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There are icons in small American towns. The local high school is the cultural center, a couple of gas stations offer a bit of local competition, a handful of bars do the same, and there is always a motel on the edge of town.
Add to those the local grocery store where smiles and conversation are as important as the meat and produce, and finally a restaurant or two with stools at the counter for the locals, and booths and tables for families and travelers.
This was the world for Richard “Dick” Lee Perlinski and his wife, Esther Jean, in Shoshoni, Wyoming.
Dick was born in Chadron, Nebraska, on June 7, 1934, the son of Roman and Mildred Ann Tooley Perlinski. Dick’s parents were Nebraska natives, with Roman born in Burwell, Nebraska, in 1910, and Mildred in Broken Bow, Nebraska, three years later.
They were married at the height of the Great Depression in Box Butte, Nebraska, on November 24, 1932.
Jeannie, as Esther Perlinski was known, was just a month younger than Dick.
Roman and Mildred moved to Worland, Wyoming, just a few months after Dick was born, and worked at a grocery store. In 1938, their second child, Donald Wayne, was born.
After many long years working for someone else, Roman and Mildred purchased Consumer’s Grocery in Worland, renaming it the A & R Super Market (Andy and Roman), in the early 1950s.
Consumer’s Grocery sold appliances as well, including the new marvel of the age, the television. Consumers put a speaker outside the store with a television close to one of the store windows. People would gather at night to stand and watch TV through the window.
They ran the A & R Super Market until 1963 when they sold it.
Roman and Mildred moved to Shoshoni in 1968 and opened another grocery store, the R & M Grocery (Roman and Mildred). There was an established tradition in the Perlinski family of naming grocery stores with the owner’s initials.
Andy Perlinski was a “Red Ball Express” driver for the U.S. Army, arriving in France just four days after the D-Day Invasion. He was surrounded by Nazis at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.
Dick, too, was a veteran, serving in the United States Air Force from 1956 to 1958.
The R & M Market was formerly known as Cleve’s Market before Roman and Mildred took over the operation.
Dick and Jeannie were running a meat locker in Harrison, Nebraska, after he returned from his service in the Air Force.
They moved to Shoshoni to help Dick’s parents with the R & M Market. The couple had two children, a daughter, Ida, and a son, Tom.
“I think around 1968 is when they bought it. Grandma & Grandpa were working at a grocery store in Worland. They moved to Shoshoni, so my parents moved to help them,” Ida said. “Grandma and grandpa lived in Chadron for a spell before moving to Worland. As far as I know, Grandpa and Dad were always butchers.”
Shoshoni in the 1960s was still a vibrant little town with a busy downtown business district, motels, restaurants and bars lining U.S. Highway 20/26 from east to west, with gas stations on the four corners of the intersection that divided the highways in the center of town and a lumberyard, motel and restaurant across from Shoshoni High School on the U.S. 20 North to the Wind River Canyon and Thermopolis.
The R & M Grocery was one of three in the little town. It was best known for its meat counter. Roman and Dick were expert meat cutters and were always willing to help customers, no matter the time of day.
“I can remember going to the store to get some meat for supper,” Shoshoni historian David Manchester said. “If we wanted hamburger, many times, the display case would be empty, but either Roman or Dick would open the walk-in cooler and grab a front shoulder that was hanging in the cooler, cut off some, and run it through the grinder. So, it was fresh hamburger. They did the same thing with steak and pork chops.”
Small-town businesses run on trust and friendship. The Perlinski name was a solid one in Shoshoni, honest and trustworthy. They treated their customers the same way.
“They had ‘charge accounts’ for their steady customers, so when you got groceries, the clerk would enter each item in a receipt book that had your name on it. Then at the end of the month, they would add up what was owed and send a bill to the customer,” Manchester said.
The checkout counter was U-shaped, with the clerk working inside and cash registers on opposite sides of the U.
“There were also all kinds of candy for the kids to buy,” Manchester said. “In later years, one of the long-time clerks was Vi Cornish. It seemed like she was with them until they closed the store.”
Tragically, Jeannie passed away in 1982, at just 47 years of age. Dick was grief-stricken.
You couldn’t find a more loyal and vocal fan of the Shoshoni Wranglers than Dick Perlinski. He was at every home game and often traveled up the Big Horn Basin to Cowley, Byron, Basin, Meeteetse, and Greybull to support the Wranglers.
Dick had another side to his personality. He was always the friendly, talkative grocery store manager and meat counter guy, but he enjoyed entertaining children by dressing up as “Sho-Sho” the clown.
He had a little motorized car, similar to the ones Shriners use in parades, and he was always a hit at the Shoshoni Homecoming Parade.
“Dick created ‘Sho-Sho’ the clown and would dress up and march in the Homecoming parades,” Manchester said. “I remember that some kids were scared of him, while he was a huge hit with most folks.”
Grocery stores are a difficult business to run, operating on slim margins and relying on long-distance suppliers. Fuel costs and nearby competition from larger communities make most of the small-town grocers eventually close their doors.
That was the case with the R & M Market. Riverton opened K-Mart, then Walmart, Smith’s Grocery, and convenience stores popped up like mushrooms beginning in the 1980s. Highways and cars improved, speed limits increased, and Riverton just wasn’t that far away any longer. He closed the R & M Market.
Not content to leave Shoshoni just yet or to be finished with a service business that allowed him to meet and interact with people, Dick purchased the restaurant attached to the Desert Inn Motel on the west side of Shoshoni.
“After the store was closed, Dick bought the restaurant on the west side of town, and it was re-branded as the Wrangler,” Manchester said. “Lots of the old folks around town still reminisce about going to the Wrangler and some of the folks who worked there.”
Dick remained a huge Shoshoni Wrangler and Lady Wrangler fan. After Shoshoni’s 1988 State Basketball championship, Dick had the words “State Champs” printed on the marquee outside the Wrangler for a full year.
Dick married Joyce Nadine Rushing during this time. Joyce passed on August 12, 1991, at just 51 years of age.
After Joyce passed, Dick sold the Wrangler and moved to Nevada.
He passed on May 19, 2008, at 73.
“After Dick sold the Wrangler, he moved to Nevada, where he lived with Elsie Ellis and her kids. When he died, he was cremated, and his ashes were sent to Ida in Cheyenne. She and Tommy brought them back to Shoshoni and buried them next to his wives,” Manchester said.
There aren’t any local clowns in the Shoshoni parades anymore. There aren’t any grocery stores in Shoshoni either.
The lot across from 113 West Second Street, where the R & M Grocery served customers for three decades, is now dominated by the massive Fast Lane Convenience Store. The Fast Lane has packaged, processed food for sale, dozens of gas and diesel pumps, a full-service deli, and a liquor store. It is even staffed with many local Shoshoni people.
The Fast Lane is an oasis on the edge of the desert, but it doesn’t have the smiling face of Roman, Mildred, Dick, or Jeannie, or the custom meat cutting and processing that made the R & M Market such a beloved business.
Like Shoshoni itself, the past has swept the memories away.