Thrifting on Joan De Arc

By J. Bueker

Thrift store shopping has long been a popular activity for bargain hunters on Joan De Arc, and in fact was originally popularized by former JDA resident Barbara Bueker, who blazed the thrift store trail back in the 1960s, long before such businesses became generally acceptable with the public at large. Before Barbara’s time, thrift stores were typically regarded dimly in these parts as the last pitiful resort of people who were down on their luck and could afford no better shopping venues. Sort of like Wal-Mart today.

The thrift store mecca back in the day was unquestionably the sleepy burg of Sunnyslope, and there were three particular stores that our family commonly frequented there: a Goodwill Thrift at the corner of Central Avenue and Hatcher, a Salvation Army Thrift at Dunlap Avenue and Third Street, and a St. Vincent de Paul Thrift just up the street on the northwest corner of Dunlap and Seventh Street.

The St. Vincent store was situated in a very old and splendidly eccentric building. The front of the store was relatively small and narrow, but opened up into a somewhat larger room with a huge sky light opening in the ceiling. This room contained larger merchandise like beds, appliances, and the like. We found a table top hockey game here in 1970, an item much desired by yours truly, but it was decided that the condition of the game was not quite acceptable for purchase. However, this find did inspire a birthday gift the following spring.

A particularly memorable item that we did purchase at the Sunnyslope St. Vincent was a much coveted statue of St. Joseph that remained on display in the living room at 3219 for many years. Mother gave St. Joe a nice antique appearance by applying liberal amounts of instant coffee to the figure, although as a consequence he was a remarkably sticky statue for many years thereafter.

The Goodwill store was where I found many of my favorite collectible vintage games like Monopoly, Concentration, and Tic-Tac-Dough. This store opened in the mid-60s in small strip mall that had housed the Sunnyslope post office in the ‘50s and early ‘60s. One thing that always stood out about the Goodwill store was that some of its employees were clearly mentally disabled, which was at first disconcerting for a younger child. Over time, one became accustomed to interacting with these people, who turned out to be kind, hard-working folks.

The thrifts did not see nearly as much customer traffic back in those days, which made possible a kind of improvised “lay away” plan. One day, I found a Monopoly game at the Salvation Army store that Mother refused to buy for me, since she was low on cash and I already had six or seven different Monopoly sets sitting at home. I was of course quite upset by this foolish and shortsighted denial of my need for another Monopoly game, but I quickly formulated a plan. I walked to the west end of the store, which featured shelves attached all across the wall (and still does). I placed the game on the very top shelf and pushed it back as far as it would go. A few weeks later, when we next visited the store, the Monopoly game was still there, untouched and available for purchase. On this occasion, Mother was more amenable to buying it for me and did so. Sweet victory.

The golden age of thrift store shopping in Sunnyslope endured from the mid-60s to early ‘70s before its inevitable decline. The Sunnyslope St. Vincent de Paul was the first to go. The shop was closed in the early ‘70s, and that wonderful ancient building on the northwest corner of 7^th St. and Dunlap was razed to the ground the following year. A new strip mall appeared in its place, which has long been anchored by a Tony’s Deli. The Sunnyslope Goodwill remained in the Hatcher and Central location for many years, finally moving to nicer digs on 7^th St. in the early ‘80s. It now resides in the old Walgreens building at 7^th St. and Dunlap. The Sunnyslope St. Vincent De Paul has been housed in the old Kinney’s Shoes store location at 8231 N. 7^th Street since the mid-‘90s.

Of the three original Sunnyslope thrift stores, only the Salvation Army store still exists in its original building. The wall that originally separated the store into two distinct rooms was removed in the late ‘70s, but the location has otherwise remained largely unchanged. Barbara Bueker to this day still visits this store on an occasional basis.

With the advent of eBay, I feel myself less inclined to visit thrift stores in the 21^st century. Yet I still make the pilgrimage to Sunnyslope, every once in a while, to shop for junk I don’t need and to remember the golden age of thrifting on Joan De Arc Avenue.

I may just go and put something in “lay away” this very weekend.

Chess Clinic By J. Bueker

The timeless game of chess is a hallowed pastime on Joan De Arc Avenue, and a wide variety of different styles of chess set have appeared on the street over the years.

Carl Bueker’s elegant, modernistic wooden pieces, which he received as a gift from his mother and wife in the early ‘60s, were always my personal favorite. The pawns, bishops, and kings were identically and simply shaped, with bodies formed from disks and rounded heads. The crowned queen was actually the largest piece in the set, somewhat unusual for a chess set of this or any other era. The coolest pieces in the Carl Bueker set however were the knights, which were beautifully sculpted horse’s heads adorned with bulging plastic eye balls with hand painted black pupils. They actually looked spookily alive at first glance. It was always a genuine treat when father broke out his set for play, as he usually kept it hidden away in his bedroom closet and insisted on playing instead with one of our cheaper plastic toy chess sets. I now have Carl’s treasured set in my personal game collection.

In the late ‘60s, the TG&Y store at Westown Shopping Center began selling a very cool, authentic (that is, plastic) reproduction of a Renaissance chess set that had originally appeared in 15^th century Europe and was now manufactured by the E.S. Lowe Co. By this time, I had become thoroughly fascinated with chess sets in general, and brother Charles and I pleaded for our very own Renaissance set (or at least I did). Mother agreed to purchase the set as an early birthday gift and put it into lay away at TG & Y with the understanding that the purchase would be completed on my father’s next payday. Unfortunately, when the big day came along, Mother decided that the family finances were a little tight that week, and the coveted Renaissance set would have to remain in lay away for at least one more pay period. I was inconsolable at this unconscionable injustice. Who needed groceries when we could have a Renaissance chess set for God’s sake? Two weeks later we had the set, and the crisis had safely passed.

As much as I loved my various plastic chess sets, I longed to possess my very own set of wooden pieces, just like dear old Dad. This quest ultimately led me to the Alta Vista Shopping Center at Northern and 27^th Avenues, where in the ‘60s and early ‘70s was located a most excellent hobby and toy store called Happiness House. This curiously crowded shop presented a wonderfully eclectic selection of kid-oriented merchandise for a wide variety of childhood interests. I vividly recall the science section of the store for instance, which featured experimental chemicals, prepared microscope slides, and small invertebrates preserved in jars of formaldehyde.

In the very back of the store was the game section, where they offered for sale standard wooden sets of Staunton chess pieces in a series of increasingly larger sizes. Naturally, the smallest set was the cheapest and the larger sets progressively more expensive. I started saving my allowances, and was repeatedly urged by my parents to patiently save enough to buy one of the larger sets. Predictably, just as soon as I had enough to buy the cheapest possible set, I did so. Delayed gratification was an ethos that I clearly struggled with throughout the course of my childhood.

The last major chess set that I acquired on Joan De Arc was a beautiful Ancient Rome set that I requested for Christmas, 1971. I appealed to my artist mother’s aesthetic sense when campaigning for this gift. Originally manufactured in 1963 by Classic Games, the pieces were miniature reproductions of sublime ancient Roman sculptures: the king was Augustus Caesar, the queen his wife Livia Drusilla, the bishop Cicero, and so on. Surely, I argued, my art-loving mom would want me to have such a splendid collection of small, plastic reproductions of great ancient works of art. Like, it was educational, even. To her credit, Mother wasn’t terribly impressed with this argument. But I got the set anyway.

This week’s puzzle: White to move and mate in 3 moves

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________JDA

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