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MR. JOSEPH TROOP, President
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20
MY UNCLE
BARNEY
By Irving Halperin
When Uncle Barney came
into our lives, the store was
showing an average loss of
some hundred dollars a week.
My mother couldn’t cope with
the situation, and I was of little
help to her. I hated the store,
the grocery business. To cush
ion a sense of guilt I would say
to myself—and sometimes to
her—I dropped out of high
school after Dad’s death, so
wasn’t that enough of a sacri
fice? Besides, how responsi
ble is a kid of sixteen supposed
to be ... ? So the burden of
running the store fell to Mo
ther, and she simply had no
talent for it. Working along
side Father as she had for
years was one thing, and
operating a store with a big
overhead, three clerks on the
payroll and against fierce com
petition from powerful chain
stores along the street was
another. Since the store had
barely broken even from
week to week when father,
an experienced grocer, was
alive, how could she have
expected to make a steady liv
ing from it? No, with Father’s
death the business was doom
ed, and after a year of trying
to make a living, she sold the
store and took a job as a de
partment store sales clerk. Un
til that time, the long hours
six days a week was hers, the
abuse from customers was
hers, and the after-closing
hours job of checking out the
register was hers. She would
count the day’s receipts and
find the usual ten or fifteen
dollars shortage. True, it was
possible that here and there
one of the clerks might have
accidentally given a customer
too much change. But they
were far too experienced for
us to conclude that mistakes
regularly accounted for such
deficits. Someone was steal
ing from us. This would have
been fairly easy to do, for as
we did not ■employ a cashier,
all three clerks had free ac
cess to the register.
My mother and I suspected
Jim. Father had never trusted
him either. The two girl
clerks, Mary and Babs, were
beyond suspicion. They had
worked for us five years (two
years longer than Jim), since
the day the store opened, and
my father had never had any
thing but praise for them. We
believed they were content to
be working, to settle for an
honest week’s wages. So that
left Jim, but we had no evi
dence to support our suspi
cions. Whenever possible, I
watched him at the register
but he was too smart, too quick
not to know when I was watch
ing. Also, there were times
when I was not in the store
and Mother, beset by salesmen,
customers, delivery men, could
not keep an eye on him either.
She was in anguish not only
because the business was fail
ing but because it hurt her that
someone would steal from her,
a widow, and so soon after
Father’s death. “Don’t people
have a conscience?” she
would say to me, rhetorically.
What didn’t make her day
at the store any less painful is
the abuse she took from Jim.
He talked back, ridiculed her
in the presence of Mary and
Babs, didn’t try to get the cus
tomers to buy those items on
which there was a high mark
up, took much longer lunch
and coffee breaks than he was
entitled to, sat inside the john
for sometimes a half hour at
a time. And when my mother
quietly called him on any oi
those counts, he answered in a
snotty voice and told her that
if she didn’t like it to fire him.
Which, as he well knew, she
was not in a position to do.
Because as bad as he was at
least he knew the business—
knew it far better than she.
He had a talent for building
floor displays, painting signs,
arranging merchandise in the
windows, maintaining the
stockroom, taking inventories.
And who else was there for
lifting the heavy cartons,
boxes, coffee bags, butter
tubs? Slight, thin of bone and
muscle, I certainly couldn’t
have done the heavy labor.
Fire him anyway, I would say
to my mother. Someone else
will be better? she would
bitterly reply. A new man
Continued on page 34
The Southern Israelite