So Long Benny's

Benny's started out as a small tire stand in 1924 in Providence, Rhode Island and grew to over thirty retail establishments throughout New England. The store had something different for every member of my family. For me it was a trip on Saturday mornings to look at Tyco train sets and Revell scale plastic models while my father searched for the cheapest garden hose or smallest bag of grass seed. My mother would use Benny's for her art supplies when she didn't want to drive the extra five miles to the craft supply store, Carson and Ellis, just north. She would emerge from Benny's with all sorts of things she didn't need as she did whenever she went grocery shopping. Eventually, my father took over all the household purchasing because as he put it,

"Your mother would go grocery shopping and come home with a broom handle and a soap dish."

He would ask her, "Where's the milk?"

"We're out of milk?" she often answered.

In the mid '70's, my father worked at the Benny's on Park Street in Cranston as a second job. He wasn't squirrelling away money for retirement, going out to dinner or taking us on family vacations with all the extra dough he earned selling chaise lounges for Benny's at night. He was using the money to pay bills. In 1976, he went on strike from his primary job at Gorham Manufacturing Company, a silver design and fabrication company established in 1831. That was a tough year. We were poor, but none of us kids knew it until the Catholic church we attended printed our name in the newsletter under the title "Delinquent Families" for not keeping up with our weekly donations. My father took on a low paying piece work factory job, far beneath his skills, and expanded his hours at Benny's. That year we consoled ourselves that meatloaf on Thanksgiving was a welcomed change.

Benny's on Park Avenue

My father would rush home in his beat up Ford Country Squire with simulated wood panels, take a quick shower, don a burnt orange button down shirt complete with a white pocket protector topped with "Benny's" scrawled in red script. He would shovel down his dinner then head out the door. Often I wouldn't see him again until the next day. To get my father to stay longer I would ask him to tell us a "Benny's story." He always had time to make people laugh. Once he recalled,

"Some guy came in looking for a 'snaffle wrench'."

The sales associate told him, "We don't have those?"


Ford Country Squire

The customer was insistent, "I know you have snaffle wrenches."

"I'm telling you, we don't have snaffle wrenches," the sales guy explained.  

"I know I've seen them in here before."

"I'm tellin' you we don't have no snaffle wrenches."

As the customer turned and headed for the door, my father, never passing on an opportunity to mess with someone, yelled to the sales clerk,

"Hey Ted! When you're done with that customer can you unload that crate of snaffle wrenches in the back?"

The first rule of sales is to never let the customer out of the store empty handed, and my father's boss was fond of shouting this lesson. Retelling his boss's sage advice, my dad would say,

"If someone comes in here looking for shit in a brown paper bag, you ask them how much they want!"


 

My dad said that Benny's would close at 8 pm on Christmas eve. The store didn't take credit cards for years, preferring merchandise to be put on layaway. Many people were members of the Benny's Christmas Club which required a monthly payment paid to the store as a means to save for Christmas. My father recalled that every year some dude would run up to the door at five past eight to get his kid's Christmas presents. The guy was usually shitfaced from an after office party. He would bang on the door until someone would let him in. My father was always the advocate for the procrastinator drunk businessman because as he put it,

"Some snot nose kids wasn't going to have a Christmas if I didn't open the door."

Once in her early twenties my sister went into Benny's for hardware to fix the latch on the hood of her green Capri, her first car. She walked into the store and said,

"I need a three inch screw."

A young sales clerk exclaimed, "Boy, you're not very picky."

"I need some help," she whimpered.

The guy went out to the parking lot to see what was wrong with my sister's car. He selected the bolt she needed and installed it for her. Benny's was good for that. When you bought a battery, they would install the new one and recycle the old battery for you. They were very helpful. Those days are gone replaced with the vacant stares of Wal-Mart associates and the deflected glances of Lowe's floor workers.

My father and I would kid around when we were in Benny's. Once time my dad was ahead of me in the checkout line. I acted annoyed as he pulled out a check to pay for his merchandise. I said,

"Come on ole man! I ain't got all day."

My father stood upright while saying, "I'll knock your block off."

"You must have missed your Geritol," I quipped.

"I rocked with the best of them in the Big Apple. I'll mop the floor with you," my father continued.

"You've been watching too much Lawrence Welk," I retorted.

My father would flex his biceps and say, "See these guns, sonny? They won World War II."

When my father commuted with a friend to Benny's after dinner, my

Ross Apollo 12 Three Speed

mother had to pick him up later in the night at closing. Many times in the winter my mother would pack up us kids in our pajamas and winter coats for the cold ride to the outskirts of town to retrieve my father. Once in milder weather, I recall being allowed to go into the store and pick out a toy. A memorable event, the Matchbox car I selected sits atop my desk to this day.

All our bicycles were purchased at Benny's. My Ross Apollo 12 three speed came from the store as did my sister's purple and white Columbia balloon tire with the matching handlebar tassels. My kid's bikes all came from Benny's as did all our inflatable beach toys, Frisbees and boogie boards. Each year our "back to school" supplies were purchased from Benny's even though the selection was better from the big box office supply chain. All this came to an end in 2017.

Fan Wall at Electronic Sports
League's Counter Strike Competition
in Brooklyn in 2017

Progress often implies things get better, but that's not always the case. Married couples no longer register for a silver service set. In the past people used to pick up one place setting each year, but that is no more. Over the last two decades ornate sterling silver hollowware slipped out of vogue, and Gorhams Manufacturing Company moved their skilled jobs out of the country to save money. Steam engines gave way to diesels which yielded to electricity ironically returning train travel back to coal since the majority of electricity today is generated from lumps of the black fuel. Today, steam engines are a nostalgic sight to those that remember their widespread use and an anomaly to the younger generation.

So too is Benny's. People like me experienced the closure of the family operation as the loss of an old friend. Like steam engines, Benny's was abandoned on a siding as purchasing moved forward online through major commercial retailers. Just as my parents experienced the demise of Woolworth's department stores, my generation endured the closure of their fond childhood memories. It's doubtful that our kids will mourn the loss of Wal-Mart.

For most my life, experience has taught me to believe that change invariably brings about improvement, but now I'm not so sure. Sometimes the wheels of progress don't always carry us to a better place.

Editor’s Note: Originally posted on September 21, 2017. Three years later I still miss Benny’s.