Memories of a Country Store

No one knows exactly when the old store building was built.  The ones that knew have passed away.  My mother, who just turned 89,  remembers that in the 1930's the building was used as a mill.  It was probably erected sometime in the early 1900's.  Mr. Robert Weaver decided to become a merchant since he already owned the building, he made a few repairs and set-up shop.  I feel compelled to write this story because it represents several generations of my family.  I was reared in the country store as were my own two sons.  If only those walls could talk, we would laugh, cry and shake our heads in disbelief at was heard and seen there.

Frith's Grocery 1955-1990

As I said earlier,  no one knows exactly how old the building is, but we do know a little bit about the soul of the place.  Mr. Weaver updated the building with some siding and put in a few staples for his neighbors in the Hiatt community of Rockcastle County.  Whenever he had customer, they went to the house next door where Mr. Weaver lived and got him to go with them to purchase what they needed.  He carried coffee, flour, and cornmeal, as well as farming supplies like nails, tacks and fencing supplies.  The small farming community of Hiatt was like the rest of communities in southeastern Ky., just a wide place in the road.  There was a post office, but it closed a long time ago.  Most people alive today don't even call this location Hiatt.  Some how the name has been changed to Brindle Ridge.  Times chancge and we all accept them and move on.

Mr. Weaver and his wife, Eunia, decided to sell the grocery store business in 1955.  My grandparents, Tom and Hallie Parkerson Frith purchased the store and the 22 acres that went with it and named the store, Frith's Grocery. They lived in the house next door, but decided to remodel the store once again and add on a room behind the store building for them to live in while my parents, Jack and Ila Wade Lambert, lived in the house.  Years later my grandparents attached a mobile home to the back of the store and lived there.  They knew they could make more money if they were always available for the customers and also added gasoline tanks to better serve the community because by then most of the neighbors drove cars and used tractors on their farms.

I was born in 1957 when the store was in it's heyday.  I was raised by my parents, grandparents and every customer who came to the store.  Granny and Grandpa opened the store early and kept it open late. Once a week a "drummer" from Berea Wholesale would stop by and take Granny's order.  What she ordered would be delivered the next day.  Sometimes Granny let me stock the shelves.  She did all the paperwork while Grandpa pumped gasoline and tended to their farm.  My mother cooked the meals and tended to me.  There was always someone at the store.  They would come in, offer to buy everyone a Coca-Cola, then sit-down in one of the chairs Granny provided to visit awhile.  Sometimes there would be as many as 15 to 20 people sitting and standing in the small room.  Granny always sat in a rocker in the back of the store.  If seats were scarce, customers just turned a wooden "pop" box on it's end and sat there.  Granny didn't like it if someone sat on the bright yellow drink box.  She wrote a sign that said, "Please don't sit on the box" just to keep people from bending the lid in.  She didn't care to tell you verbally that she "didn't allow no sitting' on the drink machine."  Every night when everyone had gone home, my grandparents would fill up the drink box so the first customer the next morning would have an ice cold drink.  The most popular drink was a small bottle of Coca-Cola.  

The store was located three miles out of Brodhead on the highway 1505.  This was the main road off highway 150 from Brodhead over to Conway where you could pick-up highway 25, which led you to Berea and interstate 75. There was a lot of through traffic, so Granny fixed bologna sandwiches for passer bys as well as the locals whose wives were too busy or not at home to fix them lunch.  She kept a roll of Fischer's bologna in an old Frigidaire refrigerator as well as a block of American cheese.  Boy,  those sandwiches were good.  People still say they can just taste those bologna sandwiches and wonder why they can't find any bologna that good anymore.  

Me with my dog, Ida February 1960
Store in background

Since highway 1505 was busy with workers on their way to Berea to work, gasoline was a big commodity.  Granny's store was located at the perfect spot to stop and get gas and cigarettes before heading out to work.  Granny sometimes jokingly called her business the "Jot 'em Down Store," because she had so many customers who bought on credit.  

My favorite memory of my childhood was the late summer nights when it was too hot to stay inside so all the neighbors gathered in the yard.  My cousins and I pulled up a chair or a pop box and sat around in a circle listening quietly while the adults told tales.  When the topic moved on to something we weren't interested in, we would start a game of tag or play under the lights above the gas tanks.  If I didn't have anyone to play with, I enjoyed just listening to the adults talk.  Several men had served in World War II.  They wouldn't talk about their time overseas very much, but every now and then they would open up.  Their voices would become softer as they relived the battles.  I didn't understand why everyone spoke in hushed tones sometimes and a feeling of sadness hung over us all.  I remember feeling such sympathy for them when they told how cold and wet they were, or worst of all, how homesick they were.  I learned early on that war was the worst thing a human would endure.

There was something so special about sitting outside on a warm summer night with lighting bugs silently passing over our heads and the smell of the mimosa blooms in the air. The silence was only broken by an occasional car whizzing by on its way to some important place. 

If the mosquitoes were biting, Granny would start what she called a gnat fire.  If the speaker was on a roll, even the bugs wouldn't run us inside.  I learned how to farm, cook, clean, tend to sick livestock, take care of babies and vote democrat.  I learned cuss words as well as prayers.  I also learned how to fish, hunt and how wonderful Coach Adolph Rupp up in Lexington was. 

Daytime at the store was great too.  Grandpa had a great idea that I'll never forget.  After the customers got their bologna sandwiches, they wanted to eat under the shade of the maple trees.  Grandpa tied a huge industrial sized fan that his brother who worked in the Champagne, Illinois Dump, brought him.   I thought to myself, "Wow! This is better than air conditioning."

Whenever a member of the community passed away, Granny and Grandpa closed the store during the funeral.  She told me never to count the cars in a funeral procession for that was bad luck. 

Granny was terribly afraid of thunderstorms.  She had a storm cellar built when she and Grandpa first bought the place so that is where we headed anytime it thundered.  If there was a customer in the store, Granny would tell them a storm was coming and she was going to the cellar.  They were invited to go with her or go home, most went home if they could.  Granny kept an axe in the cellar in case a tree fell across the door.  She also had a kerosene lamp for light and she always carried a bottle of Coke as well as her nerve pills.  I hated going to the cellar and wasn't the least bit afraid of storms.  The cellar was dark, damp and smelled.  It did make a cool play house in the heat of the day though. 

Other than when there was a funeral, the store never closed.  Sometime on a snowy Sunday afternoon, my grandparents locked the door early, but if someone drove up needing something, they would open for them.  Granny had no tolerance for those who may have drank too much alcohol.  She would throw them out personally.  This would upset me.  I would cry and beg her to be good to them.  One serious drinker ended up hiding in our dog's house.  One got hit across the chest with a broom and knocked backward up against the tree.  It didn't pay to rile her up.  She made a lasting impression on me in so many ways.  She was tough on the neighbor boys too.  They enjoyed teasing her took to calling her Blue like the color of the rinse she put on her hair.  One teenager, Ray Lear, will probably never forget the trouble he found himself in when he rode his pony in the store.  He rode it in the front  door and out the back door, passing Granny on the way.  

I got married in August of 1975 in the yard behind the store. Grandpa had developed cancer and was very sick.  I thought that if I married at home maybe he would be able to attend,  but he was in the hospital when Mike and I married.  Grandpa died not even a month later.  After Grandpa's death, Granny just didn't have the heart to run the store, so my mom took it over in 1976.  My father had died of a sudden heart attack in 1971 and to make ends meet, Mama had worked odd jobs.  It seemed like the thing to do would be for mom to take over the running of the store.  In 1978,  our son, Kyle was born and followed by son number 2, Neil, in 1981.  Sadly, Granny passed away in her sleep in 1982.  Kyle remembers Granny, whom he called Na-Na, but Neil, who was only 4 months old, doesn't.  I was working so Mom got the job as babysitter.  She was working too, but tending the store allowed her to watch the boys and do her job at the same time.  The customers in the store had huge influences on their lives just like they had on my life years earlier.

Mom ran the store much the same way Granny and Grandpa had.  She sold the mobile home that they lived in and also made some updates.  She replaced the old Frigidaire with a bigger milk cooler, installed air conditioning which meant now no one left the comfort of the store for a shade tree.  

Mom was a widow for 19 years.  In 1989, she met Hershel Taylor whom she later married.  In March, 1990, she closed the store for good.  The old building is still standing.  So many memories are alive in there.  Many of the daily "loafers" have passed on.  Sometimes we see people who were small children when the store closed and they always tell us they have such good memories of getting to visit the store.   They remember exactly what their parents would let them buy, such as a pop, chips and maybe some candy. We all encounter changes in our lives, I lost Mike in 2014 to cancer and in 2015, Mom lost Hershel,  also to cancer.  I have 4 grandchildren, Jack, Camden, Gray and Layla.  Neil lives in Georgetown, Kyle lives on Granny and Grandpa's farm in a new house located behind Mom's house, the same one she's lived in since the 1950's.  I have such fond memories of friends, family, and life lived in that little old store.   

February 2016

I originally wrote this story in 2007 with revisions made in 2016.

I Love Boys

When you get my age and reflect back on how you've lived your life, some things just stand out.  On this snowy, cold day in February, I am remembering of when my sons, along with their cousins and a numerous bunch of friends, made every weekend of my life a happy journey.

In the late 90's and up until Kyle got married and Neil went off to college, there was something happening at my house all the time.  Neil's best friend, Dustin Crawford, lived across the road from us so he was always with my boys.  My nephews, Kevin and Adam Childress plus friends,  John Renner, Michael King, David Coffey, Eric Benge, Dustin's little brother, Robert, just to name a few, could come up with the craziest things to pass their time.  Looking back, I think they watched too much TV, no way they could have come up with this stuff on their own.  I'm sure I only know a little bit about what went on.  I wasn't born yesterday and am sure if I knew everything they did I would be horrified. Here's some things I did know.

An old mattress showed up from somewhere (I never asked) and the boys decided it would make a good thing to ride on behind one of their trucks.  Somebody found a rope and some bungee cords and a new game was invented.  Dustin's ole red truck must have had more power then the others because that's the one that did the pulling.  It was fun to all pile on the mattress, but you could go faster if you rode solo.  There was a pasture field next door that became the mattress playground.  It was complete with ditches, rocks, ups and downs plus trees and weeds that were the makeup of the obstacle course.  Kyle had a beautiful Husky dog named Jake.  He went everywhere with the boys but drew the line on the mattress riding.  He just ran along side, nipping at the mattress and boys upon it.  I guess since we knew where the boys were that we must have thought this was a good thing because I can't remember none of us saying, " No, you can't ride a dirty mattress being pulled behind a moving vehicle."  I'm glad to report no one was injured, that I knew of.

The same boys loved going to the Brodhead Fair.  When I remind them of this, they give me a look like they think I'm lying, but, it was true.  There's not a whole lot going on around here during the dog days of summer but the Little World's Fair. Plus, the guys were too young to travel very far so just driving 3 miles down the road to see friends, ride rinky dink rides, hoping your friends would puke was accepted as a decent way to have a good time.  Just so happened that my husband, Mike, always loved going to the fair.  We were married for 39 years before he passed away and during that time, he only missed the fair once and that was the fair that was held a month before he died.  He would always volunteer to keep an eye on the boys, but I'm sure they kept an eye on him instead.  One fair story was big talk about a verbal argument between two boys involving a female, which happens every year at the fair as we well know, but this year the boys were really interested because it was hilarious for some reason.  Mike and I were listening to them re-tell the story by saying, "He was so made because so and so kissed his girlfriend on the zipper."  Mike's reply, "Well, I'd be made too if someone kissed my girlfriend on the zipper."  We all thought he was pretty upset and we finally told him the "zipper" in this story wasn't the zipper on her pants, but that "The Zipper" was the name of one of the amusement rides on the Fair's Midway.  (Insert smiley face.)

The summer before most of them started college, they started camping every Friday night on a family farm close to home.  By this time, girls were being added to the friendship circle as we all knew was bound to happen.  Anyhow, a mannequin named Shequisha came to be.  I don't know where she came from, but she was a real looker.  The boys dressed her up, put her in the back of Dustin's truck and parked the truck by the side of the road.  From my front porch, they enjoyed watching heads turn to get a better look at the semi-nude mannequin.  I think one of us mom's finally intervened and declared the old girl needed to go to the dumpster before she caused an accident.  This Friday night camping also came to an end when it became the, "Place to Be."  We were afraid that someone was going to get hurt because what had started as a small group of 10 had now became a group of 20 or more.

One morning, we were all up preparing to go to work and school.  When we went outside to get in our vehicles, one was missing.  It seems someone had come in the night and stole Neil's truck.  It wasn't a new truck or anything, just a descent one that got Neil to school and ball practice.  Like all boys, he had a stereo in the truck and several CD's.  Everything was gone, including his tent which he had in the truck bed.  Later that day, we noticed the dog was carrying something in her mouth.  I went to check it out and she dropped Neil's cap.  Later she had a CD case.  Upon investigation of the tobacco patch next door, Neil found most of his stuff.  The next day the sheriff office called us, seems they had found his burned out truck on top of Copper Creek Hill.  I felt sorry for Neil.  He got another truck, but we all remember his first one. Kyle always says that Neil left his truck setting too close to the road on garbage pick up day and the squasher got it.  Neil was not amused.

A tradition that lasted for years, was a flag football game held every year on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  Dustin's family owned a airstrip which provided the best place for a football field.  They worked hard to paint the field and everything.  This tradition just stopped a few years ago when the players started to worry that they would break something and wouldn't be able to work.  Also, the wives were around now and wives have a way of needing their hubbies.

One afternoon, all the gang was playing basketball when David Coffey came down and his finger scrapped Neil in the eye.  Neil tried to play on, but was having a hard time recovering from the finger-in-the-eye thing.  A day later,  Neil's eye looked awful and he was seeing a "floater." I took him to Dr. Cain in Mt. Vernon who sent him to an eye surgeon in Lexington that same day.  The surgeon determined he had a detached retina which would require surgery.  The surgery took place that evening.  It was a success, but the anesthesia made him terribly nauseous.  Since this happened on a Friday night camp out night, all the guys came or called to check on Neil.  To this day, David apologizes to Neil every time he sees him. 

 All in all, these boys were good boys that grew up to be great men.  They went away to college and the adventures really began.  Neil, Dustin, and Dackery Larkey rented an apartment in Richmond where they were all enrolled at EKU.  Us parents checked on them every now and then, but we mostly let them assume this rite of passage on their own.  They did need a lawyer once, but that's a different story. 

 Everything worked out in the end as all graduated from college on time. Kyle is an Industrial Engineer, Neil a Personal Trainer, Dustin a Crime Scene Investigator, Kevin a train Engineer for CSX,  and Dackery, Michael and Adam are Ky. State Troopers.  New friends were added and some old friends were remembered.  I remember Dustin's bachelor party wasn't a party at all, but rather a hike and camping trip in the Red River Gorge.  The guys became interested in rappelling, kayaking, fishing, camping, frog gigging, concert going where Kyle was the designated driver,  and all the usual things, but the ladies won out in the end. Kyle married Melanie, Neil married Ashley, Kevin married Jess, Adam married Tracy, Dustin married Jenna, Robert married Allyson, John married April, Michael married Tracey, Dackery married Chelsen, David married Marcia, Eric married Starla, and Tanner married Sarah. Seemed like Kyle and Neil were in a wedding every so often.  The other night at Kyle's annual Super Bowl gathering, I noticed David Coffey talking into his wristwatch like Dick Tracy.  I thought back on the days and nights he spent at my house while back in high school.  I sure didn't think I would ever live to see him or anyone for that matter talk into their watch.  The times, they are a changing.  I can't list all the good friends Kyle and Neil have.  Some they made in kindergarten, some in high school and some in college.  It makes me so happy to have known them all.