Elias Multiservice, Shipyard

  

   I spent a short time in Shipyard yesterday; in a hurry due to the fact that we didn't want to be driving at night and also because I had brought a patient to the dentist and she was anxious to return to her home in the south. 

  On our return trip we stopped in at Elias Multiservice which from the outside looks like a sprawling concrete warehouse; I was genuinely surprised at the tiled floor, air conditioned room, and clean, tidy long shelves stacked with groceries and other dry goods and kitchen utensils. Except for the Old Colony Mennonite married ladies sitting at the cashier's till, it could have been any modern non-Mennonite supermarket. I craved something ice cold so headed straight for the freezers; to my dismay they were very low in stock and variety of frozen snacks.

  When I arrived at the cashier I half expected to see a computer. I thought perhaps the church leaders would have made an exception for this wealthy Old Colony storeowner but no, the married woman who held a toddler in her lap simply added the prices on a basic computerized calculator. 

  After purchasing our snacks we walked over to the hardware department which is in a separate building. This one was a typical late 19th-century store and much older than the supermarket. No air conditioning, no aisles for strolling around, just a long wooden counter where customers stand and request items. Behind the counter several young men and boys scurried around grabbing things off the home-made wooden shelves and filling out orders. They had an assortment of auto parts except the one we were looking for. 

  It was certainly an interesting experience observing once more how the conservative Old Colony Mennonites manage to adapt to the modern world. No doubt the owner faced more than one issue with community leaders in opening up such a "worldly" supermarket.

                                                             A. Mendoza