When we shop at the co-op we take advantage of the parking spot while we walk downtown, have coffee at Fuego and stroll along the river to the Ford Street Bridge where we cross back into Pete and Gloria’s neighborhood in the South Wedge. Pete is usually at his drawing table in the front of the house and Gloria is usually in the kitchen, at her computer or making noise with the pots and pans. We visit and laugh and move on. This time we added a stop at Axom where we chatted with both owners, Rick and Robin. We were standing in the front of the store while we talked, looking at the buildings across the street. The one to the right in my photo (above) used to be Bobby Moore’s hair salon. Everyone loved Bobby. I pointed to the low lying building to the left, with the datestone reading 1926, it was my grandfather’s grocery store in the thirties. And we all marveled at the brick building in the center.
Robin said some of the shop-owners in the Wedge were working on a history of that section of the city and I promised her I would send a link to photos my father collected on my grandfather’s three stores. The one on South Avenue was short -lived but it was a big enough deal that Jack Dempsey did an in-store appearance.
My grandfather, Raymond Tierney, was born number eight in a family of eleven. He liked to quote what he called his mother, Winifred Maloney’s poem. Whether she wrote it or just had it memorized was never made clear.
“Life is like a mighty river,
flowing from day to day.
Men are vessels launched upon it,
sometimes wrecked and tossed away.
Some succeed at every turning,
fortune favors every scheme.
Others who are quite deserving,
have to puli against the stream.
Do your best for one another,
making life a brighter dream.
Help the tired and worn out brother,
pulling hard against the stream.”
All is right with the world.🤔