<\/p>\n
The phone number at AAA<\/span> <\/strong>Window Shade Co.<\/span> <\/strong>was 221-3700. \u00a0The proprietor, Joe Villoni, started there at 13, and was 87 when he pulled the last shade down.\u00a0 Seventy-four years: same job, same location.<\/p>\n He quit in 2003 because nobody was buying window shades anymore.\u00a0 Everybody was into $5 mini-blinds at Home Depot. \u00a0My father,Toby, and I had kept Joe’s rent low because Joe never asked for anything.<\/p>\n The store’s wood floor had a grooved path circumnavigating the huge window shade\u2014making machine. That apparatus, and possibly the whole store, belonged in the Henry Ford Museum.<\/p>\n I always liked Joe — and the other old-guy tenants.\u00a0 I was just a baby, a pisher<\/em> (pisser\/youngster), to these guys.\u00a0 Another old tenant, Jim English, gave me a metal Phillies cigar box full of screws.\u00a0 I appreciated the cigar box more than the screws. I was in my twenties and collected anything older than myself.<\/p>\n An old custodian, Jeanne Saunders,<\/strong><\/span> left me several novel manuscripts when she died. She had one lung, a great disposition, and a tough life; she should have written her life story and gone easier on the long, lanky cowboys and gladiators.<\/p>\n Another old custodian, Mary Kubichar, produced a concert for Yiddishe Cup.\u00a0 It was at the Beck Center for the Performing Arts on the West Side. \u00a0That was the first — and last — West Side Yiddishe Cup concert. \u00a0(West Side<\/em> means “not a lot of Jews.”)<\/p>\n Mary was from western P.A.\u00a0 (You need to say each letter: P<\/em>. A<\/em>.)\u00a0 She never married.\u00a0 After retiring from Higbee’s department store, she became a super volunteer at her church and the Beck arts center.\u00a0 So when she told the arts center to hire Yiddishe Cup, they owed her.\u00a0 The concert turned into an appreciation party for Mary.\u00a0(She died the next year.) Even the publisher of the Cleveland Plain Dealer<\/em> showed up. \u00a0It was a very big deal.\u00a0 We played a couple Slovak pieces for Mary. The phone number at AAA Window Shade Co. was 221-3700. \u00a0The proprietor, Joe Villoni, started there at 13, and was 87 when he pulled the last shade down.\u00a0 Seventy-four years: same job, same location. He quit in 2003 because nobody was buying window shades anymore.\u00a0 Everybody was into $5 mini-blinds at Home Depot. \u00a0My father,Toby, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-landlord-biz","category-toby-stratton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=949"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8637,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949\/revisions\/8637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n—-<\/span>
\n1 of 2 posts for 10\/28\/09.\u00a0 Please see post below too.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"