Memories...

Somebody get Babs to start crooning, OK?

I remember it like it was yesterday... trying to negotiate the parking lot of The Mart on a Friday or Saturday night with some impromptu "keggers" going on, stopping by right out of purchasing a six pack at the Roger Wilco down the street on Rte. 73 in Palmyra in search of some Chicken-On-A-Stick.

Monica Yant Kinney provided some fond remembrances today in The Inquirer:

I don't know what I was thinking, waiting to make my last trip to the Pennsauken Mart until just a couple hours before closing time Sunday.

I figured it would be a long, lonely walk, just me and the melancholy merchants inhaling the stench of death.

Instead, the place was packed. Bargain-hunters and history buffs flocked to the Mart over the weekend in crowds not seen since the 1970s
.
They came. They spent. They cried, hugged and posed for pictures.

In all my years of shopping, I've never embraced anyone on the other side of the cash register at the mall.

But that sort of thing happened all the time at the Mart.

When you buy your lady an engagement ring on layaway, you get to know the clerks pocketing part of your paycheck each week as you get closer and closer to popping the question.

When you haggle with mom-and-pop shop owners over the price of everything from tire rims to tattoos, you can't help but become friends.

Charles Buran spent his childhood cruising the halls and stalls.

Now 34 and the father of four, he insisted on buying his children's clothes, coats and shoes at the Mart even though the family lives 30 miles away in Browns Mills.
Sunday, he dropped a wad of cash for old time's sake.

"You could always work a deal with these people," Buran explained, eying framed art.
"I'm giving them my money up 'til the very end."

Going, going, gone

The deals were plentiful, if pitiful.

There's "going out of business," and then there's "been forced out of business because the snobs who run the suburbs don't like your kind."

Socks for 50 cents? Wigs for $19.99? Seiko watches, half-off. Dusty bottles of perfume, three-for-the-price-of-two. Stereos could be had for a song.

Marc "The Doughnut Man" Pravitz sold out of his deep-fried delights Saturday, so he bought another 30-pound bag of mix for Sunday.

But after a few hours, he had nothing left but a few bags of blueberry cream-flavored coffee.

"You want it?" he asked me.

From gritty end to end, so many people spent so much, the county-imposed manager asked the merchants if they wanted to stay open late and let folks shop 'til they dropped.

Kerry Yobb, who ran the Gold Emporium, just scowled.

After everything local government officials put the merchants through - calling them "vermin", ruining their livelihoods, etc., etc. - the merchants were in no mood to do anyone favors.

And plus, they had a party at 6 p.m. Everyone loves a wake, even if it's your own.

Last dance

Joyce Hanley had a choice:

Should she arrange the inflatable dummies dressed as South Jersey politicos in compromising positions?

Or, should she portray Camden County Freeholders Jeff Nash and Lou Capelli as dogs on a leash attached to their "owner," powerbroker George Norcross?

The Mart's farewell party being a family affair at her beloved Stardust Ballroom, Hanley opted for the canine configuration.

"Who ever dreams of growing up to be someone's dog, anyway?" huffed Hanley, working through her rage.

Scott Talis, who ran a toy store in the Mart for 25 years, was more stoic.

He has a wife and kids to support, and no idea when the new Festival Market in Willingboro will open.

"So I'm going to look for a job at Wal-Mart," Talis said, solemnly.

What would the politicians who loathed the Pennsauken Mart have seen if they came to the last dance?

Tables full of Mart families saying prayers in Spanish and Russian.

Colleagues and competitors reminiscing over meatballs and Miller Lite about how much fun they had eking out a living on their own terms.

And, on stage, kids being kids at the karaoke machine, belting out "Over the Rainbow" completely oblivious to the lyrical significance.

Some day I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me,
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops.
That's where you'll find me.

For nostalgia's sake more than anything else, I took one final drive by this evening, and it was depressing to see the demolition having already begun starting with the sign apart from the Mart facing Rte. 73 as well as the actual building itself. Also, a "gentleman's club" featuring Live Nude Lap Dances had disappeared, which was strategically placed near a Christian Science reading room. The latter remained while the former had long since vanished (drat those "better angels of our nature," so to speak, to take The Great Man's quote more than a bit out of context).

The one thing I can't understand about this, as Kinney touched on a bit in her column, is what Capelli, Nash, and Norcross (who apparently are the greedy schmoes behind this whole scheme) hope to achieve by this. The entire area on Rte. 73 between Cinnaminson and Palmyra to the bridge is zoned industrial. The entire character of the place is defined by machinery parts manufacturers, truck rentals, beer distributors, and titty bars ("shot and a beer back" places...sorry, Lord, but it's true). Does anyone think seriously that you could slap up a bunch of McMansions in a place like that?

I think I'm going to grab myself a "Ying," go downstairs to find "Brian's Song" on an Encore movie channel, sit down and watch it for awhile, and have a good, manly cry (sniff).

Update 2/11: I heard that Spectacor, the company that owns the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team, may end up building a family skating rink there. That's a better use of that property than residential development.