BY ED FELIEN
Our lovely summer flew by so quickly.
The state fair is over. Kids are back in school. The first cool breezes remind us to close the windows and take in the air conditioner.
This summer was hectic for me. At my age, most of my summer is spent in reunions. I think we all want one last chance to see old friends and measure our mortality. I had a reunion with some of my colleagues I taught with at the Wayne State University College for Working Adults in Michigan back in 1976. From there we drove to Missouri for my wife’s family reunion. Then I had my 1956 Roosevelt High School reunion out in Burnsville. I think I might be the only one from our graduating class still living in South Minneapolis.
The one regret I have for the summer is that I couldn’t get to Dick and Dorothy Pitheon’s Diamond Wedding Anniversary celebration in June. Former County Commissioner Jeff Spartz told me there were 70 to 80 people at Pepitos to celebrate: great food, great friends, all the kids and grandkids, and DFL political types reaching back to Jerry Holloway who worked on Phyllis Kahn’s first campaign in 1972.
I first met Dick in 1971 when we were both running for City Council. I was running in the 8th Ward and he was running in the 9th, right next door. I was very impressed with his fundraising idea of running a permanent garage sale out of a storefront on Lake Street. Two things came out of that experience for him. Neither one of us got elected in ’71, but Dick decided to go into retail and started Dick’s Metropolitan Carpet the next year, and he probably had enough stuff left over to help start one of his many projects, the St. Vincent de Paul’s Thrift Store at 2939 12th Ave. S., just off Lake Street, years later.
When they opened their shop at 48th and Chicago rents were cheap. The area was neglected and seemed in decline when they and Joe Senkyr Minjares of Pepito’s discovered it in the early ’70s. Dick never got elected to the City Council, but he was the official representative of the business association at 48th and Chicago to City Hall, and he made sure that the streets got plowed, that there was adequate off-street parking, and he was instrumental in getting the first ornamental street lighting in the city for the district.
He was probably a victim of his own success. New people liked the improvements, saw potential for the area, bought the buildings and raised the rents. And Dick and Dorothy had to pick up and move their business to 56th and Chicago.
But the businesses at 48th and Chicago didn’t forget all the wonderful work that Dick and Dorothy did for them. At one of their recent meetings, the South Chicago Ave Business Alliance (SCABA) presented Dick and Dorothy with a plaque for their many years of service to the corner.
So, Happy Belated 60th Wedding Anniversary to Dick and Dorothy.
You’ve been a diamond in the rough and tumble world of Southside business and politics.
Thanks a lot.
