Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 25, 1993 TAG: 9304220069
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"No Loitering Around Register or Counter. Thank You For Your Cooperation. The Management."
Nobody pays it much attention.
All day, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., people gather around the glass enclosure. Some want to buy things. But many just want to visit with Hazel Padgett, a tiny, tireless woman who constitutes "The Management."
There's plenty of good shopping at the store: second-hand clothes, furniture, appliances, Reader's Digest Condensed Books, miscellaneous trinkets and just about anything else you can name. But it's as much as social center for this slice of Southeast Roanoke as it is a place of business.
"Miz Padgett is a wonderful person," says Susan, a regular customer.
" 'Cept when I get angry," Padgett jokes. "Then I'm awful."
Susan, a mother of seven, stops by every day to look for deals and chat with Padgett.
"Sometimes she's so down," Padgett says. "But I usually have her smiling by the time she leaves. . . . If I was paid for therapy, I'd be a millionaire."
Padgett figures she has about two dozen regular customers who come in almost every day. "Some of 'em just come and to say `Hi' and `God bless.' I look forward to seeing them. Some of 'em I forget their names. But they know me."
Donald Rife, who lives on Highland Avenue, is sitting in an armchair near the front of store. Hanging above him in the display window is a lavender party dress with a huge bow ($20). The chair and the couch beside it offer a soft resting spot for tired shoppers and hangers-on.
"I buy all my clothes here," Rife says. "I come down here every day and look around."
He's enough of a regular that Padgett can call him over, hand him two pairs of socks across the glass counter and ask him to put them into the men's socks bin. Later, she asks another regular to walk across the street to Hardee's and get her an orange juice.
The store is one of three run by the Salvation Army in Roanoke. The other two are at 3312 Cove Road N.W. and 5417 Williamson Road N.W. Padgett's daughter, Linda Clarke, manages the Williamson Road store.
The three stores stock themselves through donations from residents and businesses. On this day, donations include a score of turtleneck sweaters still in their plastic, a case of Day-Glo bingo-card markers and 28 plastic "Sportsman's First Aid" kits.
The stores provide about $100,000 a year in profits that help support the Salvation Army's social-service programs, including its shelters for homeless men and for abused women and children.
They also offer a low-cost place where people with limited incomes can shop.
"These places help a lot of people," says Donna Cundiff, a clerk at the Ninth and Jamison store. "It helps them keep their self-respect. They don't have to take a handout."
It's also a treasure chest for collectors of vintage clothing and things you just won't find in the shiny department stores at the malls: a JCPenney eight-track car stereo, a white Ohio State Buckeyes sweater, a 5-foot-tall Speed Queen industrial dryer ("$3,000 Firm"), a battered but still working Laffargue piano ($599), a yellow apron that says "I'd rather play tennis than cook."
Cundiff holds up a tie. It's nearly 4 inches across and has little elephants on it. "Some of these are so-o-o-o wide."
She says the store gets a lot of college kids looking for gag gifts or costumes for fraternity skits. "We had some guys looking for bell bottoms. I mean they went everywhere looking for them. We finally found them some."
Robert David Cowling likes the buys he finds at the store.
"I'm down here for the grungy look," Cowling says with a laugh. "They said I could save $500. I know about fashion. I haven't bought anything new in five years."
A red scarf he bought at the store on an earlier visit hangs around his neck. He holds up one end and says, "Where can you get cashmere for 50 cents?"
Just after lunchtime, a young man with a scraggly beard is hovering near the counter. He has on low-top Nike tennis shoes and a long green coat. His baseball cap says "Jesus Saves."
He leans over the counter. "Miz Padget, how much you weigh now?"
" 'Bout 99. That's all."
"That's all?"
"Yeah. I pack a powerful punch, though."
He wanders around the store and then returns to the counter with two decorative ceramic plates that are designed to hold hot kettles or pots in the kitchen. "I'm gonna get these."
He pays $1.05 for both of them.
"You weigh 90 pounds?" he asks Padgett.
"No," she says. "99."
Padgett goes back to unpacking boxes of donations, but the young man still wants to talk.
"That table you sold me: It was wonderful. I've got my TV on it. I want to thank you for it. I love you, honey."
"We love you, too," Padgett says as she puts dress shirts on hangers.
"I love you in Christ," he says, standing at the open front door, holding two canvas shoulder bags.
"See ya," Padgett says.
Padgett has been with the Salvation Army for 15 years as a volunteer or employee. She likes the fact that the profits go to help people in need. "Not just at Christmastime - year-round."
She also likes staying busy. "You should have been here yesterday. It was a madhouse. . . . I came in at 6:30. I left at quarter to 6. I loved it. I guess I'm a workaholic."
Next to the front door are four shopping carts filled with 2- and 3-day-old bread donated by Kroger. Customers can take as many loaves as they want. They're free.
A woman in a lavender top and a flowered skirt walks in. Her hair is cut stylishly short. Jewelry sparkles from her hands and ears.
"How's your mom?" Cundiff asks.
"She's doing better, believe it or not - thank the Lord," the woman says.
The woman also has news of friend who recently had a baby: "She went to the hospital at 11:30. It was born at 2:30, I think."
She browses for a while and then heads for the door. "Well, I'll see you, Miz Padgett," she says. Then she stops. "Oh, I forgot to look at the shoes." She heads to the back of the store.
At five minutes to 5, Junior Robinson, the store's volunteer handyman, turns the "Closed" sign around so it's facing out. A young couple plunks down $3.14 for a pair of men's jeans. It's the last sale of the day.
by CNB