Retrodimestore at Metro Petro
Working an antique advertising collectors show with the doctor of collectibles
Adam Palance. Doctor by day, collectibles dealer at night. He knows as much about the intestines and the gallbladder as he does about board games and Star Wars action figures. No joke. Chief of Gastroenterology at Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, New Jersey, Adam has amassed what many people might deem “stuff” over his life, but this is no ordinary side hustle.
Retrodimestore. Pop Culture Mania. Thousands of items listed on eBay and Etsy. He’s in surgery one day and at an estate sale the next. Will travel a couple of hours to buy entire lots of product, the thrill of negotiating for a storage unit full of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys surpassing that of performing an advanced therapeutic endoscopy. Organizes packages for shipping after meeting with patients in the office. Oh, and he’s married with a set of twins on the verge of teenhood.
We’d been chatting for months about everything from small-scale activities to how to scale the business. In March, he asked for help with the Metro Petro show in Pompton Lakes. That weekend was free, and immersing myself in a community I’m not familiar with was a benefit on top of just working with him. So, Adam and I scanned automobilia and whatever else aligned with the theme to determine cost. Priced up the goods with the gun and packed it all into containers—that could be closed, no loose lids—or boxes. On the chilly morning of, we picked up the van, loaded it up, and heigh ho, heigh ho.
I arrived at the Elks Lodge before him. He pulled right up front, and I slid the side door to the left and swung the back doors open. Adam’s dolly made transporting the merchandise to our tables, in horseshoe formation near a corner of the multipurpose room, easy. He handled the setup as I moved back and forth, already a seamless partnership. By 7 o’clock, the preshow had begun, and a couple of his repeat customers gobbled up metal lunchboxes and model cars.
Snack bars rule. I’m an aficionado, especially of those in North Jersey, but I’d never sampled from here. The bacon and egg on a kaiser roll rejuvenated me as things kicked off. I manned the booth and added prices prior to Adam, in a Hess jacket, applying a discount, along with greeting anyone in our area. I met an older gentlemen named Karl who has Scandinavian heritage like me. Later, I kidded this dude Paul with a Vin Diesel/Chris Daughtry appearance to say the catchphrase “I am Groot”…while he and his girlfriend cracked up, I didn’t get to hear the words.
As usual, it was these moments with people that stuck and elevated my experience beyond any expectations. Chris Onorato—owner of Tri-City Revivals and, along with Luke Ruroede, producer of Metro Petro—isn’t just running a show, he’s creating a family environment where connections, regardless of purpose, can be fostered. Watching Adam operate in this setting was education. His knowledge is off the charts, he cites with the specificity of a scientist, often to the year. He can deduce a knockoff as if critiquing on Antiques Roadshow. With a guy who knew about military figurines, Adam said the disarming line “You’re the expert, tell me what you think” to such effect that I felt his passion: Like writers, he has no choice but to do it and he loves every second.
If you saw us next to each other, you’d probably guess there’s no way we’ve been amigos since I was in high school and he was in college. That’s 35-plus years ago. We look like we’re from Mars and Jupiter, though I’m not sure who’s from which planet, and our minds aren’t in the same exact space, but overlap does exist. Dad humor. Diners. He and I used to attend card shows in function halls at close-to-a-mall hotels and we were in a Strat-O-Matic baseball league with several friends.
The Tenakill Brook runs deeper and wider than that.
Shepard Palance was sitting next to me in English class. First day of sophomore year at Tenafly High School, both of us at the back of the rows we were in, and I had no clue who he was. Newbie, perhaps a little odd, but we became friends for life until his life was cut short at almost age 47—yup, The Big C. Had a cup of coffee posting auctions of old Sports Illustrated issues for Palance Toys, their company’s former name. He and I would occasionally stand at the kitchen table in his parents’ house and wrap packages, inventory spilling in from adjoining rooms. Abundant laughter.
We sometimes talked about working together in a formal way, how my skillset complemented his and that we could make it happen. Never did, but the Metro Petro mission proved again that the possibility remains strong. There’s just an indescribable synergy between me and these brothers. Shepard’s presence isn’t always around the corner. He’s not looming, and his ghost wasn’t floating in front of our booth at this fun community builder of an event or anything. After a half decade since his passing, Adam and I are ever aware of him, but we had a job to do and we were symbiotic: Packed stuff up, loaded the van, did the whole process in reverse. Cycle complete.