Occasionally Mom sent me to the store for baking powder or some other commodity. We called it “the store” because it was the only one around, about a mile up the lane from our house.
The single dirt lane tunneled through the hardwoods that was cut by horse drawn wagons one hundred years before. I can still remember the knobby knees of the gnarly oak tree clinging to the road bank as if it were trying to climb back up, and the faded Royal Crown Cola sign nailed to it. And there was a Beech tree with lovers names carved in it on the other side, some initials whose names that I knew. Along the way there was the scent of sweet Honeysuckle and wild roses that had wound around the barbed wire fences lining the road in the grassy clearings. I walked along, the cool dust squirting between my toes, anticipating the “cold drink” I was going to get with the change I would get back from the purchase I was sent after.
Just past Mr. Gipe's house it came into view, a feathery gray, whitewash freckled box, with a pyramid shaped roof. The weatherboarding was broken in places, revealing the split rail walls, but it stood solidly as it had since its construction in the 1800s. Its ax nicked Chestnut sills were meticulously squared, notched, and placed upon sand stone pillars with hand labor and pride. It was originally built as a one room school house to serve our little community of Gatewood, and was the place where my parents and grandparents learned how to read and write and learned basic Arithmetic.
In the Forties and early Fifties, the school was closed down and the county started running a bus line out to our community to bring the children to the public schools, and the school was converted to a general store. A plank porch had been added, mainly for loafers. In the summer time, old timers would spend time upon the porch drinking soda pop and talking about their crops and livestock. The area between the road and porch steps was covered with pop tops and I hobbled over them with my bare feet to get inside.
The pine oiled floors had cracks wide enough for a worn dime to fall through, rolled flypaper black with victims hung from the tall ceiling, and a pudgy little man with a feather duster and apron stood by – Mr. Gipe. I marveled the Clark thread and needle display, its spool high drawers filled with thread of every shade. The shelves went to the ceiling with canned goods, oatmeal boxes, wash powders, and a little ladder to reach the top shelves. Most of my attention went to the curved glass case with the candy bars in it – the quarter pound Babe Ruths, the crunchy Zagnut bars, the spearmint gum, and peppermint sticks. Mr. Gipe added up the items on a paper sack with a scratchy pencil just about as fast as he could write them down. And then, I looked at the change I had left to see if I had enough for a “cold drink”, or even a nickel candy bar if I had enough. The drinks were a nickel if you left the bottle at the store, but there was a two cent deposit if you took the bottle.
Over by a tall narrow window sat the drink box. It was an “ice box” that had chilled water in it with ice floating around to keep the drinks cold. There was no other refrigeration. I raised the lid and hung over the edge on my stomach, feet dangling, and fished around in the ice water until my hand ached for first a grape soda, then for a strawberry, then a lemon soda, and finally settled on the grape. I perched upon the window ledge, one leg up with my chin on my knee, the other leg swinging, and sipped my drink while gazing out the window. There was usually a cool breeze coming in from under the Sugar Maple tree just outside the window. That was just about as good as it got for me! Trying to be polite by concealing a soda pop burp through the nose that immediately set it on fire was not a smart thing to do though, I discovered.
