Farewell to the sweetheart at the Skime store

If she stands on her tiptoes, she just might be all of five feet, and all she wants is to walk off the job one final time on June 30 with no fanfare.

It’s not gonna happen!

Out in Skime, she could run for mayor and win in a landslide.

How big is the Skime Store?

It’s conveniently small, but it’s as good as a Walmart when somebody is sick and needs Pepto-Bismol, a pound of butter, a dozen eggs, or is suffering from a terrific thirst and needs a six-pack of their favorite soda.

Little Mavis Olson is the day person at the store, and she tried to remember how long she’d been with the store.

“I think it’s about 18 or 19 years,” she said, adding that there have been three store owners, starting with Leonard and Rachel Olson (both deceased and her in-laws); then Judy Olson and her late husband, Brian; and now Roger and Bernice Skime.

“I’ve been passed down from one owner to the next,” she said with a terrific smile.

She’s the store’s historian.

“Roger is the first Skime that has ever owned the Skime Store,” she said. “He’s a very nice guy.”

Not five minutes earlier, she had sworn off an interview and then was asked if she’d had her hair fixed up nicely for the photo.

“I don’t think so!” she said with considerable spunk. “Does it look like it?”

In fact, it did.

And then she smiled and gestured to the gal behind the counter with her.

“Shelley is going to take over for me,” she said.

Stand inside the Skime Store and just soak it all in. It has a lived-in feeling, like a Mom and Pop one-stop shop and go.

Sell beer here?

“Oh, yes,” she said, adding that Busch Light is their biggest seller.

Ever drink a Busch Light?

“Oh, yes!” she said as she and Shelley Mueske laughed.

“But not for quite a few years now,” she said.

Not everybody drinks Busch Light in Skime or in neighboring Wannaska, which is a dry town.

They stop and shop, and it makes her day.

“I like to read during the slow times,” she said, mentioning that she reads mostly thrillers.

And then she was remembering years ago when she was working for Leonard Olson and was reading a paperback.

“Here, I’m getting paid for reading after working in factories all my life, and I thought, ‘That can’t be right!’ But nobody said anything.”

They pull in at the Skime Store because it’s convenient, and you never know when you’ll get a hankering for sardines and soda crackers.

“Yes, we’ve got sardines,” said Mavis, a 1934 model who keeps the store looking spic and span.

Take it from her replacement.

“I was surprised that she does pretty much all of it - filling out the deposit slips, doing all the ordering, stocking the shelves, and sweeping and mopping the floors,” said Shelley while Mavis was taking an incoming call.

“She’s a beautiful, wonderful lady, and very friendly and talkative,” she said, before Mavis returned to the front of the store.

Catch many shoplifters, Mavis?

“No, we use the honor system here,” she said.

Look up and down the rows of shelves, and the items are stacked neatly and the floors are spotless.

She knows the routine.

“The grocery truck comes in once a week, and the beer and pop trucks come once every two weeks,” she said, adding that the beer and pop guys do all the heavy lifting.

“They stock it for me,” she said.

It had to be asked.

What prompted her to retire?

“The first of January, I thought about it. Then, that month went by and I thought, ‘If I do it now, it’s cold outside. I’ll be sitting in the house basically all the time. So, I think I’ll wait for a quarter of a year to go by.’

“Well, then it didn’t feel right yet and I thought, ‘Well, six months then!’

“Then, the kids got on me,” she said, mentioning her four adult children - Ken, her twin daughters - Denise and Deann - and Stacy, the unexpected baby that surprised Hubert and Mavis.

Her kids basically told her, “Mom, you’ve worked long enough.”

She’s been a widow for 22 years.

But now, with her last day just over a week away, it will be a big change.

There’s always somebody popping in at the Skime Store, buying something - a candy bar or a gallon of milk - and then chewing the fat.

Are you going to get lonely not working here?

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she said. “I’ll miss the people.”

It was just like Shelley Mueske to give her an assuring hug.

“You can come and have coffee with me,” she told her.

Mavis smiled.

“Everybody’s been saying that,” she said. “I don’t know.”

Then, she perked up.

Oh, she meets lots of people but a few years ago, she met an interesting couple.

“They were from Australia and they were riding bicycles, and they biked from New Orleans and stopped here on their way to Canada,” she said.

Mavis suggested that the Times-Region would love to do a feature on them.

The lady told her that they preferred to avoid the publicity.

“We don’t like to advertise because people know we probably have cash on us, and we don’t want to get mugged,” she said to Mavis.

Imagine getting mugged up here.

Out in Skime and anywhere else in Roseau County, these Aussies wouldn’t have been robbed.

They would have been royalty.

That’s one of the memories that Mavis Olson will fondly remember from all the characters she’s served at the Skime Store.

On Wednesday morning, Roger Skime, a local cattleman who lives in the Thief River Falls area, put the finishing touch on a treasured employee.

“She’s a remarkable lady. I don’t know anything about that store. I kind of inherited it when I bought the land from Mrs. Olson - Judy,” he said.

“And Mavis was evidently helping them out with the store. So, I don’t know anything about that store other than she does the buying, invoicing and pricing.”

Roger Skime is a very unique boss.

“She told me the other day that she’s been doing this for 19 or 20 years. She and Judy run the place. I just stop and buy gas and stuff once in a while. I really think of it as their place.”

And now, he losing one of the best.

“When she told us that she was going to retire, I thought, ‘Well, you deserve it.’ She’s not young anymore, but she does an awesome job.

“She and Judy are remarkable. Bernice and I don’t even own a key to the store,” he said. “They take care of it, and we just make sure the finances are there to keep it going.”

Out in Skime Country, Mavis Olson is the sweetheart at the Skime Store.