of public education, potholes that needed to be fixed, the crazy music teenagers were listening to. You name it.
Eventually, before we went home with his gifts for Mom and the ones he’d purchased in our names, we’d make a stop at the Main Street Service Station.
Main Street was kind of an odd animal. It was a gasoline station — Marathon as I recall — and a garage. But it also sold tires, bicycles, and appliances.
Now, I think it’s a safe bet that my mother never received tires for Christmas. There may have been a large appliance one year. And at least one of the bikes in our garage came from Main Street.
But the real attraction was Jesse Strohl. He was about the same age as Dad, and they must have seen eye to eye on things. Or maybe Dad just valued Jesse’s opinion.
Whatever it was, the attraction was so strong that whenever I smell new tires, I think of those Christmas shopping stops.
Sadly, almost all of those businesses are long gone. The sole exception: Strohl TV and Appliances grew out of Jesse’s business on Main Street.
But the last I knew, they didn’t carry tires.

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