In the heart of Waterbury Village, there’s a toy store called The Tiny Acorn. Sally and Bob Dain have owned and run the store for two decades. At the end of this summer, they plan to retire. The Tiny Acorn will close on August 15.
The Dains spoke with reporter Devan Pierce, of the University of Vermont Community News Service. This story was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript below.
Sally Dain: The Tiny Acorn is 21 years old.
Bob Dain: We’re one of the oldest, still-under-the-same-ownership stores in Waterbury.
Sally Dain: And this is going to be our last year.
Sally Dain: The Tiny Acorn was a dream. After being a children’s librarian in Waterbury for many, many years, I realized things were changing, and I wanted to do something different. And so I took a women’s small business class, and The Tiny Acorn was born.
Alright, so as you enter The Tiny Acorn, you’re greeted with magic. You experience joy for the first time when you look in, into our entrance. We usually have it based on holidays, whatever holiday’s coming up. And, you know, we wrap presents and put them up for display. We just do whatever makes us feel joy.
If you have a dream of running a toy store, do it. Take a chance!Sally Dain
Bob Dain: I would say the average day is one of glee for the kids coming into the store, because it definitely attracts them. In fact, there are many days when I’m looking out the door and I see kids coming out of the Village Market food store with their mother or father, and they see The Tiny Acorn, and they grab them and they want to pull them over.
Sometimes the kids are quite persuasive and they get their way. Sometimes the parent has to say, "No, I’ve got ice cream in the bag here." And it’s the middle of August. But the parents realize that we have things that are child useful, as far as their mind and their hands to interact with.
And I think what also makes it fun for adults is they see things and it reminds them of their childhood.
Sally Dain: We have these glass animals. They’re tiny. We’ve been selling them from the beginning. And we have kids come in and select some. But their parent or grandparent say, "Oh, I bought those when I was a little child!" You can have three generations here going through our glass animals. So that’s kind of neat to see that. And we see that a lot.
Bob turned 80 in November. We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in October. We have grandkids we don’t see that often. And we just knew that it was time.
Bob Dain: I think the next step in our lives after The Tiny Acorn will be exploration. We can go on day trips. Trying out new things. And perhaps doing a day or two of volunteering somewhere.
Sally Dain: We’ll miss the tiger. And I’ll miss the giraffe greeting me, and the polar bear. We’ll miss these friends in the store. But maybe somebody will continue with our tiger and giraffe, and we can come in and say hello.
It’s been fun. Because you’re almost playing every day. So if you have a dream of running a toy store, do it. Take a chance!
Music in this story is “Chafftop" by Blue Dot Sessions.
