I have written about this many times in the past, perhaps because it is such a staple in my childhood. When you lived ten miles out of town, running up to the old country store was the treat of the day. Especially when it was 95 degrees outside and a blueberry Redbird Popsicle was calling your name.
The old fashioned country store was the meeting place for many when I was a child. Mr. and Ms. Seal ran it for many years and then my mom's first cousin, a lady I called Aunt Geraldine, ran it with her husband John. There were two metal chairs that sat in the center of the store with a small table in between. There was an ashtray there for folks to flick the ashes from a soggy cigar.
Old farmers would sit in this spot while we kids roamed around the store on the cool cement floor with our bare feet. There was a low hum throughout and a faint smell of ice cream and dairy. I'm not sure if the smell came from the old milk farmers or the coolers. These men would discuss the weather. They would talk about winter grass and times to plant. They would discuss the cold fronts or the flood seasons.
Different crops were planted at different times of the year and there was always a rumble about who had a bumper crop, a bad crop, or an enormous watermelon or pumpkin. We would pour peanuts into an ice cold bottled Coke then skip out and climb into the back of the truck to ride back home with wind in our hair.
Often on summer afternoons when Mom would wrap up at the Last Lane Nursery we would make this run just as the sky was turning dark in the horizon. An afternoon thunderhead was bubbling up and rain could be smelled in the air.
And then came the glorious day I was fourteen and my mother decided I was old enough to drive down to the old country store for her to grab milk, bread, or whatever else she had run low on. The sense of freedom pushing down the gas in the old work van and bumbling along the narrow country road taking the long way to get in a few more driving minutes was a true rite of passage.
I have brought my readers back to these fond memories because this weekend we were driving to Amite to have dinner and right across the old highway from my favorite cinderblock of memories glowed in the darkness a bright yellow Dollar General sign. Yes, in the midst of my Kat Kaw childhood now stands an enormous block building with a cement parking lot and street lights.
My husband said, "Well, I guess the old store will never open back up now." And I had to agree as my jaw had dropped open. Country had not come to town, the town had moved out to the middle of my old farming community and one more little loss tugged at my childhood home.
Oh, I am sure memories will be made by young ones who venture in to this store in the summer time on a hot afternoon. I am sure they will dig out an ice cream or peanuts and a coke. Maybe even a farmer or two will bump into one another and commence to discuss the uncanny warm winter we are having. And if they don't, all they have to do is drive five more miles up the road for another bright yellow sign to welcome them in.
