The Peculiarity Emporium Part I of III

A Tale of Mr. Earl Dibble

🎄 A Christmas Note from the Author As the season wraps us in its quiet magic, I wanted to offer you something special — a story, a mystery, and a gift that’s more than it seems. The Peculiarity Emporium is my Christmas gift to you: a tale of love, memory, and the kind of wonder that only shows up when we least expect it.

Thank you for being part of this journey. May your holidays be filled with warmth, laughter, and just a touch of the peculiar. Now. onto the story . . .

A junk shop that shouldn’t exist. A peculiar box shimmering in the dust. And a man who wants it more than he should…

It happened on a Wednesday so many years ago. It was a normal Wednesday as far as Wednesday’s go. You know, hump day, the middle of the week. For most people Wednesday, in the small town of Superior, Wisconsin, can be compared to limbo, a day of the week stuck in the nether regions of all the other weekdays. For me, however, it was just another day of unemployment.

I walked in the intense sunlight of the afternoon. Trudging along in oblivion a surreal, yet gut-wrenching sensation fell over me. I slowly moved with my eyes cast downward and both hands in my pockets.

Kicking a jagged stone along Tower Avenue in the North End of town, the older, worn out and beaten part of town, I hoped to rid myself of the unstable sensation. I couldn’t figure out what causing my agitation, but I had narrowed it to three possibilities.

Number one could be the fact that I just wasted an entire day tramping around the waterfront docks down at Howard’s Pocket, Front Street, and the Main Street Slip. There I checked out every union-hall job posting and I boarded every vessel tied up to a quay wall. Trying as I could to pick up work and earn a day’s pay for a day’s work.

No luck today! Disappointed? Sure I was. That could be what was troubling me.

A second reason that could be causing the gnawing in my gut could have been the fact that it was my wedding anniversary, my tenth wedding anniversary. I was broke.

I wanted to earn enough cash to get Carol, my wife, something nice, something special. She never asked for much. She never got much. Besides, all I had in my pocket was a measly fifteen dollars. Can’t get anything nice enough with that. At the time, however, it was my entire life’s savings.

She stuck by me even when the jobs dried up, when the bills stacked like pancakes, when I wasn’t always easy to love. She deserved something—something more than a used greeting card or a rerun of last year’s affection.

Finally, the anguish I felt in my stomach could have been caused from the realization that I was a looser, a looser with a capital “L”! Ten years earlier, I had married the girl of my dreams, my East High sweetheart. Oh, I had big plans for us. I was going to be her hero, her knight in shining armor. I would be the one to take her away to exciting places unknown to us at the time.

Yeah, I was her hero. I was her knight in shining armor all right! Ten years now and I hadn’t been able to hold a decent job. Not even for six months straight. I had been out of work this time for two months. The government graciously provided our castle. It even had a fancy name too. Park Place. Sound luxurious, right?

What it was, was a dive. We had a one floor, two-room apartment. It had one bedroom and a kitchen that was combined with a living room. The only way you could tell where one room stopped, and the other began is because cheap linoleum changed to even cheaper carpeting when you left the kitchen area.

We lived in this government project just a few short blocks from the waterfront to our North and the railroad yards to our south. It was the proverbial “other side of the tracks” it was, for sure.

Continuing on, I tried to shake the feeling as I go, so when I got home, at least I wouldn’t spoil the day for Carol, but it was tough to do. I tried concentrating on the better times but realized they were too few and far between. I put my mind to work window-shopping as I slowly crept towards home.

Crossing over Fifth Street and continuing south to Tower Avenue, I passed by the run-down bars. Yep, Superior, was known to have a bar for every 20 adults in town. Right now, I couldn’t even afford to look into the bars, let alone get a schooner in one.

As I hit Tower, I could see ol” Molly’s place, It was a bar that had been around for ages. (Also, rumor was, the Mayor and Chief of Police way back held “unofficial” court in the backrooms ages ago.)

Continuing on up Tower avenue I pass by the old “Finlandia Press”, the Finnish newspaper office. Once the paper published hotly debated Socialist ideology, however, Finlandia now filled its pages with articles on how to plan a secured retirement or columns of obituaries.

Sometimes there were more obits than articles. The older generation of Finns in the area was dying off, and the younger generation assimilated into the general population. The young ones were showing little interest in the old ways.

I silently found myself walking past the Home Plate, an empty old sports bar. A local boy, who made good in college football then drafted into the NFL originally owned it. He blew out a knee in his second year of pro ball. He came back to town a conquering hero, bought the bar, became a heavy gambler and a rum head, and ended up going bankrupt and losing the bar in the process. It was long closed and boarded up by now, but as I passed, I couldn’t help but hear and see in my mind’s eye the sights and sounds of the past.

Here was the place I proposed to Carol eleven years earlier. I proposed to her on a hot summer’s evening after a city-league softball tourney. I was feeling my oats; after all, our team won the league championship. Too many beers and too few brains, does not a good combination make.

Soon I was getting down on one knee in the middle of the barroom floor and proposing to Carol in front of a pub full of intoxicated former jocks. She said yes on the spot. It was the best thing I ever did, but probably the biggest mistake of her life, although she never has admitted it to me. In fact, she has never been anything but supportive of me at all times.

“Oh, Carol, you could have done so much better.” I mumbled out loud, as I kicked the stone in disgust and began to move on.

I continued to stare into the vacant windows of the dilapidated buildings. Staring back at me were many faces of emptiness. The emptiness that comes after, what once may have been a thriving business district decades ago, falls into decay. Hopes and dreams of hundreds of people had decayed along with the buildings I passed.

In the windows, I saw my reflection was as blank and empty as any of the stores I gazed into. I then came upon a store that I didn’t remember.

In all my years of living in this pissant town and walking these North End streets numerous times, I must have somehow missed this shop.

At the entrance of the shop, over the doors, hung a weather-beaten sign dangling by only one rusted hinge. The words, written in an old-fashioned script, read:

Curiosity getting the best of me, I stopped kicking my stone and turned to go into the store. Grabbing the doorknob, gritty, dirty, more like grimy soot. Slowly swinging the door open, a creaking due to years of wear and tear echoed through the establishment. A bell attached to the inside of the door gave an off-key tinkle, but yet pleasant sound to announce my entrance to the yet unseen shopkeeper.

My pupils contracted due to leaving the bright sunlight of the day and entering the dark and dank shop. It was difficult to see what was inside the shop at first. Once inside my eyes needed to take a moment to readjust before I could see well enough to determine that, although the sign out front of the place called the store an “Emporium”, I had just entered a very dirty old junk shop.

“What’s that smell?” My nose, insulted by a pungent musky odor, tried to find out where it was coming from. It smelled like a burnt woodpile after extinguishing the flames. The remaining ash would smolder a bit and then some of the wet wood begins to rot. The smell lent credence to the fact the store had been around for time. And, I really didn’t believe anyone cleaned the store since the day it opened.

By now, my eyes fully adjusted to the blackness of the place. There were three bare light bulbs hanging from naked lamp cords strung from the ceiling. The dim light bulbs gave off very little light. At best, they were only forty-watt bulbs tops.

Though there was little light in the shop, what there was, was enough to determine there was not another customer in the place. What the store may have lacked in patronage it made up with in an abundance of junk, no make that trash; it would be a much better description of what was tossed about.

Countertops, shelves and tables were heaped and cluttered with displays of cheap brick-a-brack, which was thrown helter-skelter throughout the store. Dust, dirt, and grime were everywhere. Cobwebs hung from rafters. I could see that speckles of rat droppings occupied the many corners of the unswept floor.

“Hello?” I said. No one answered.

“HELLO!” I raised my voice a bit this time. Must be some old codger sleeping it off in the back somewhere, I thought.

“Heh, why’d I ever come in here anyway?” I mumbled out loud. “There’s nothing here but crap!”

I turned to leave, figuring I had wasted enough time already in the place when I bumped smack into a table and almost stumbled. The table — I swear, wasn’t in that spot just a moment ago!

The table was heaped, as all the others were, with the same jumbled hodgepodge of disarray with one exception.

That’s when I saw it. The Box! Sitting in the middle of all the broken and useless debris was a very unique and peculiar looking box. Tucked behind a row of cracked snow globes and dusty Elvis busts at the Peculiarity Emporium, it shimmered like a misplaced treasure. Wooden, inlaid with what looked like mother-of-pearl and bordered in delicate gold leaf. It looked like it held secrets.

No way, I thought, not in this dump.

I wanted it!

✍️ Author’s Note — Part I (Dec 23)

Thank you for sharing this Christmas gift of story with me — your presence makes the journey brighter. The Peculiarity Emporium began in the shadows of Tower Avenue, where ordinary struggles meet extraordinary mystery. This first step opens a tale of oddities, secrets, and memory. As Barry steps deeper into the Emporium, the mystery has only begun.

As Christmas lights glow across Tower Avenue and the Emporium settles into its winter hush, may your holiday be warm, bright, and touched with just a hint of mystery.

✨ Stay close — on January 6th we’ll open the box together in Part II and discover what secrets it holds…

Don’t be shy — drop your thoughts in the comments below.

And if you enjoyed the journey, spread the word: tell your friends, frenemies, in‑laws, outlaws, and anyone else with a curious streak.

Invite them to visit the blog and subscribe — the Emporium always has room for one more.

From my corner of the Emporium to yours — Merry Christmas.

Michael Boyle