The past seems just like yesterday for Mario Cavallaro and his recollections of the family corner store that grew to something bigger in no time.
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It was humble beginnings when in 1972 Mario and Sandra Cavallaro set out to open their small corner store on the corner of Butler and Harfluer St in Deniliquin.
What came from that was a large and trusted supermarket people still fondly remember today.
The Pastoral Times featured an article on Cavallaros in its regular Sunday ‘Do you remember?’ Facebook post.
The community responded with comments, photos, likes, shares and touching sentiments about a much loved family and their business.
Family members shared it with Mario, their ‘Nonno’, to show him how loved he was.
This prompted him to reach out to the Pastoral Times and offer to give a cheeky insight into the past.
From the minute we sat down he was off and racing.
“I wore out three trucks going to Melbourne to pick up fresh produce,” he said.
“A Holden one-tonner was the first truck,” which he speaks about like they are his babies.
“Four years I had it, then we got out of the shop and leased it out.”
The new owners had some difficulties, so Mario and his wife went back into the store - much to customers’ delight.
“Then I bought a Dodge four tonne truck,” Mario said.
“That lasted about five years. I took it to Melbourne and I didn’t come back with it, I came back with a Fiat.”
“This time it was a seven tonne Fiat,” he said with his eyes lighting up.
Between Marios’ facial expressions, his cheeky grin, his delighted eyes as we talk history and his accent, I am in stitches at his storytelling.
I said “so you could fit a lot in it”.
“Oooh yeah,” he said.
“I used to fill it right to the top and it would be touching the roof. I used to be driving up Pretty Sally, and it used to fight like mad,” he was in stitches at his own recollections by this time.
“After that the Fiat lasted, seven, eight years, until one day ....” he paused and grinned again.
“I used to fuel up at the last service station coming out of Melbourne. I was so tired I put petrol in instead of diesel, but I got it home.”
At this stage Mario had not realised what he had done, it was the mechanic who told him “Mario you bugger, you put petrol in instead of diesel”.
Mario said ‘No I didn’t’, but the mechanic insisted ‘I smell petrol yes you did’.
“One bowser next to the other; I picked the wrong one,” he conceded to me.
When asked about his funniest memory, he cast his mind back to the very first day he walked in to the shop he had just purchased.
“We bought the place walk in - walk out. I didn’t know what this meant.
“The guy who sold it to me, he took everything he wanted out of the shop so when we walked in it was almost empty,” he said eyebrows raised.
“I knew nothing about the shop, so I had this bloke in Swan Hill - Mad Joe. He had a shop over there too, I rang him up and said Joe ‘I’m in trouble’.
“He asked me ‘Mario what have you done?’; ‘You know me I don’t get into trouble, but I bought this shop, walk in - walk out and there is nothing in it,’.
“Anything that was left had no prices on it, and Joe said ‘get in your car and come over here now’.”
So off Mario went for a lesson in shop keeping, and Joe gave him a retail price book and filled his car with goods to help get him started.
“He had the retail prices marked for me and I raced back to the shop and the Mrs said it still looked a bit bare. So she said ‘Mario you know what we will do, we will fill the spaces with toilet paper until we get more stock’.”
So if you needed toilet paper, Mario was your guy.
Meanwhile he has nearly falling off the chair laughing, telling me there was no toilet, no house.
He would have to go to the caravan park next door to use a toilet, so the toilet paper was no good for him.
In reference to his customers he said they were “all his favourites”.
“I had so much appreciation for them, helping us get started and making it what we loved to do,” he said.
He loved working the store with his wife, the boys and his staff.
When I asked him how it went with the school kids across the road, he smiled and rolled his eyes all at once.
“They were great but when the bell went there were 601 kids in the shop all at once. They had 1c, 2c or 5c in their hands, each one going ‘um, um, um’ thinking of what they can buy.
“That was for one hour each school day, it was chaotic,” he said.
I am astounded at the recollections he has from the day he walked in until the day he closed.
As we got deep in conversation the memories rolled by. His watering eyes and two lone tears that were slowly rolling down his cheeks told me how much he loved that store, and how much he would love to be there again.
Age and time have not diminished his memory or his passion, so next time you see him maybe stop and chat and he will tell you a tale or two. I guarantee you will walk away with laughter and a smile.
At the least you will have made a true gentleman’s day.