The Adventures of Nellie and Doris: The One At Candy's Kwik Shop

Across the street from my house in SE Portland there was a small market.  Well, it looked small but when you entered it was like Dr. Who's tardis phonebooth. It went on forever.

Anything you needed was in that store. Need a ham for Thanksgiving dinner? Yep, got that.  Need the coldest beer and freshest popcorn in town? Yep, got that. Need eggs, cigarettes, milk, pancake syrup? Oh yeah. Video games and fresh donuts, along with freshly brewed coffee. We even had an ATM machine, hot dogs on a spit, freshly baked cookies. And candy...lots and lots of candy.

The store became a Minit Mart about a year after I moved into the neighborhood. None of us were happy that some corporate store was moving into the space.  After all, it used to be a real market with fresh butchered meat from a meat counter. That was before my time, but yeah it used to be real. And along comes a Minit Mart. The previous owner came over to my house, sat on the front step, and told me about the sale. He apologized but said it was time to move on. But hey! That new Minit Mart turned out to be owned by the greatest couple in the world: Bill and Candy Field.

I got to know the owners quickly. I was working for Portland Public Schools as a Special Education Aide. My first year at college, I continued working for PPS but then summer came along; I was out of work. I had been hanging around the owners of the store in the daytime and the night clerks later on, so the owners gave me a job. I started working nights--3:00-closing. It was the best place to be! I was able to learn all the neighborhood gossip, meet all the kids up and down the area, and could have my kids sleep in their own beds at night.  After all, I was right across the street.

My kids were taken care of by Nellie on the weekends and after school. She would then help them brush their teeth and go to bed at night at our house.  It worked out pretty good.  As school started, they became latchkey kids.  They would come home, come over to see me at the store, and then go over Nellie's for dinner and homework. While they would visit me at least once a day, they were not allowed to hang out at the store while I worked.  As they got older, they would come over and grab something like Reeser's 49cent burrito or a hot dog for an afternoon snack.

After a while, Bill and Candy needed a weekend morning clerk. Nellie asked for the job.  Now the truth was that Candy was unsure of Nellie as a clerk. She thought Nellie was too soft and didn't have the gumption to toss out someone who needed to be tossed out. That was the surprise of Candy's life...Nellie came from strong gumptions.  That woman tossed out more shoplifters than any other clerk, including Bill. She was used to spotting the "untrusted" out there because some of her husband's family were...hmmm...how does one say this...cheaters. Shoplifters. Free-hand shoppers. She could spot one anywhere.

So there the weekends were: Nellie opened the store and I closed it. We were taught to walk around the store and face the products on the shelves when the store was slow. We were so used to doing this that we would go into any store and start facing their cans and goods as we shopped. 

Some years down the line, Bill and Candy bought out Minit Mart and turned the little store into Candy's Kwik Shop. While they had some losers working for them here and there--the one who quit a morning gig by leaving a note on my door...I had to get up and dress, open the store until Bill or Candy could get there.  Or the one who had "hurt his foot" and had so much bandages and gauze around it that it looked like a basketball.  I sent him home and worked. He never came back. Or the woman who worked maybe one weekend and quit to work at a 7-11 across town. No notice; just quit--while they had a few losers, the majority of the workers were loyal and great.  My younger son started there as a bottle boy and began on the till after he turned 18. My friend Stewart started working weekends to my nights before Nellie came on. At one point every neighbor kid worked there, either as a bottle boy, stacking the coolers, or sweeping the lot.

And who was in charge of the neighborhood on all those weekends? Yeah. Nellie and me.

and the beat goes on
peace~~~