BILL'S WORLD: Walking down memory lane with Russell Duren

I asked Russell Duren how long he had been in business on South Street. It took him a spell.    
“I think it was about 1950. I had a lemonade stand,” he finally said.
His impish grin indicated he was prevaricating a bit. And the chorus of “boos” from the three others gave evidence of the fact.
We had met in the Spindle Center Barber Shop on South Street. Duren didn’t have far to walk. Right next door.
I was there at his place for a watch repair. And I had asked Duren to step over to the barber shop for a picture. Pretty significant picture. The three others are Roy Hullett, Pete Wells and Charles Faulkner.
These four gentlemen have been coming to work on South Street for a combined total of 222 years — two and a quarter centuries. That sounds rather Biblical, doesn’t it? The barber shop and jewelry shop have been side-by-side for 61 years. Well, throw me into the mix and I have been visiting both places about that long. I get my hair cut about every time I get my watch cleaned and reset. I admit to missing a few appointments.
This piece, however, is mostly about Russell Duren. He’s going out of business, you know. Has had the sign on the door for a while. Everything’s up for grabs. You might find a bargain or two during the holidays.
His health is OK, but not great.  He’s 86 now and still finds pleasure in opening his own business door and locking the same at night. He has two part-time helpers who are building on their own Duren legacies.
Down through the years, things have changed.
Back in the ’50s, on that block of South Street was Standard Hardware. Sterchi’s Furniture was there. Pete Quinn’s Barber Shop. The Eagles (five and dime), Whisnant-Williams Furniture and a few others.
Across the street was City Hall, the County Courthouse, Sarah’s Restaurant, upstairs offices of Congressman Basil Whitener and Morris Jewelers there on the corner of Main and South.
Russell Duren is a survivor. He probably had no idea 61 years ago that he would be a survivor of the great movement to other locations.
He remembers when downtown Gastonia was a brisk and bustling beehive of business.
“That was back before they dug up the streets and when we had the courthouse here and the bus stopped across the street,” he said.
“It is different now, and I understand why. Time marches on, and things change. I might like it if it had been done differently. We have to accept it as it is and move on.”
I asked him what he has learned down through the years.
“That people are basically decent and honest. Treat them the way you want to be treated, and they will come back time after time. There are some bad apples, but I have learned to recognize the flim-flammers and I let them move on. That’s part of life.”
He said that he had been broken into a number of times, and once he was held up.
In the holdup, the man stuffed $2,500 in gold herringbone chains into his pocket. “When he tried to sell them,” he said, “I doubt that they were any good, for he had put a crimp in them in his haste to get them in his pocket and probably ruined them.”
That’s life, brother.