Sunday, September 8th, 2024. 5:31 AM.
The Mystery Lady Cashier at Walden Books
This story is true. It is not a work of fiction.
This true mystery story began happening many years ago – about 20 or 25 years ago.
I often took the RIPTA bus from Woonsocket to The Lincoln Mall – which is in Lincoln, Rhode Island – about a 20-minute ride from Woonsocket. I had to walk about 15 minutes from where I lived at Sadwin Apartments on Elm Street in Woonsocket to get to the Main Street bus stop. The bus stop on Main Street was at Liberty Market. Many things have changed since then: Liberty Market is no longer there; the Lincoln Mall is still there; however, it is very different now than it was 25 years ago; I no longer live at Sadwin Apartments. Sadwin Apartments had been a convent where the nuns who taught at St. Ann’s School lived. I was in the Boy Scouts of St. Ann’s Parish for about 2 years – even though I went to St. Charles School. Our meetings once a week were in the school. The convent was at the very top of a very steep hill called Locust Street at the corner of Elm Street. That hill had a nickname that even the people who live in and grew up in Woonsocket don’t know how it got that name – including me: Pin Alley. Charlie Desjardins, a close childhood friend who went to St. Ann’s School, invited me to join the Boy Scouts with him; and then I invited my other friend from St. Charles School, who lived in our neighborhood on Merida Avenue, to join also. So, the three of us always walked to our Boy Scout meetings together. The Boy Scouts meeting room in the school was on the first floor and it was the corner room – right at the corner of Locust Street and Gaulin Avenue. Gaulin Avenue has also changed. Part of that street is no longer there – the part that went from the corner where the school was to Cass Avenue. I call that departed part of Gaulin Avenue “the Ghost of Gaulin Avenue.” It only exists now in the hearts and the memories of those who lived in Woonsocket during its existence many years ago. In 1948 on June 19th – which is now a holiday called Juneteenth or Freedom Day, my parents got married in the chapel on the second floor of St. Ann’s Convent. When my mother told me she and my dad got married there, I asked her why they didn’t get married in the church. I only vaguely recall her saying something about how large the church was. The church was further down Locust Hill on Cumberland Street. And it faced Fournier & Fournier Funeral Home. The convent was converted into a residence; and on New Year’s Eve 1992 – the last day of 1992, my younger brother, Jason, who had a pick-up truck, helped me move into Sadwin’s. This was the second time in my life that I moved into a new home at the end of something – 1992 — and woke up the next morning at the beginning of something new – 1993. It was subsidized housing at Sadwin’s; so, I was able to begin saving money again after moving there – about $200 a month I began saving. Where I had lived before, at Val Arms, at the corner of Social Street and Earle Street, I wasn’t able to save hardly anything. Once, when my mom was visiting me at Sadwin’s we left my one-room apartment on the 3rd-floor front-and-middle of the building over-looking Elm Street — and took the elevator to the second floor; so, my mom could see the door to the apartment that had been the chapel where she married my dad in June of 1948.
Chapter Two
Once I was at the Lincoln Mall and in the Walden Books Store there. It was right next to a Tom McCann’s Shoe Store. I liked both of those stores at The Lincoln Mall. And there was a pretty young lady cashier working at the bookstore. I really enjoyed being in that Walden Books Store. The shelves were filled with thousands of very interesting books of many kinds. There were novels – classic novels – such as Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations” and other books – such as computer programming tutorials for such programs as Visual Basic. Just once I vaguely recall, that pretty dark-haired cashier told me something as I was buying a book – something I thanked her for telling me since it was relevant to my purchase. In my aging 72-year-old memory I’m no longer able to recall what she said. And I saw that pretty young lady another time in another Lincoln Mall store – Radio Shack. I was at the counter buying something, and remarkably, she was sitting on the floor behind the counter. I made my purchase and departed the store. And then, many years later, I was in my hometown of Woonsocket on Clinton Street and was approaching Eddie Cournoyer Memorial Square at the corner of Cumberland Street; and that same pretty young lady was crossing Cumberland Street while pushing a baby carriage. We met on the sidewalk at the intersection. Our eyes met and I said “Hi.” She did not reply. I crossed the intersection and she and the baby carriage continued in the opposite direction. I haven’t seen here since then.
However, another dark-haired and pretty young lady began working as a cashier at a store on Clinton Street just a few minutes’ walk from where I live, about 4 years ago. I used to wonder what it was about her appearance that impressed me. My mother was young and dark-haired when I was born; and she was only 21 at that time. I wondered if that was why the cashier impressed me. I even wrote some letters and cards for her; but, I couldn’t give them to her. She was/is much younger than me; maybe that’s why. I kept those cards and letters, though. And then after about 4 years, she no longer worked at that store; but, one day, I saw her again. She was working at another neighborhood store as a cashier – the store at the corner of Clinton and Cumberland Streets – Eddie Cournoyer Memorial Square. And on July 27th, a memorable date to me, I took those 4 letters & cards out of my file cabinet and walked to that other store. As I was walking there, I thought, “I’ll be able to remember this date, if she’s there and I have the courage to offer the letters and cards to her – because it’s the date of the birth of the daughter of my “Summer of ‘74” romance girlfriend who had been my classmate at St. Charles School. The romance happened 8 years after we graduated from St. Charles in June of 1966. And three years after that romance, my former classmate who was then married, gave birth to her daughter — and her daughter’s birthdate had 4 sevens in it. I was impressed by so many sevens – and was also reminded of my dad’s car license plate: RR 277. And our combination home-and-business phone number was 769-9177. And her mother’s phone number also was remarkable to me – one number was the same as her daughter’s birth month; another number was the same as my birthday; another number was the same as my dad’s birthday; and the last number was the same as the day my mom departed this life.
I entered the store and it was quiet there – not one customer at the cash register. The special-to-me cashier was working. I walked through the store to see if they had any milk. There was no milk. Then I walked to the check-out and said, “Hi” to the cashier. Then I said, “While you were working at the other store, I wrote some cards and letters to you. I wasn’t able to give them to you, but I kept them all these years; but now I guess I can. I would just like to do that.” She looked at the cards and letters that were in a food storage bag that I had been keeping them in for years in my white 2-draw metal file cabinet that I purchased many years ago at Ann & Hope, and said kindly and gently something close to, “If that is what you would like to do . . .” I said something like, “Yes, I would just like to give them to you.” So, she accepted them and I said “Have a good night.” — and walked out of the store. Another thing about that store location is that its address on Cumberland Street is the exact same address of a confectionary shop where my maternal grandmother worked when she was young in the early 1900s. The business was owned by her father, Edmund Depot; and may have been a storefront of a triple-decker house at the corner of Clinton and Cumberland Streets. And several years ago, I wrote a fictional story about me as a young boy walking into that store where my maternal grandmother had worked and seeing her there. The story is on my blog and is called: “Great Grandpa’s Turn of the Century Confectionary Connection Shop.”
And one last thing: once when I was in the Walden Books Store, I saw my classmate from St. Charles School – who had been my girlfriend during “The Summer of ‘74” when we were 21 and 22 years old. She was at the cashier’s counter on the opposite side from where I was standing; and she was holding a 3 or 4-volume package of Visual Basic programming tutorials. This happened in the late 1980s or about 1990.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful, if, in the hereafter, all mysteries were solved; and all secrets revealed; and all the things we wondered about in this life come into the Light of Understanding ? Maybe, just as the last book of The Bible is The Book of Revelation, maybe in the new heaven and new earth that The Book of Revelation tells believers about, we who believe and are saved, will be rewarded with the end of our faith unto the seeing of all things in True God’s True Light and Understanding.
And one more “Last Thing” — this Spring and Summer of 2024 — a new house was built on Sweet Avenue where I grew up – directly across the street from my maternal grandmother’s property where our family lived — the first new house since 1961 — when my grandmother had the garages in our backyard converted into a 7-room house -plus a garage — where we moved in on the Saturday night before Mother’s Day, May 13th, 1961 – and awakened the next morning on the 13th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel on May 14th, 1948. Each time I walk by that new house, lately, on Sweet Avenue, I stop to look for the street number of that house; so far, the number has not yet appeared. My grandmother’s former triple-decker across the street has the numbers: 74 and 76. I’m hoping the number of the new house across the street will be 77.
77 Sweet Avenue – my dad’s number and our family’s number and my former classmate and “Summer of ‘74” girlfriend’s daughter’s number.
My dad departed this life at 49 years old. 7 times 7 = 49.
“Then Peter came up and said to him, ‘Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.’” -Matthew 18: 21, 22. ESV Study Bible.
70 times 7 = 490.
We better be prepared to do a lot of forgiving of our brother.
Rob Finlay – Sister to a Brother
Rob Finlay – Sister to a Brother – YouTube
This writing has a total of 2000 words.
Amen.
Mark's Imaginings 