Schulman’s was a downtown Altoona landmark institution. Sitting on the main thoroughfare of Eleventh Avenue, Schulman’s was the de facto place to go to buy work clothes in the city. I remember my Mom telling me that they had near-monopoly status in Altoona’s glory days in selling work clothes to the railroaders working at the Downtown and Juniata shops. I think they also got a pretty healthy cut of the regulated school uniform market for various Catholic schools in the area. You could do a lot worse than targeting and owning those demographics in Altoona.
Schulman’s was a family-owned business. I am pretty sure that my Dad graduated with one of the brothers (there were like five or six of them) at Altoona High in 1941.
In a scene that played out all over America in the late 60s and through the 70s, Schulman’s and the other downtown merchants faced tough times once the shopping malls started sprouting up in suburbs – in Altoona’s case, the Logan Valley Mall in south Altoona. Our family, though, would still do a fair amount of shopping throughout the 70s at Schulman’s and the other downtown establishments like Gable’s, Woolworth’s, and McCrory’s. There was only one car in the family and Mom didn’t drive – being within walking distance kind of made the continued use of downtown merchants a non-brainer.
I can recall buying jeans and t-shirts at Schulman’s. But the predominant reason, by far, that would lead me to Schulman’s on 11th Avenue in Downtown Altoona was to purchase sporting goods or sneakers for basketball.
For those activities, you needed to deal with Hymie.
I can’t even recall Hymie’s last name – he might have been related to the Schulman family that owned the store but I don’t know that for a fact. In the mid 70’s he was probably in his mid-to-late 20s. You would see Hymie riding his 10-speed around the city and I recall I even played some pickup ball a couple of times with him at the JMC or other courts in the city from time to time.
Hymie’s domain was the basement at Schulman’s where the sporting goods and athletic shoes were harbored. When you went down to that basement, you were definitely playing a road game with Hymie. Upon entering Schulman’s, the first impression one was struck with was the apparently total randomness of the stock in the basement. I am sure that there was a system and that Hymie knew exactly where everything was, but you never quite felt comfortable down there.
Generally, I would like to peruse the stock and then narrow down my choices based on attributes like style, color, and cost, but that was difficult at Schulman’s because you were never quite sure what was actually in stock or the price point at which Hymie was selling. There was also poor lighting in the basement.
You had to bargain and haggle with Hymie. If you did, you could end up getting some good deals. If you didn’t, you could get taken to the cleaners. This was before the Internet, so there wasn’t widespread available information about the true market value of the goods you were purchasing. You were lucky if you had maybe an insert from the Altoona Mirror or the Sunday Pittsburgh Press that might have the going competitive rate for items you were interested in.
I always had Mom along for the trips to buy sneakers in the mid-70s – she would typically have no trouble handling the bargaining with Hymie, but there was an occasion in the fall of 1974 where Hymie almost tripped her up.
Then Hymie tried to run his irregular game on me and things started going south - fast.
Hymie always had a seemingly unlimited supply of shoes with defects. Some of these defects were minor or cosmetic in nature. Others were more functional defects. Hymie had a unique term for this stock: irregulars. (Hymie had a minor speech impediment and had a very, hmmm, distinctive way of saying the word “irregulars”.)
So, right before we are about to head to the register to complete the transaction, Hymie tells my Mom that, by chance, he has an irregular pair of that exact size and model of Pro-Keds for some incredible price. I looked at Mom with this "Hell, No!” expression, but, before you know it, I am trying on these defective sneakers with a misaligned red stripe on the the left shoe, The stitching was also out of whack on the right shoe.
Things were spiraling out of control from my perspective at this point. Envisioning that I would be laughed at (or worse) and that my street cred quotient would dip to unrecoverable levels, I summoned up the courage to, in a very firm tone of voice (at least for a 12 year old), assert to Mom that “I am not going to wear those irregulars!”. Well, I immediately got the look in return from Mom, who later that evening used the episode as a little “teaching 
In May of 1980, The Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament Church had a little dinner for all the soon-to-be-graduating students from BGHS who had been altar boys. The dinner was held in the cafeteria in the Cathedral basement and parents were also invited. At the dinner, the priests passed out $40 gifts to each of the graduates. (As an aside, who do you think made out on that deal?)
Anyways, at that time I had my eyes set on a new Wilson Jet (top of the line leather, not that composite leather stuff they are shilling nowadays). The Jet was $39.99 MSRP – confirmed with calls to some Sporting Goods Stores in the LVM. For old times sake, I walked into Schulman’s but the best Hymie could do was to offer it to me for $44.99. Dude wouldn’t budge, so I walked a couple of blocks down 11th Avenue to the Altoona Leather Store and bought it for MSRP. That was the last time I set foot in Schulman’s.
