PORTLAND — The passing of James Leadbetter late last year, at age 95, caused me to recall a special act of his kindness more than 64 years ago. Before he established the popular Lobster Shack restaurant in Cape Elizabeth, he and his mother ran Leadbetter’s Bakery at Portland’s Deering Center.

As an 11-year-old morning delivery paper boy, I was invited into the warm bakery early on cold mornings to fold my papers into those tight spirals and then stuff them into my cloth shoulder bag before heading out to deliver. The aroma of freshly baked bread and pastry lingers with me to this day.

Deering Center was a special place. On the other side of the bakery, in the same building now occupied by Pat’s Meat Market, was a Red and White grocery store, one of five groceries in this small area.

McCann’s Radio Repair Shop was next door. This was before television and, to his chagrin, the modern transistor. Adjacent was the Great A&P grocery store with its double wooden swinging doors, each with its own large brass bar. The entrance to the Dollhouse movie theater was next with tickets priced at 12 cents for children.

On the corner was one of two full-service drugstores in the center. Each had a soda fountain with several stools and a few booths and that sterile, hospital-like smell from the medicines in the back.

Around the corner was Ken Moore’s barbershop, where most males, from birth, got their haircuts from that very patient man.

Ken had a bad hip and had attached a swiveling stool on the side of the barber chair so that he could cut hair while sitting. I was in that chair when, on the radio, Bobby Thompson hit the home run that won the pennant for the Giants over the Dodgers in 1951. The whole shop erupted, Ken Moore fell off his stool and I almost lost an ear!

Across Stevens Avenue was Lord’s Drug Store, where most received their first root beer float or cherry Coke and lingered in the wooden booths in back. Here the big problems of the day and the world were so easily solved.

As you passed the Central Square Beauty Shop next door, you could see the ladies lined up under the hair driers, and if the door opened, that strange chemical smell would waft out indicating someone was having a “permanent.” Serunian’s Mayfair Market was next, with its blue-and-white awning hanging over the sidewalk sheltering his colorful boxes of fresh fruits and vegetables.

But the Quality Shop, run by three generations of the Shamos family, was the popular spot because of the 25-cent Italian sandwiches and the store where for the first time one could note a new smell – pizza! The enormous price of 50 cents made each purchase a difficult decision.

A small single-room store/office run by Fred Macomber was next. It served as both his insurance sales office and a stationery, postage stamp (3 cents first class, a penny for a postcard) and school supply store. The fifth grocery store, an IGA, finished the abutting buildings.

On the corner was our neighborhood gas station. What young boy on his way home from school could resist stopping by the single repair bay and watch, hoping to pass a wrench or empty the old oil into the barrel out back? The smell of gas and grease and oil ushered one into adulthood.

It was a time of hope for America. After the war, the rampant industrial revolution provided full employment. It was a time of peace and planning for the future. It was a great time to grow up in America. In Portland. In Deering Center.

And returning to the bakery, on those very cold and snowy mornings, just as I was to venture out to deliver the papers, Jim Leadbetter would come out of the kitchen to give me a pat on the back along with a freshly baked cookie or warm doughnut.

None since has tasted so good. Thank you, Jim.

– Special to The Press Herald