Ever wonder what the vacant buildings that line small-town main streets looked like in their heyday? What businesses were in them? Who ran them? What went on there? In this memoir, author Dale K. Phenicie describes what went on in his hometown businesses while growing up during the years just following WW II (1945 through the late 1950s). Freedoms his peers and he had to roam their small mid-western community networking with neighbors, business owners, and village leaders provided lessons that shaped their adulthood character. Using stories describing antics of his clan and experiences growing up in his family's five and 10 cent (dime) store, he describes what it was like living in this typical American small town during that era. He says, "We were always told, 'be home by dark.' The community "classrooms" we visited provided a life skills education equivalent to that of an MBA."