"Be Home by Dark": How I Earned my Dime Store MBA

Remember the 1940s and 1950s (those memorable years just following the end of WW II)? Did you grow up during that period? Were your parents/grandparents growing up back then? Ever wonder what the vacant buildings lining small-town main streets looked like in their heyday? What businesses were in them? Who ran them? What went on there? What was it like living in those times? This memoir describes the era's lifestyles, the businesses, schools, streets, back yards of the day, what they taught us, and how Author Dale Phenicie earned his title "Vice President of the Broom."
Parenting was different back then. Dale says, "Growing up, we kids were often sent out to play on our own and given just one instruction, 'Be home by dark.'" Freedom to roam the community and network with neighbors, business owners, and community leaders provided lessons that shaped the adult character of Dale and his peers. The antics of the clan and his experiences growing up in his family's five and 10 cent (dime) store allow readers to experience what it was like living in a typical American small town back then. Dale says, "The community 'classrooms' we visited provided lessons similar to that of an MBA." A large part of his came from the dime store."