By SHERRI L. SHAULIS

By SHERRI L. SHAULIS
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
KINSMAN -- Tucked off to the left side as you enter the doorway, it beckons. The mirrors and chrome shine, and the barstools, though in need of some minor repair, are still comfortable and inviting.
The signs still boast more than 15 flavors for milkshakes, old-fashioned sodas, phosphates and more. A modern box of ice cream cones sits atop the antique cone dispenser that needs a paint job but is still in excellent condition.
It's been that way here since 1959, when it was installed, Susan Sutton Kidd says. Though the signs on the door and windows announce everything from ear candles to greeting cards to lottery tickets are available, it's the soda fountain that people associate with Kinsman Rexall Drug.
"It's not a money-maker," admits Kidd, who helps run the family business with her father, 75-year-old Bob, her mother, Grace, and her brother, Donald. "But it's us. People identify the soda fountain with us."
Kidd notes that the soda fountain -- still stocked with syrups, fountain glasses and glass banana dishes -- was installed one year after she was born and has been the cornerstone of the independent business since then. It's nostalgic, yes, she says, and a piece of history not only for the Sutton family but for anyone who grew up in Kinsman.
"Thanksgiving is always a busy time for us," she says. "When people come back home for the long holiday weekend to visit relatives, they come back here because it's exactly what they did when they were a kid."
Simpler times
People will come in to the store in Kinsman's downtown area, right on state Route 7, their children and grandchildren in tow, to relive old times and bring back memories of a simpler life. For less than a few bucks, they can watch a member of the Sutton family -- Kidd and her brother started working there when they were in high school, and her father started when he was 14 years old -- make an original cherry or vanilla Coke, extra-thick milkshake or other ice cream delicacy. And while they wait, they can wander through the aisles, finding almost everything they never realized they needed.
"We used to have booths over there," Kidd says, pointing just beyond the soda fountain's counter to where a display of greeting cards sits. "We had to take them out, though, to make room for everything else."
Everything else includes automotive needs like transmission fluid or windshield washer fluid, hardware items such as C clamps or nails, and homeopathic offerings like ear candles -- used "to relieve almost any type of ear problem," the packaging claims -- and sprays to relieve insomnia or nightmares.
Even the bottom of one shelf is lined with boxes of penny candy that still costs only a penny. Kidd marvels when she reads a magazine article or listens to the radio and learns of someone who's nostalgic for the sweet treats of their youth that they just can't find in the stores anymore.
"I just think all they need to do is come to Kinsman," she says. "Chances are we have it here."
Market Square
And if the Rexall Drug doesn't have it, it doesn't take much to walk next door to Market Square, owned by Donald and his wife, Diane, to see if they have it. The building, which dates back more than 100 years, houses three floors of sundry needs, just like an old general store. The top floor is home to a year-round Christmas Shop, as well as a section of used clothing and other items, the sale of which benefits the Kinsman Humane Sanctuary. Walk along the wooden floors of the main level, and you can find boxed and canned foods in one area; hardware items, toys and a large selection of wallpaper in another; and more than 40,000 books of all sizes and genres in a third. The basement area is packed to the gills with antique items.
Between the Rexall and Market Square, Diane Sutton says, you can find just about anything.
It was about 15 years ago when Diane and Donald bought the neighboring business, which had been a mini mall and a flea market before that. It's become a natural outgrowth of the pharmacy Donald grew up in, she says, filling in the gaps for the residents of Kinsman, Vernon, Burghill and other surrounding communities. And those loyal customers, she notes, are what's kept the businesses alive and not forced them to close like so many other small, family-run businesses in bigger cities.
"It's the support of those people that keeps us here," she says.
But there are still some people who unknowingly stumble through the doors, unaware of what the Rexall and Market Square have to offer, she says. It never fails -- they are surprised to find a place that has an operating soda fountain or sells wallpaper and children's toys under the same small roof in the close-knit community.
"They just can't believe places like this still exist," she laughs.
slshaulis@vindy.com