Country Store
Photo by Anna Mircea at Unsplash
When I grew up in North Carolina decades ago, country stores dotted the landscape every few miles, usually at rural crossroads. These venues were the only places besides church for farmers in our community to gather and socialize. All the stores shared similar characteristics, but Mr. Jarvis Lee’s store was closest and most frequently visited by my family.
My father spent hours there, especially in winter months when the fields lay fallow, covered in frost each morning. If my younger sister and I knew he planned to visit the store, we ran after him chanting, “Can we come? Pleeease?”
Sometimes, he agreed to let us tag along, and like spies, we observed the social ritual of farmers who pulled up chairs or wooden kegs to sit and chat awhile about crops, tobacco and feed prices, politics, and local gossip. The stores were a refuge for men seeking comradery and relief from work and, perhaps, families. Here, they could get a soft drink for a nickel, a moon pie or pack of nabs for another nickel, and advice and humor for free.
Mr. Lee’s store was a small structure built of cinder blocks, with a glass door and a large picture window on either side of the storefront. Its cement floor had darkened through the years from tracks of brogan shoes and bare feet.
The interior space contained multiple rows of shelving filled with goods used by country residents who lacked ready access to the A & P. The store stocked diverse products such as candy bars, women’s feminine products, loaf bread, BC powders, straw hats, bologna—really almost anything a rural household might need, only in a limited variety.
North Carolina Digital Collections, Echo Project
At the front of the store, Mr. Lee stood or sat by the counter with the cash register. Nearby stood large cold chests filled with bottles of Pepsi, Nehi sodas, Dr. Pepper, Yahoo, and Coca Cola. Other freezers contained ice cream bars.
My sister and I leaned against a drink chest, silent and waiting as Daddy reached deep into his pockets and handed us each a dime to get what we wanted.
We strolled the candy aisles and studied the beverage options until we made our selections and paid Mr. Lee, the register chiming as he deposited our coins. Then we repositioned ourselves by the cold chests to listen to the farmers talk.
Content to sip my Nehi orange and nibble my candy bar while I listened to Daddy banter with his neighbors, I didn’t wonder then whether I might someday join the farmers’ chat, nor did I consider that within a few decades, country stores in my neighborhood would cease to exist.
