I didn't realise the cold truth until someone inadvertently mentioned it to me in a communiqué on the net. Until then I thought that it only applied to myself and my childhood friends; Tommy and Jake Boone, and Bill Ream. I thought we were the only "best'a boyz in town" - because that's what Paul always called us.
Paul was Paul Metrakis. Paul and his wife, Amalia/Emily, owned and operated Paul's Snack Shop in the center of town on the north side of Liberty Avenue where Nemo's Sub shop is now (c.2006) located. My view of Paul (here) is woefully superficial - a child's notion of who he appeared to be; very speculative, but honest.
Paul (b.1897) and Emily (b.1905) were natives of Greece. This partially explains the reason that they are pictured here with the active and ever popular Vermilion resident Steve Demou. They, in brief, shared their proverbial roots.
During the mid 20th century the short, robust couple lived next door to our family in the big house on the northwest corner of Perry and Ohio Streets. They occupied the ground floor of the home and let the upstairs apartment. I recall that the the Young family lived there for a time. Mr. Young was a 6th grade school teacher. And later Lea Hampton Rew rented there. To my knowledge no one in the area knew a word of Greek. However; any neighbor within shouting range of the couples' home were afforded lessons in it every now and then. It was never anything serious. It was just enough to raise a few eyebrows, get a few chuckles, and cause a bit of head-scratching.
Both Paul and Emily were good people. They divided duties at their shop equally. They never drove nor had a car. They never seemed to miss one day of work. At home Emily did all the lawn work, and Paul appeared to confer with a rather substantial number of compatriots. I believe that he actually helped many of these folks establish themselves in the world of American commerce.
And as "American commerce" went Paul was, to my youthful way of thinking, a veritable genius. It wasn't just his marketing strategy - which included a business card which read something to the effect: Paul's Snack Shop, Seating 6000 People 6 At A Time.
And it wasn't just his operational moxie that confined the use of natural gas to the low mark on his grill unless otherwise needed, and the use of electricity to keeping 'the best coffee in town' hot and the soft drinks cool. It was all of those things combined with his fabulous, stupendous, tremendous, monumentous, chili dogs with everything. Oh my!
Forever will I remember those hot-dogs. Forever will I recall washing one down with an orange Nehi pop. And forever will I remember crowding into Paul's shop with my friends and having him tell us that we were "the best'a boyz in town" (even if it wasn't true).
Somewhere in the 1960's, after Paul began experiencing some health problems, they sold the shop and their house on Ohio Street and moved back to their homeland. And I'll bet that somewhere in Greece there is another group of men who, in their younger days, came to believe that they were "the best'a boyz in town".
Ref: Thanks to Steve Demou and Fred Wetzler for the photographs; Ancestry.com; Social Security Death Index Records
This is an abridged story originally published in the Vermilion Photojournal on 11-18-04Previous Bio Next Bio
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© 2006 Rich Tarrant
