Probably the most important women during my early years, with the possible exception of my own mother, was Ann. Ann lived on 102nd St, 2858 W. to be exact, and she meant the world to me.

I was telling a kindred spirit, M, about Ann's. M had once lived briefly on my childhood block, but it was long after Ann's had closed. I could tell she missed the experience.

And the rest of the neighborhood kids too.

If you could run away as a kid and pick anywhere to live you would have picked Ann's.

And Ann was one of the meanest women (it seemed) that you would ever want to meet; yet we loved her. She had ham-hock arms and a permanent scowl, but all that was overlooked.

Ann owned Ann's, a true candy paradise planted right in the middle of a residential block. She lived in the back and sold penny candy and cheap little toys to kids and bread, cigarettes and milk to adults.

My grade school, St. John Fisher, was just down the street, and lunch time often meant a detour to Ann's for a a Bazooka Joe bubble gum, a pack of candy cigarettes, Dots or Flying Saucers.

The excitement used to build when you would round the corner and see the big metal tent sign in front of Ann's. The sign had an advertisement on it for "7-UP", and of course had "Ann's" spelled out on it. As the sign grew closer the taste buds in my mouth used to water. Finally I reached the little blue house, pulled the screen door, and entered sugarland. Sometimes I entered with a note from my mother to please sell little Richie a pack of Kent cigarettes along with my own candy version. Ann did so with a grunt.

Ann did most everything with a grunt. If you took too long to pick out your candy she grunted. If you didn't count the pennies correctly she grunted. If you wanted a brown paper bag she grunted. But it was music to our ears.

Ann's was unique, or at least a dying breed of a place, in and around the southside of Chicago and suburbs where I lived. Talk about a convenience store. What could be easier than walking, running or riding your bike to Ann's? It was the coolest thing: a store right in between regular houses. What I wouldn't have given to live next door!

For the longest time Ann's was the place for a kid with a sweet tooth and with moms who needed bread and smokes --and not necessarily in that order. Then construction started on 103rd Street for a 7-11. This was to be a real convenience store, a corporate one.

It opened and some of us went there, but only usually when adults sent us there, or because we were older now and needed an item in a pinch that Ann's didn't stock, like deodorant.

I'm not sure what year it was, but rumors were about that Ann was sick. Not long after the metal sign disappeared and was replaced by a "For Sale" sign.

There's not a time when I don't go past that block that I don't think of Ann and Ann's. It was never Ann's Store or Ann's Candy and Cigarette Store; it was just plain Ann's.

As part of my lazy research for this entry I drove past Ann's. The frame house is now a sprightly yellow but is pretty much the same. It stretches back along the lot more than the surrounding houses, as it was once so much more than a residence, but has seen no major remodeling on the outside.

I noticed an older man sitting in back near the garage. I wondered if it were Ann's son. (Did she even have a son? Any kids that were really hers?) No, the house was sold after all. Still I wanted to walk up to the screen door, walk in, and take forever to spend spend my quarter on some penny candy.

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