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Penny Candy and a Cold Drink
By Mary "Sam" Wheeler
Irvington, Virginia
I love country stores. You know, the kind that have pickled pigs feet and boiled eggs floating in something that looks like vinegar but could be formaldehyde. These stores are usually out in the middle of nowhere and always right in the nick of time when you need a Dr. Pepper and a bag of cheese doodles.
As a teenager, my nephew and I used to take cruises all through the countryside. We were never in any hurry on these long summer days, the memory of school far behind us and the worries of the new school session weeks away, too far off to realize. We always had a little money- enough to get us some delicious junk food from one of these now almost extinct stores that have been replaced by Get n Zips and Wawas. What a dumb name Wawa is. I won’t go to one because the name irks my liver.
I can see in my mind’s eye just how the old stores were. The floors were wide planks that squeaked with the strain of a person’s weight. The shelves were spare but adequate with the basics: Spam, toilet paper and cheap dog and cat food. There would be a magazine rack close to the front door and a penny candy counter with the store’s proprietor behind it waiting for us to pick out a half dozen or so treats before heading to the drink box and rows of salty snacks. Those drink boxes would be filled with mostly water because the ice had melted and boy were those sodas cold. Hurt your teeth cold. And then there was the smell of the place. It cannot be explained so I will stop here only to add that it was wonderful. Those of you with experience know what I mean.
If it happened to be a local store, one close to our home, we would know everyone there. It could take a good fifteen minutes just to get in and out of there after you had spoken to everyone and told them that your mama was fine and daddy had work. Even if it was a store we’d never been in before, there would still be a friendly conversation.
I still take drives on most weekends with no destination in mind. I just take off and go. I can’t find many of these old stores anymore and to me that is sad. Even though I don’t eat cheese doodles very often and have limited my sodas to about two a year, I would still like the option to step back in time into one of these old relics instead of into the brightly lit space of a super fast paced store with a dumb name.
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