Clayton Loses Something Special

The consistent stream of bad macroeconomic news on the national level  — stagnant unemployment numbers, historically high debt, the recent credit rating downgrade — over the last month is equaling pain on the micro-level, right down to our little town of Clayton.

, a store that's been a fixture in town for 20 years, is going out of business.

Its gone through many changes over the years.

It started primarily as a flower shop when it first opened in 1991, then capitalized on the Beanie Baby boom of the 1990s. When that bubble burst, Something Special became an affordable, high-quality gift shop.

The gift shop, however, couldn't withstand the latest recession and our slow recovery from it, and revenue has declined since Nov. 2008.

The owners, husband-and-wife team Donna and Ralph Pollard, tried to fight through it, but recently decided they had no other choice but to close.

A Family Business

Ralph Pollard opened Something Special in December of 1991, with his first wife Peggy, in the Clayton Valley Shopping Center as a flower shop. The two would make early morning runs to the San Francisco Flower Market and hand-pick the best flowers.

The store became known as "The Beanie Baby Store" in the mid-1990s. The little, plastic bean-stuffed animals were all the craze and it wasn't too uncommon for hundreds to line up outside to get the newest Beanie Baby on the market.

Business was going well, but tragedy struck the Pollard family at this time.

Peggy was diagnosed with cancer and could no longer work. Her parents, Louise and Glen Long, helped out at the store to keep Something Special going. Ralph, a practicing lawyer, quit his law firm to care for his ailing wife. After several years of treatment, Peggy died in January, 2000.

"It was a very difficult time for Ralph," Donna said. "He loved Peggy more than anything and her death hit him hard."

At the time, Donna was renting a house from Ralph. Donna's neighbors were Peggy's parents, and they encouraged her to check in on Ralph. They slowly became friends as Donna tried to comfort him through his wife's death.

"We started spending a lot of time together," Donna said. "I'd been single for 22 years, so I wasn't in a rush. But we fell in love and that was that."

After three years of dating, the two got married in 2004. Donna assisted at the shop and took over shortly after getting married.

With the Beanie Baby hysteria coming to an end, Donna helped reinvent Something Special once more. The store became a gift shop (think Hallmark without the cards), and business was healthy.

Saying Goodbye

The downward spiral for Something Special started after the housing market collapsed and Wall Street's financial crisis hit Main Street. Overhead went up, sales went down and the Pollards couldn't get out of the red.

Donna admits to being a little bitter. She believes there are many reasons why America's economy is hurting. For one, she doesn't think it's a coincidence her sales went down the same month Barack Obama was elected president.

"I don't think (America) is going in the right direction," Donna said. "He's been president for 2-1/2 years and things are just getting worse."

The shelves have slowly become more bare over the last month during the store's going out of business sale. Something Special will close for good Aug. 25.

"Its been a good store with loyal customers," Donna said. "I'm going to miss them desperately."

The Pollards won't be without income — Ralph went back to practicing law after marrying Donna — but losing their store has been painful.

"We didn't have this store in hopes of making a lot of money," Donna said. "It was just something we liked doing and we felt like we were helping out the community and making people happy."