Ralph David Lebowitz... A Great Man

Staying With It! - Dad stayed with Ralph's 5, 10 and 25 Cent stores until his retirement in 1970. The chain grew to about 15 stores which were located all over the LA area... even one in Big Bear, California.

The "dime store" was a fun environment for me. Every summer starting when I was in junior high school I would work in the warehouse which was on Pico Blvd. When orders from the stores would come in, I would find an appropriate box and "fill the order".

Lunch time was always fun as Ralph would take us out somewhere usually along La Cienaga and often to a delicatessen for pastrami or tongue... We got to ride in his new Cadillac... Ralph always had a new company car and it was always a Cadillac convertible!

I learned the secret code from Ralph. We put the actual cost we paid for the item on the outside of the box using the "Charleston" code... Any word with ten letters all different would work. "C" was one, "H" was 2 and so on. So a box labeled CAR meant the item costs $1.34. Below the Charleston code was the retail price so seeing CAR with $1.75 beneath it meant we made $0.41 on each item. Neat, huh?

The Pico store (#3) building still stands today and it was adjacent to a market. We actually had an entrance from the market into the dime store with a fireproof wall...a large steel door that took two of us to open and close!

Right inside the market was a magazine stand (they do not exist today) and it had many magazines and more importantly a large comic book section! I would get notified by the owner of the stand anytime a new comic book would come in. I loved Uncle Scrooge! The stand also had a huge Coca-Cola ice chest filled with ice cold soda which would be wet when you got it form the container.

Pico store had an upstairs and a basement which was the warehouse for the entire chain for many years. When I went to high school, Ralph finally leased a real warehouse on Perry Drive about two blocks from where we lived and we finally had room to expand.

I have fond memories of helping Dad on the holidays especially Christmas when Dad would be working seven days a week. We would go to out to the valley stores to make sure all was going well and many times we would drive the step-van so we could deliver needed items! Remember we are talking 1950's and early 60's, Sepulveda was a four lane road and sometimes we would take Laurel Canyon which was very twisty!

When we opened new stores that was exciting. New counters, new glass, new signage. I got to help layout the counters... Dad was amazing he knew exactly where everything went and knew the prices on every item. Each store had a small storage room and Dad loved building things. He could put together 1000 square feel of storage made from 2x4's and 1x12's in a single day. I learned how to use a skill saw quite well and I became quite proficient at making notches in the 1x12's.

Helping at the store during Easter by making the Easter Baskets... and getting so sick on jelly beans I though I was going to die! In the dime store business, we made our own baskets for the customers... I would often assist in making them and sometimes I would hide a whole lot of candy UNDER the green plastic grass... just to surprise the kids!

Going "downtown" to see new merchandise was always fun... we got to see the new things before they hit the market! I really liked to toy warehouses as the salesmen would always find something to send home with me!

Ralph and Dad has a large shrinkage problem in two of the stores (shrinkage means people were stealing things). They determined it was the monthly floor cleaning and polishing people. My cousin, Tom, suggested that he and I take on the task... Just pay us what you paid them. We got the job and for several years, once a month we would show up Saturday night at closing (9:30 PM) and do the floors!

Do the floors meant one complete pass through with a wet mop and cleaning fluid scrubbing the entire store down... I generally had that job. About 20 minutes later Tom would wet mop the floor with clean water to assure the cleaning fluid was removed from the floor. By the time I got to the end of my first pass, I would cleanup and then begin the third pass which was the polish which fortunately only needed a slight buffing. As the polish dried, Tom would follow up with the buffer. We worked hard as it would take us about three hours.

Not bad except, we would be done at 12:30 PM and then go up the street on Pico about six blocks and do the #11 store which took us from midnight to 4:30 am. We got paid cash in the same amount Ralph and Dad were paying the people who stole only we didn't steal (except for an occasional package of M&M's). We made a hundred and fifty dollars each which was like $30/hour... It was hard honest work which did cut into our social life but money talked!

Oh... when the stores were finally sold off after Ralph had passed, they became The 99 Cent Stores!! It was an amazing time with lots of memories.