But that's going to change Sept. 29, when the 78-year-old Zorndorf finally retires.

After 61 years in a trade his father taught him when he was a young teenager, Zorndorf figures he has learned a little about business - and a lot about people. His are insights that only a lifelong tailor could offer, like this one:

People lose weight. Then they gain it back. Both phases are good for business.

"They always come back to the tailor," Zorndorf said last week from his small first floor shop at Sherman Avenue and Montgomery Road. Dieters are among a tailor's best clients, he notes.

Fashion trends boost the bottom line, and Zorndorf has seen them all: wide lapels, narrow lapels, double-breasted suits, three-button sports coats, rising hemlines, falling hemlines, pleated trousers, straight-legged trousers and on and on and on. His one-man operation has even survived casual Fridays, blue jeans in the office and a new generation of workers who own, maybe, one blue suit.

Sometimes small businesses like Sherman Tailors have survived through sheer force of family will. Near the end of World War II, Zorndorf's father died and Zorndorf was drafted into the Army.

Zorndorf's mother kept the business alive by working long days, six days a week.

She would arrive at 8 a.m. and go home at 8:30 p.m.

Every school day, his 6-year-old sister would get out of school, walk to a stop on the street car line and ride out to Sherman Avenue alone. She would do her homework at the shop, and if she got tired, her bed was a blanket under the desk.

Zorndorf, a Finneytown resident, returned from Japan, and it was soon business as usual.

Since then, it's been six decades of measuring, cutting, pressing and making alterations to clothing.

But Norwood is not what it used to be.

"You should have seen Norwood back in the '50s," he says, a little umbrage in his voice and demeanor.

"The sidewalks were packed. Stores stayed open until 9 p.m.

"Norwood was a thriving community. It was one of the hottest areas in our region."

When the suburbs began to draw people away from Cincinnati neighborhoods and Norwood, Zorndorf's business suffered a corresponding decline in revenue. Now, it's something of a chore for his longtime customers to make the pilgrimage to Norwood for alterations.

But that doesn't stop retired surgeons, lawyers, hospital administrators and blue-collar workers from mingling in his shop on Saturday mornings, when the tailor shop becomes a bagel-and-coffee club.

"We chat and all these people come in to talk," said Maurice J. Wesselmann, 71, a Maineville resident and the retired director of Hamilton County's 911 system. "It's an eclectic group and a great way to start off a Saturday morning. You always learned something."

Suzanne Kilgore, executive director of the Custom Tailors & Designers Association, a Washington, D.C.-based group of 300 tailors around the country, said it was pretty clear that Zorndorf was not quitting for lack of business.

"I'm sure it's because of time. The guy probably wants more of it," she said. "Someone retiring after that many years, it's not because he didn't have business."

Casual office clothing probably did not help business, Zorndorf says. But people who hire tailors never really embraced blue jeans as office apparel anyhow.

He remembers when cuffing a pair of trousers was 15 cents. Today, it costs, oh, maybe $8.50.

What is going to occupy his days after he retires?

"I'm going to golf whenever I want to," he said. And he may do some work from his home.

In a little more than four weeks, Sherman Tailors will be gone. And when that happens, a slice of Norwood disappears as well.

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E-mail jeckberg@enquirer.com