Kelsey's on the Avenue

You may wonder at the name for my blog. It's the name of my Daddy's grocery store in Urbana, Illinois. It was the center of our lives when I was growing up. The store was open from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m., Monday - Saturday. That meant that someone in our family was there all day. Every evening, Mother would feed my brothers, sister and I, leave us home, and drive a few blocks to the store to relieve Daddy so that he could come home and have dinner and a break. Those breaks would include planting flowers, which he loved, mowing, painting the fence and other things that needed doing. When my grandparents were alive, they were able to help, but it soon fell all on Daddy's shoulders.

I loved that store. It was our home away from home. A very safe place. I often stopped there on the way home from school -- it was about the half way point. Daddy would give me money for a small bottle of Coke, and get me a bag of chips. I'd enjoy my treat and then, when I was ready to go on home, he would take my hand and walk me halfway across the busy street, and then make sure it was safe for me to cross over the rest of the way, while he stood in the middle watching.

Every evening of my young life during warm weather, we stopped whatever we were doing to get to the store at 8:30 where everyone in the family pitched in to carry all of the baskets and baskets of fruit and vegetables and all of the pots of flowers inside the store for closing. We had a huge rolling "truck" on which we would load the bushel baskets, wheel that inside, unload it, and then back again. Then we would ride with Daddy to put the truck away in the garage he rented from neighbors, and then skip with him back to the store. What a Daddy I had. Sometimes, we would go to the A&W or Dairy Queen afterward.

We hated doing that every night then, but I would love to go back and do it once more, with our family all together.

We were coming home from vacation several years ago and stopped somewhere at a small town gas station. Steve went in to pay and came back to the car and told me I had to come inside. The gas station was also a small family-owned grocery -- he knew I would love it!

And he was right.