My dad, E. C. Goldberg, was born in Charleston, SC on September 26, 1895 upstairs over Robinson's bicycle store on King Street.  He is the son of Max Goldberg and Anna Block Goldberg.  Most of his younger life was spent in Charleston.  His family moved to Asheville due to the health of his father who I believe had breathing problems and thought that the mountain air would help.  My dad met my mother at the home of Dan and Belle Silverman.  My mother, Mildred Jacobs, was visiting from Richmond, VA.  They were married in Richmond on January 9, 1925.  It was nine months later that I was born.  These were the depression years and money was hard to come by.  My dad was in partnership with his brother-in-law, A. J. Huvard in the Steamfitting business until they lost everything in the Depression.  My dad met a black crippled man named Woods, (only name I ever heard) and together they formed a small business with Woods doing the shoe shine part and my dad doing the newstand part.  They were in different locations downtown Asheville over the years,  Some on Haywood St. and some on Patton Ave.  The final place was next to the Imperial Theater on Patton Ave.  It became the Imperial Newstand at 30 1/2 Patton Ave.  I am not sure how many years Woods was with my dad but he died and the shoe shine part of the business was removed and just the newstand remained.  In this business of news papers, magazines, cocoa cola, cigarettes, cigars, candy, chewing gum and novelties, my dad took in pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters as an income which help to support a family of four.  We lived in many apartments across town until we ended up at 147 East Chestnut St.  My sister, Sylvia, was born, December 22, 1929.  She had the one bedroom and my parents slept in the living room.  I had a bed in the kitchen behind a folding screen.  After I graduated high school in 1943, I moved out and worked in Ohio at Patterson Field in Communications.  In September of 1943 I joined the Navy. 

Getting back to my dad, he was in the same newstand for forty plus years.  While there all those years, everyone downtown knew E. C. (Easy) Goldberg.  He talked to everyone passing by, especially those from out of town as they came to pick up the out of town papers.  The movie operators from the Imperial and State theaters would congregate there in front of his business until they went on duty.  I got to know them all and also the ushers, ticket takers and box office operators of the Imperial Theater.  I knew all the people who worked in the nearby stores as many of them bought from my dad.  I knew Coleman Zaiger, Mr. Byrd from Efrieds, people from Kenny's Shoe Store, from Army Store, Ken's Jewery Store, Pollack Shoe Store, and so on.  My mother use to come and let my dad go get something to eat or whatever.  Later years I stayed there and helped.  Sometimes he would go to an American Legion Convention out of town and I would run the store.  Since he was a veteran of WWI and a member of the Kiffen Rockwell Post of the American Legion he was in their Drum and Bugle Corps.  He was always drumming his fingers on the table when we ate.  I joined the Sons of the American Legion Drum and Bugle Corps when I was about 14 years old.  I did a little of everything, such as color guard, cymbals, bugle, and fife before I ended up on the drums.  I did attend two National American Legion Conventions one in Chicago and one in Boston.  On the way to Boston we stopped at the World's Fair in New York.  That was a wonderful experience.   

Back to the newstand.  The New York Sunday Times came in on Monday and you can imagine how big the pile was since the newspaper was so thick.  What happens to the magazines that are left at the end of the month?  The news company comes and picks them up and my dad received some credit for them.  A number of salesmen would often drop by to see what was needed in the newstand.  Besides the movie operators there were also baseball players gathered there at the store from the Asheville Tourist Ball Club.

I use to get in the games with the Knothole Gang formed by My Perkinson of the YMCA.  During school days there would be a lot of students on Patton Ave. after school.  They would congregate at Eckerds Drug Store on Patton and Faters on Haywood.  A lot would come by the Imperial Newstand and that's how so many of my class mates knew my dad.  During those days the downtown area was always busy with people walking, especially on Saturdays when the farmers came to town.  My dad only got to eat home one day a week and that was on Sundays.  He had one of the men to relieve him for a couple hours and he came home on the bus.  Sunday dinners were great with Chicken Noodle Soup, maybe some Chopped liver, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and ice tea.  Afterwards my dad went to the corner Hendrick's Drug Store to get ice cream to finish off the meal.  On week days my dad ate dinner at the restaurants, such as Peterson's on the Square, Eckerds across the street, S & W Cafeteria or other places.  When I was little he would leave the house to go to work before I was up in the morning and come home late after I had gone to bed.  During the week I only saw him if we went to town.  Being an operator of a Newstand most of his life made for a hard life for my dad.  I moved my folks to Charleston in 1972 and my dad died in October of that year.  My mother lived until 1991.  This is a short synopsis of my dad and the Imperial Newstand in Asheville, North Carolina."