Minard's RIP

If you are new to my blog I suggest you read “A Child of the Greatest Generation” published on 08-20-2009 to understand why this story was written.

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When Dad said, “Let’s go out for dinner,” what he meant was: let’s go to Minard’s Spaghetti Inn. It was our favorite. But our favorite restaurant came very close to being another casualty of the Second World War.

When Mike and Rose Minard started serving their now famous sumptuous spaghetti, covered with Mike’s delicious meat sauce and meat balls, with a small salad, smothered in zesty Italian dressing, they knew they had something special.

Like many successful businesses, their enterprise had a humble beginning. In 1937, the Minards started serving that traditional Italian fare to customers at home, in their dining room. Meals were prepared in the family kitchen. Soon they found it necessary to not only put tables in their living room, but to move the family living quarters to the second floor!

Not long after they opened, it was not unusual, while driving past the restaurant, to glance over to see people standing on the Minard family’s front porch. They were waiting for one of the few tables to become available. On many evenings, the Adlers joined the throng.

Not only was the food good, but from the beginning, the ambiance was warm and inviting. After moving away, whenever any of the Adlers returned to Clarksburg, a must do was to stop at Minard’s. But that “must do” nearly died a tragic death before Minard’s Spaghetti Inn reached adolescence.

During WW II, nearly everything worth having was rationed: gas, auto tires (you couldn’t buy a new car), sugar, coffee, and especially meat. If mother didn’t have enough rationed coupons to buy beef for the family, father’s solution was, “Let’s go to Minard’s!” During the war, waiting to get a table there was longer than ever. Their business was booming.

Then rumors began to spread that Minards was using dog and cat meat in their meat balls and meat sauce. Some whispered they used horses and rats as well. The alleged sources of the rumors varied from competitors wanting them out of business, to a story attributed to a city sewer worker who claimed to have found dog and cat skeletons in the sewer near the restaurant.

Regardless of the source, the effect was devastating on the young business. In a small town rumors spread quickly. During the war there was famous poster with this slogan, “Loose lips sink ships.”

Loose lips almost sank Manard’s. Customers vanished, except for one small segment of the community that wasn’t buying any of it. The saviors of Minard’s came from an unexpected source.

As children, my father told us this rumor story, which I wanted to believe, but it seemed a bit far out. That was until a January, 2008, trip “back home” with my wife, younger brother and a Pittsburgh cousin, who came along for a ride, and of course, lunch at Minard’s.

As was tradition, whenever we went there to eat, I mentioned to the server that a couple of the Adler boys were here and wondered if there were any Minard family members at the restaurant. We had always been warmly greeted, and well received when any of us showed up, even 50 years later.

On this occasion, Mike and Rose’s son, Joe, came to the table with a big smile on his face and extended a hearty hand shake.

“Do you remember the Adlers,” I asked?

“Do I ever, I used to buy my suits from your dad’s store. My father loved your dad and all of the Adlers.”

I was soon to discover just why. During the course of our visit, I inquired about the rumor stories my father told us in our youth. Joe said it was all true and then some. The part of that rumor, I had never heard, was Minard’s also started using pork in their meat.

Joe explained! Out of respect for the small Clarksburg Jewish community, Mike and Rose let it be known from the very beginning, Minard’s never used pork in anything they served. Pork was not kosher. It was a sincere gesture that paid dividends.

When the tainted meat stories surfaced, the Jews of Clarksburg would have nothing to do with any of it. Instead, to show support for the family and their establishment, they turned out in mass and on a very regular basis at Minard’s Spaghetti Inn. It was a time when no one else would come there to eat. Joe said that gesture and support saved the family business. Realizing what was happening brought tears to his parent’s eyes. It was something the family would never forget.

To this day, according to Joe, even though there are very few Jews left in the area, Minard’s still does not use pork in any of their recipes. Had it not been for the belief of a small segment of the community, over 60 years ago, imagine all of the great spaghetti and meat sauce, people within a days drive of Minard’s would never had eaten, and don’t forget those great salads, smothered in that zesty Italian dressing! Then there was that home baked Italian bread…

What if we had lost the Second World War?

Had we lost the war would this picture have be taken?

L-R Standing, Joel & me. Seated Gary, Mom & Bob - circa 1952

If you are new to my blog I suggest you read “A Child of the Greatest Generation” published on 08-20-2009 to better understand why this story was written.

more reflections

Unthinkable you say! How could that be? Consider for the moment how your life would have been had Germany and the Nazis won World War II. If you were born before 1945, would you still be alive? If you were born after 1945, would you have ever been born?

For a small part of the wartime Clarksburg community, the answer to what the future held, had the war been lost, was abundantly clear. They would have become the “Silenced Minority.”

For many of us, going to the movies, during the war, on Saturday morning, was a ritual. What you could get for 12¢ was a bargain. As a kid you got to go to the movies by yourself or with the gang from your neighborhood. As a mom, the house was much quieter and you generally had the morning to yourself.

We would walk downtown to the Robinson-Grand Theater to see the next edition of an exciting, never ending serial about the good guys chasing the bad guys. That kept you coming back every Saturday, Then there were cartoons that made the theater rock with laughter and boos, followed by either Movietone or Pathé newsreels, black and white stories “From around the Globe.” Before television it was a kid’s visual window on the world.

What we saw then…today would be called sound bites, a series of short black and white films covering what the editors thought we should not only hear about, but more importantly, see.

It was on one of those Saturdays in early 1945…and one of those sound bite stories that, at the age of 9, changed my life forever. It was a sound bite about the soldiers finding something called a concentration camp. As the newsreel’s gruesome pictures showed on the big screen, and the voice over explained, these were extermination camps where the Jews of Europe had been taken as part of Hitler’s Final Solution.

It showed piles of emaciated dead bodies, painfully thin survivors wearing pajama type uniforms with bold vertical stripes, and finally large ovens with their doors flung opened revealing human remains. As the voice explained, here was how the Nazi’s disposed of the dead.

I left the theater that day badly shaken, with the indelible imprint of those pictures in my mind, and to this day, in my memory. The war was all but won, but I realized, even at that tender age, if the bad guys had won, my fate and that of my family was sealed. I am Jewish and had the bad guys won, all of the Jews in Clarksburg, West Virginia, would have ended up in a camp like that, and ultimately in one of those ovens.

Living in our town, the 65 or so Jewish families were a white minority. If the story had turned out differently we would have been the “Silenced Minority.”

Should you wish to see part of what I saw at age 9, please do so with this admonition; The world should never forget. Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eoKJ-Zr6Rc.

Operator, Number Please

Mother and her four noise makers. 1945

If you are new to my blog I suggest you read “A Child of the Greatest Generation” published on 08-20-2009 to better understand why this story was written.

more reflections

When I picked up the phone a voice on the other end said, “Operator, Number Please.”

1-8-6-0 I replied. I was 10 years old, calling my dad’s store on his highly prized private line. Our home number was 3-3-7-6-M. The initial following the number meant we had a party line. We shared 3-3-7-6 with an unknown number of unknown people.

It was the 1940s. This was state of the art communications, according to AT&T, then the only telephone company in the country. If I picked up the phone and heard other people talking, it was one of those unknown people sharing 3-3-7-6. I had to wait my turn.

Ma Bell offered a phone in any color you wanted, as long as it was black. I thought we were privileged because we also had a black extension phone upstairs.

About once a month, mother would call her sisters in Pittsburgh and would warn her four sons to be quiet while she used the phone. The long distance connection was not always good, and her boys making a ruckus in the background only added to the problem.

We knew the routine well. Mother would sit at the small telephone desk, located in the downstairs entryway, set her three minute egg timer next to the phone, pick up the receiver and after hearing “Operator, Number Please” she would reply, “Long distance please.” There would be a pause, while the local operator connected mom to the long distance operator. After being greeted with, “Long Distance, Number Please,” she responded, “Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, HAzel 1-2-7-7-1.” In the big cities they not only had five numbers instead of four, but a fancy name in front of them.

As soon as one of her sisters answered, mother turned over the three minute egg timer and began to talk. Before the last grain of sand fell into the bottom of the timer, mother, often in mid sentence, said “good by.” and hung up…and for good reason. If she had gone over three minutes by just a second it would cost her an extra 50¢. A long distance call to Pittsburgh cost 50¢ a minute, and that’s in 1940 dollars!

In 1948 much of that changed. I was in the seventh grade when we had an assembly at Central Junior High. Our guest speaker was Ann Scott from Ma Bell. I was impressed, Ann Scott, who couldn’t have been over 20, was the older sister of one of our Terra Cotta Alley gang, Carol Scott. Ann explained that over the next few months the phone company would be installing dial telephones and illustrated how to use the new phone. There would no longer be that friendly voice saying, “Operator, Number Please” and more private lines would be available.

Like in Pittsburgh, Ann explained, we would have five rather than four numbers and no trailing letter but, unlike Pittsburgh, we didn’t have any fancy name in front of those numbers. Oh yes, mother would have to keep using her egg timer when she called her sisters. Long distance calls continued to cost 50¢ a minute. With no competition, that didn’t change for years.

Nick the Tailor

If you are new to my blog I suggest you read “A Child of the Greatest Generation” published on 08-20-2009 to better understand why this story was written.

more reflections

Nick fought in World War One for the Italian Army, on the Allies side. He lost a leg, above the knee, in battle and for the rest of his life walked on a wooden leg. What he lost in walking agility he made up with his tailoring skills. Nick was one heck of a tailor. He worked for my dad in the late 40’s and early 50’s at Adler’s Men’s Store on the corner of Pike and 3^rd Streets.

I always admired Nick, not just for his skills, but for his caring attitude. From time to time it was difficult understanding what he was saying because of his Italian accent, but what I couldn’t understand verbally, I could understand from the look in his eyes. He was a very special human being. One of the greatest Nick stories occurred when dad took a suit, a customer unexpectedly returned, back to Nick’s bench, in the rear of the store, for him to examine. Nick had a keen eye for anything that seemed unusual.

This customer, who dad said was not a regular, came into the store a week earlier to purchase the suit. When dad asked what size he wore he replied it wasn’t for him but for his brother, who couldn’t come in. He quickly chose a nice suit in his brother’s size and took it, without even having the pants cuffed.

Dad thought this a bit strange but the customer, after paying for the suit, said he would bring it back to have it cuffed if his brother liked his choice.

A week later, the customer returned with the suit and asked for his money back. My father sensed something was not quite right. It was a bit wrinkled. Nick would have to at least press it before dad put it back on the rack. On a hunch, before refunding the man’s money, he took the suit back to Nick and asked him to look it over and press it. Before the inspection was complete, dad returned to the customer to see if he might want to purchase something else with his pending refund. He didn’t.

A few minutes later father heard Nick walking toward the front of the store. Nick could never sneak up on you because with every other step, his wooden leg would emit a loud click! The metal knee joint was designed to stop at a certain angle, preventing it from folding up under him. When his knee reached that point, it clicked. Dad turned to see Nick beckoning him to come back to his bench.

“Mr. Adler, “he said, “Please smell the pants!”

Dad sniffed and smelled what appeared to be the faint scent of embalming fluid. Then a light went on. He remembered seeing an obituary that this customer’s father had recently died. The suit wasn’t for his brother. It was for his father! Because the customer’s father didn’t have a nice suit in which to be buried, his son got a loaner suit, so he thought, from Adler’s. After the service, but before the burial the suit was removed from the corpse and returned for a refund.

Because of Nick’s sharp nose, not only did the man not get his refund, Nick refused to cuff the pants.

The Germans are coming the Germans are coming!

If you are new to my blog I suggest you read “A Child of the Greatest Generation” published on 08-20-2009 to better understand why this story was written.

more reflections

It had just gotten dark. My brothers and I were playing in the back yard when the sirens started to scream. We instinctively knew what it meant, we instinctively knew where to go…in the house and into the front room den.

As we came in the back door father, wearing his air raid warden’s pith helmet, was heading out the front door. The Germans are coming, the Germans are coming. It was an air raid drill we had gotten quite used to ever since that fateful Sunday, December 7, 1941.

Mother pulled the den’s drapes closed, then turned off all the lights throughout the house. The closed drapes did little to soften the din of the air raid siren across the street, atop the East End fire station. We were at war and this was one of the things kids had to deal with. My three year old brother Gary was having trouble dealing, not so much with the sound, but with the dark and it was dark, it was really dark!

All of the street lights were off and there were no car headlights, because there were no cars on the streets. There was no light in the Feeny’s house, across the street nor the Church’s house on the corner. The O’Connell’s and Oliverio’s houses, down Philippi Street, were dark too. The Smitty’s Drug Store’s sign was off and the store, across the street from the fire station, was hardly visible through the pitch black.

There wasn’t a hint of light anywhere, including in our den and as usual, Gary was screaming like a banshee. He hated the dark so much mother had to put a night light in his bedroom so he could go to sleep.

On this night he was in rare form. Mother sprung into action. She went to his bedroom, got the night light and turned it on in the den. It worked. It got quiet…until there was a knock at the front door. It was an air raid warden. He saw a little light showing through the drapes and warned mother that if he saw it again she would get a citation.

Learning about WW II was a daily topic at Linden Grade School. There I learned a great deal about the war, about geography, about what our country was doing to fight the war, building ships on east coast ports, planes in California, and tanks in Detroit.

I had seen news reels at the Robinson-Grand movie house on Saturday mornings, pictures of B-17s bombing Germany and soldiers fighting on small islands in the Pacific. A little knowledge, for an inquisitive eight year old, is a dangerous thing.

Lying on the den floor, on those dark nights with Gary’s protests ringing in my ear, I kept wondering…if the Germans could fly all the way across the ocean why would they chose Clarksburg, West Virginia, of all places, to bomb?

However, I kept my thoughts to myself. It might be unpatriotic to ask my teacher!

A Child of the Greatest Generation

We all reach an age where we have more to look back on than forward to!

A message from Bill Adler, in birthday cards, to his three brothers

Reflections-of my Youth grew from that revelation. It is the product of my "post retirement" efforts to continue to remain productive. Here is an autobiographical series of short stories, in many cases accompanied by pictures of the time, about growing up during and following the Second World War.

Born in a small town in the hills of West Virginia, in the middle of the great depression, I am a child of what author and former NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw calls The Greatest Generation, those men and women who served our country on the home front, as well as on the battlefields, during World War II.

Should you choose to join me and travel back in time by reading my stories, be prepared to also travel back in your own life, revisiting stories of your own youth.

Regardless of your age, 79, 59, 39, or 19, I assure you it will be a wondrous journey. Through these stories your travels will bring a flood of personal memories; hopefully most of them of the pleasant variety.

Over the next months, and g-d willing, years, I will be posting stories of a little boy who became a growing and curious kid, morphing into an adolescent, growing into and surviving the confusion of puberty, and maturing toward manhood...tales of the first 17 1/2 years of my life.

The stories will not be sequential, but rather random, as a memory prompts me to write and post.

The goal is to ultimately stitch these stories into Chapters with titles like:

• Stories I never told my mother (or my father),
• How I helped win the war,
• A white minority kid in a southern town,
• A funny thing happened on my way to maturity

...leading to a book, should I discover through blogging, there is enough interest out there in reading such a publication.

And, if the initial endeavor is successful, the next logical sequel would be reflections-of YOUR Youth--stories readers, like you, share with me.

You are invited to share your thoughts, your comments and if so inclined, your stories by posting your comments or emailing me at billsreflections@gmail.com.

Please join me in what could be a Wondrous Adventure.

All material produced by W. Jay Adler on this blog are subject to International Copyright laws.