Kraynak's Part One

 Kraynak's, a family run store famous in the Shenango Valley and beyond. I believe Kraynak's started as a garden store. The building exudes that 60's feel. It is also huge. I remember shopping there as a child of six or seven. I could get lost there. Being a child, though, I was drawn to the toy department. My parents knew to look for me in the toy department. I was never lost. Well, maybe in thought.
The store still carries the kind of animals I loved when I was kid, playing "Animals." The hard plastic, realistic kind, but now they display so many more. These pictures are just a sampling.

Mary Ellen's favorite, kitties

 One weekend day, I know I was in first grade, my dad bought me the kangaroo couple. I took this gray hard plastic couple, with the joey molded into the wife, to school on Monday for show and tell. I loved kangaroos. I had forgotten that love until one day at the Pittsburgh Zoo, I walked through the then new kangaroo display and almost floated away I felt so incredible, thinking I was so close to these marsupials.
The other day we took a half hour to venture into Kraynak's. It is still overwhelmingly big. This time of year, you're wise to go during the week. The weekends, the line to go into the store stretches out to the parking lot, in all kinds of weather.
The attraction in the fall is Santa Land and in the spring is Easter Land. They decorate and set up these displays for months. Santa Land is dismantled Christmas Eve, so if you don't get there from September to December 24th, just forget it.
I'll write more on that later.
I direct everyone to Kraynak's for toys of all kinds. John Deere, trains, all kinds of dolls, baby dolls to Barbie and in between, board games, stuffed animals and these hard plastic animals. Also, candy you haven't seen since childhood, Mal lo cups, hard candy, popcorn balls. Kolachi sits on the shelves, too.

Rows and rows of toys

A child's dream

Remember paddle ball?