Country Store

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it (Santayana).

Most Americans are content with their own peace, comfort and prosperity. They are not interested in looking through the rear view mirror of how they got here. Most young people I have known, having gone through the trauma of a government school have little interest in history. They think that Americans have always lived in a land of pleasure, largess, skyscrapers. One of my drivers, a university senior, said to me, after I had spoken to him about the horrors of early settlers crossing the plains, "I think they mostly stopped at McDonalds." I then told him about one of my friends, a well known judge from Tennessee whose ancestors had crossed the plains on a covered wagon. His great grandmother, riding next to her husband at the front of the covered wagon behind a yoke of oxen, fell over dead. They had already buried one child on the trip. It was up to the father, and a surviving son, my friend's grandfather to dig a grave, to bury his great grandmother, bury her in the wilderness and then stay around for a few days to keep the Indians from digging up the body.

When this writer's ancestors landed on the shores of New Jersey in 1677 (a small ship called the Kent), they had brought just a few tools, fewer clothing than comforts, a few utensils. First, they felled some trees, built shelter. Their first actual efforts in conquering the new world, the place to which they had fled for religious freedom and opportunity was to build a chimney, a place for warmth and into which they could hang a cooking pot for the cooking of very scarce food. I still have here in my house the chimney cast iron cooking pot they had brought over from England.

Like biblical characters, you must put flesh and blood on these people. Can one even imagine the physical and psychological trauma they endured... so many died in the ocean crossing as well as after they came ashore.

First, was built their houses, using the rough hand tools they had been able to bring... narrow diameter logs which they put together as log houses. There were still log buildings (barns) on the farms where my parents and grandparents lived.

There were no work animals in the early years of North America. They eked out an existence from the soil, vegetable gardens around the stumps of trees where the soil was pliable full of humus.

Later, as more houses were built and more settlers arrived, the need arose for a store where supplies could be purchased or traded which arrived from England. In my boyhood, there were still country stores at almost every crossroads. This was the beginning of American commerce. Say what you will, investigate all you wish, this was the beginning of all the big corporations which now dominate the stock markets of the world. It is simply a matter of supplying needs for profit... raw capitalism. 90% of faith is just raw courage and, many of our ancestors had the faith-courage to begin businesses, no matter the risk, no matter how small.

I so remember those country stores of my youth. In them you could find necessities which could not be raised-produced on the farm, such as sacks of flour (cornmeal could be obtained at a local grist mill. I so remember the old grist mill near my home, farmers taking in bags of already shelled corn and the stone grinder, turned by water, grinding the corn into meal. Always, as my father was getting the meal, I was out on the bridge next to the mill where the water came through turning the wheels, watching the fish that had escaped). In the store would be a small variety of canned goods, some sewing supplies such as thread and needles, snuff-chewing tobacco, patent medicines, perhaps rolls of oil-cloth for the covering of kitchen and dining room tables. There often were bags of hog and chicken feed, certain necessities for automobiles and farm machinery.

With the coming of vehicles, it was at the country store that you purchased gasoline and oil. There would be a hand made ramp on to which you drove your vehicle for an oil change. Before power lines invaded the country side, the gas tank was pumped by hand. Phone lines came into the country side before power lines and it was at the country store that everyone made telephone calls... usually just emergencies, a place to call the doctor or the funeral home. It was at the country store that the first town councils were formed. With need-wanting to make a living, first came the blacksmith shop, then other businesses such as doctors offices. This is the history of the beginning of every town-city-metropolis. Usually, starting at a place of traffic such as a bend in a river or a railroad. With time, there was a need to transport farm commodities-animals-products of industry. With time, there was a need for school houses, church houses, even court houses. We all came from backgrounds such as this. Every politician should realize that this is the way our America grew. It started with one-story buildings, then two-story. Can you even imagine what it was like, before modern escalation to build multi-story brick edifices (hotels), office and industry buildings?

The founding members of our society-culture were those with the faith-hard work ethic. To take the risk, invest their hard earned money, not only in building commerce, but in building hospitals, libraries, colleges, and then later orphanages (where the children were called inmates), poor houses (county homes, where the unfortunates had never been able to do anything but survive, were able to live and die in some dignity), later retirement and nursing homes. By law and duress, veterans who have defended our country were cared for, but, in the American experience, next to slavery, its greatest shame, the unforgivable shame of this nation is its treatment of disabled veterans and handicapped citizens.

Have we come this far, made such progress from sea to sea in buildings, transportation, industrial enterprise, education opportunities to see it all destroyed by ineptness and deceit. God most assuredly has had his hand on America. One political party wants God taken out of its constitution. Everyday, in every way, we see lying and deceit paralyzing and punctuating future American progress. Are there enough Christians left to stem the tide, to make a difference?