Small town afternoon

I drove down backoads the other afternoon in the waning days of 2001, looking for the countryside of past dreams and nearly lost memories of good times when I was young. I needed to do that. The time was right, and the miles flowed by like a river.

One little “blue highway” led me from the wildlife sanctuary I had just visited to a small town, a well-preserved and historic county seat with courthouse and restored downtown that I haven’t visited in a couple of years. It’s a really pretty town. One of the main thoroughfares paralleling Washington Street is lined with late 19th and early 20th century houses, block after block of houses with grand histories, I am sure. I gazed at each quickly as I drove past, little embers of imaginings flickering by in my mind, glimpses into the past that only old houses can provide.

The town’s geography and topography remind me curiously enough of Mobile, Alabama, a deep-South port city 150 miles east of New Orleans that I have only passing acquaintance with, but which I recall for it big live oak trees coexisting rather nicely with tall pine trees. The same is true in this little town I write about. It is filled with live oaks, but has many pines as well.

I parked and walked down the main street, aiming for a destination where I was certain to be transported back in time. I was not disappointed. It was one of the first places I came to, a venerable and last-of-its-kind five and ten cent store. I walked in and there were the exact same employees I saw on my previous visit. The old man, the founder of this local dime store, I surmised, was crouched over a display case straightening out merchandise. His brother, I think, also rather elderly but not as old, perhaps the manager of the store, hovered nearby. I couldn’t quite figure out what he was doing. It didn’t seem like there was much to be done. Finally, two women who appeared to be long-time employees were in the front of the store. I remember them from the last visit, too.

I was the only customer there, and each of the four in turn asked me if I needed any help. I replied that I was “just looking.” Indeed, that was just what I had come to do — browse the aisles and re-live a bit of my past as a child in the pre-Wal-Mart days of neighborhood and downtown dime stores that were, to my youthful imagination, the grandest emporiums of merchandise one could conceive of. Flat display cases full of every type of doodad and whatchamacallit. Big, jagged chunks of chocolate in other cases. Toys, school supplies. Clothes.

I wandered around, somewhat self-conscious, but the aging denizens of the store didn’t pay me any mind, even though I was obviously a stranger in town on this late Friday afternoon shortly before closing time.

The place was really out of some kind of time warp. I just kept marveling at the items you don’t find anywhere else but in these relic establishments from the past. Where do they get this stuff, I said to myself. Taiwan and China, mostly, I had to laugh after picking up and examining some glass butter holders. I made a couple of small purchases including a letter opener, something that I haven’t owned in ages. Now I can open my junk mail more efficiently. And I bought a post card. The silent sales clerk put my purchases in a paper bag, folded the edge over, and stapled the receipt to the bag.

Thanking her, I walked out of the store and continued on down main street until, to my utter surprise, I stumbled on a brand new business, a bookstore/coffeehouse-cafe combination that was as inviting as it was homey. A nice selection of books. Very pleasant people. Everyone said hello. In fact, city dweller that I am, I was unused to the hospitality that greeted me at every turn. People on the street said hello, smiled, or nodded.

There’s an antiques store in an old brick building at the other end of Washington Street that I wasn’table to visit. The owner was locking the door just as I came up. Closing a few minutes early on Friday. It was a quarter to five, and I had to get to the barbeque restaurant for dinner.

Later, after a huge meal of sweet and moist barbeque pork, fried chicken, cabbage, green beans, cole slaw, hash and rice, macaroni, collard greens, chicken bog, sweet tea and banana pudding for dessert, I joined the traffic on a much busier highway back to Charleston, for it was approaching nightfall and I couldn’t enjoy a leisurely return trip. It had been a long and successful afternoon in a small town that I keep returning to year after year. There must be some reason for this, and, of course there is.