John Sheda

Sheda’s Grocery Store!

Before we begin this little picture into the past, let’s be perfectly clear on one item; my Dad, Tony W. Sheda, was no saint! No way and no how am I, his youngest, best-looking and most talented son trying to make that statement. In fact, Dad probably is still residing in “Purgatory” waiting to be released some day. Who knows how long that will take? Make no mistake I loved my Dad, (Mom too), but his motto in life was “let the buyer beware.” You can figure the rest out yourself. Dad’s everyday language was filled with enough unprintable adjectives, adverbs, descriptors and any other part of one’s sentence structure that would make any upstanding “old-timer” Boheme’ proud. He was no saint! But he was a good guy, all things considered.

And to be fair to my Mom, she was no saint either. And also like Dad, she was a good gal. Neither perfect but both good. Among many things Mom taught us kids, was that we should respect everybody but not to put anyone on too high of a pedestal. She once said that everyone pretty much uses the bathroom for the same reason as everyone else. Of course the vernacular Mom used to clearly get this point to a ten-year old kid, would not be printable in this fine newspaper. As John Wayne angrily asked in the movie, The Searchers, “do I need to draw you a picture????? Great movie, but I digress.

Ok, that’s my introduction to this column. Mom & Dad owned Sheda’s Grocery Store in downtown Chelsea. Pretty much right smack in the center of the town. They owned it until around 1961 when they closed the doors for good. Every week or so, Sheda’s Grocery Store would have the “specials” in the Chelsea section of the Tama News-Herald. Dad hated doing this but considered it a necessary evil. The old adage, you gotta spend money to make money, I guess. Dad didn’t like to spend money.

When Chelsea had its’ High School, Sheda’s Grocery Store usually had one of those ads in the back of the high school year book, as did every other store and business did. It was the thing to do and you just did it to help off-set the production costs of the annual year book. Sheda’s Grocery Store had all the usual information included, such as the proprietors, phone number and so on. However Mom & Dad also included a quaint little phrase that said, “We don’t aim to make a million dollars, just a million friends.” They made neither.

But here we are fifty years later and this little phrase from a by-gone era could be used to heal our country today. Let’s work together to start on making a million friends. It starts with just two people; you and me. I wish and pray that President Joe Biden does a great job of leading and uniting us. He mentioned it often so I hope he has some answers. It starts by just making friends again. Can we do it? Time will tell. Let me know what you think at jsheda@indytel.com or call me at 319.327.4640.