Silver Oak Welcomes You!

Good Morning, Silver Oak!

In 1974, Silver Oak Village was a brand-spanking new business community right off the Interstate between Nathan Ridge and Overbrook, trying its snake-oil and suede-shoe best to lure in potential shop owners with cheap rent and easy-quit contracts. Advertisements for it were spatula-ed on thick as cake icing all over the place – in the paper, on the radio, plastered across larger-than-life billboards along all major and minor highways. Silver Oak Village and its promise of wall-to-wall merchandise and fun for the whole family was the topic of conversation at every hair salon, church pot-luck, general store and cattle auction within 200 miles.

When Mom and her sisters finally decided they would go into business for themselves, the last thing they were stumped for was a place to open: Silver Oak Village had been the clear and uncontested choice.

No, it wasn't where to open, but what to open that really'd had the sisters breathing hard. They filled list after list, working through and then ultimately rejecting ideas like toys, clothes, shoes, beauty products, cooking utensils, teacher supplies, booze and baby items before Ellen finally threw the words "sewing stuff" out onto the table.

All of the sisters stopped and looked at each other.

Trixie said, "Lots of people around here sew."

And Mom said, "They knit, too."

There was a moment of silence and then Ellen said, "and the nearest place I know of to seriously buy anything like that is down at McIvern's in Pine Falls. You can get a replacement needle-set and about eight types of yarn at any Five and Dime, of course you can, but there's really no honest-to-god selection anywhere around here."

They were quiet for a while longer.

Mom said, "It might work."

Trixie said, "It would work."

And Ellen said, "Well then, dammit, let's do it."

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I can't relate the exact wording, but Dad and Uncle Merle and Uncle Chester in general pointed out to their wives that they were out of their minds to take good money and throw it away on knitting needles and yarn. Nobody would want more of the stuff they could get anywhere, that they would be draining the last pennies from the family and driving them all straight into bankruptcy and the poorhouse.

Mom and Trixie and Ellen told them to either find jobs or shut their yaps. They were decided and they were going to do what they were going to do, just you wait and see if they didn't.

And they did.

Despite all the verbal sword-rattling and shield-pounding in the direction of their spouses, the sisters knew they were taking a risk and decided to play it safe, concentrating mostly on sewing and knitting paraphernalia, and filling the smallish unit they'd signed a one-year contract for with a generous selection of the absolute standards.

All along the shorter left wall straight up to the cash register they hung an extensive collection of colored knitting and crochet needles -- in sizes ranging from baby bootie to State's Evidence A – off hooks slotted into particle board. On the facing and back wall were the instructional manuals and some whimsical pattern books, a spool rack with about 90 different silky colors of thread on it you could spin around until you were hauled away from it by your shirt collar, hundreds of wooden squares full of shiny thread bobbins and enough straight needles in plastic packages to run a hospital with. The middle of the shop was a mine-field of former apple crates that had been piled high with bright pyramids of yarn skeins in every conceivable color, weight and texture. In one of the back corners was a petite rainbow of embroidery floss, a hook or two of sewing hoops and some bulky ready-kits with the yarn included. Just in case.

While all the merchandise was being bought and arranged, Aunt Ellen took it upon herself to do some industrial espionage, and after nosing around incognito for a while anywhere that had even a single dusty thimble out for sale, reported back that they had the broadest and largest selection of knitting and sewing goods within comfortable driving distance.

The sisters looked at each other and agreed that, well, that would about do it, then.