The comfort of a country store
By Tom Bryant
Over the years I believe I’ve accumulated enough knowledge to become something of an expert on country stores. One of my favorites is Slim’s Place, the one I frequent the most and perhaps have something of a bias toward, since my good friend and hunting buddy Bubba owns it.
Discovering country stores became a hobby for me on our many road trips across the country. When I venture north and west of the Mason-Dixon line, I have a tendency to equate my experiences to those in the sunny South, thinking they would automatically be different. However, I’ve discovered that often that premise is not true. For example, on a recent trip to the state of Washington, I checked out numerous backcountry small stores and, to my delight, found that most of them seemed to be familiar the minute I walked in. The reason for this, I believe, is the people who frequent these establishments. I noticed they aren’t different from their counterparts across the nation. They might talk a little differently, but hey, folks have said that I sound a little funny myself.
What makes a country store a country store? To me it’s the merchandise stacked on shelves, sometimes haphazardly. Things you will not find in other mercantile locations. For example, pickled eggs and pickled sausage links, cast iron frying pans and Dutch ovens and galvanized buckets of all sizes. In some places, I’ve found coveralls big enough to fit three regular people, denim shirts that will wear forever and straw hats, the kind that have a plastic shaded green part in the front brim.
Most of the establishments have a central gathering area for the good old boys to kick back and wrangle the day’s news, for better or worse. In these places, one thing that you will not find is the lack of an opinion.
At Slim’s country store, the focus of the patrons is the huge pot-bellied stove that’s centrally located. A mismatched collection of chairs, some slat-backed and some rockers, surround the old cast iron contraption. It’s a great place to hold forth. When the weather is warm, the boys will move to the wrap-around porch with its rockers, gliders and swings. Sometimes it seems as if being outdoors even improves the conversation, or makes it lighter anyway.
You will notice that I keep referring to the patrons of these establishments as boys. Now ladies are allowed, of course, and sure enough they come to buy things, but they let their husbands, grandfathers and sons do most of the loitering. My grandfather had a country store on a busy corner of the farm in South Carolina. Many times, my grandmother would send me to the establishment to fetch him. She would direct me with, “Tell your granddaddy that supper’s ready and he needs to get home before it gets cold.”
Granddad’s store was built for convenience more than profit. It was a place to pick up a loaf of bread or quart of milk. Grandmother even sold eggs from her free-range chickens. But folks really enjoyed the gathering and camaraderie of the neighborhood. It was a place to disseminate information, good and bad. With my grandfather, it was also a place where he could help neighbors down on their luck. Years after the old store closed and he had passed away, my uncle showed me a store ledger listing items charged and canceled because people couldn’t afford to pay. The business was literally a life-saver during the Depression.
Country stores come in all sizes and locations. There’s one in a small town I visited not long ago that’s a hardware store. It was Friday, close to lunchtime, and I stopped to get directions to a restaurant. When I walked in, I noticed five or six gentlemen in a corner sitting around in a semicircle. Their conversation stopped when I entered the store and everyone checked out the newcomer. The place was huge with high ceilings and many intriguing goods that lined the numerous shelves. I made a mental note to come back when I had more time. To me, it was the best of all worlds, a country hardware store.
The success of the small enterprises out in the country has spilled over to the big boys. Ace Hardware has just opened a new mega-store in Pinehurst. It resembles country hardware stores about as much as Wal-Mart does the A&P where I worked when I was in high school.
Burney Hardware has evolved over the years to the amalgamated personality it is today. It was initially located in downtown Aberdeen in a big two-story building, and it had just about everything a small town would need in the way of hardware. The folks there even sold me shotgun shells for a nickel apiece. On weekends, after I finished my job washing cars at O’Neal’s Esso service station and I was fairly affluent with the day’s salary of $4, they would cut me a deal: five #8s, 12-gauge for twenty cents. Needless to say, my ratio of ammunition spent to game in the bag was a lot better in those days. Even in these so-called lucrative times, I still have a problem keeping myself from running through a whole box of shells at the skeet range. You can’t eat just one of those clay targets.
Burney moved from its original location and is now situated on a busy highway right at the edge of town. It still has the ambience of the past, just much bigger, and you can find galvanized buckets in several sizes.
The big boys in the hardware business are doing well. I love to browse through their acres of merchandise. I even bought my latest surf-fishing cart at the Ace Hardware when we were at Pawleys Island, South Carolina. I use it all the time at the beach. It’s great, of course, for fishing, but also for hauling chairs, coolers and beach umbrellas to the strand.
There is a need for both the small traditional country stores — in many cases a living history of the neighborhoods they serve — and the new businesses that have expanded in size and merchandise. I will continue to enjoy both. But there is something about a cold winter afternoon at Slim’s Place after a morning in a duck blind, kicked back in front of the old pot-bellied stove that’s glowing red with a fresh load of coal, savoring a hot mug of coffee sweetened with a little of Ritter’s apple brandy. The big stores are gonna have to go a ways to compete with that. PS
Tom Bryant, a Southern Pines resident, is a lifelong outdoorsman, PineStraw’s Sporting Life columnist and a pot-bellied stove authority.
