Papa in his store

I was born In a small southern town in a tiny hospital just across the street from my house. My grandparents lived next door to us. We called our grandfather "Papa" and our grandmother "MyMaw." There was a tiny building connected to my grandparents' house by a covered breezeway. This little building was Papa's store. The store was a little one room wooden building with a front porch. On the sign above the porch was a sign that read "W.W. DeLoach Grocery". On a couple of the posts on the porch there were nailed soft drink bottle caps. Back then, all soft drink bottles had metal caps with cork liners and had to be removed with a bottle opener. The bottle openers were sometimes called "church keys" for some reason. We used to sit on the front porch and take the cork out of the bottle caps with our pocketknives. Then we'd put the metal part outside our shirt and the cork inside so that when pressed together we had a badge on our shirt.

There were always two old brown wooden chairs on the porch. They had split white oak seats and the two back legs were always shorter than the front legs. This was because the porch floor slanted slightly toward the street and everyone who sat in the chairs always sat and leaned back against the wall. I can still see Papa leaned back against the wall asleep with his fly swatter draped across his lap. Every now and then he would wake up from his slumber long enough to spit his tobacco over the rail next to him. The tobacco would land on the ground at the base of an old pecan tree. No grass ever grew beneath that old tree.

Sometimes when Papa had no customers or when it was lunchtime he would go in the house. He had attached an old leather strap with an old cowbell on it to the corner post of the porch. This way if a customer came they could ring the cowbell and Papa could see who it was by looking out his front window.

On the Chattahoochee

The front entrance to the store had a metal "Royal Crown Cola" sign with a thermometer built into it next to the front door. The front door had a squeaky screen door with a metal sign that read "Colonial is Good Bread." I always thought it should have said, "Colonial Bread is Good." The door had a little bell that would ring as the door opened. When we went in Papa would always say, "Don't slam the door!" just as it went BAM!

The inside of the store was very small. It was probably not more than fourteen by twenty feet. Just inside on the left was the old soft drink box. The glass soft drink bottles stood upright in cold water. There was always a white towel hanging on the corner of the box to wipe the water off the bottles. You had a choice of Coca-Cola, Royal Crown Cola, Double Cola, Doctor Pepper and Nehi orange or grape.

Just inside on the right were containers of pecans that we picked up in the yard and an old refrigerator that held the hot dogs, bologna, eggs and other perishables. Beside the pecans was the ice cream freezer. Hunkys, Fudgesicles, Popcicles and Eskimo Pies were the main attractions here.

Down the right wall beyond the ice cream freezer were shelves that had a limited supply of canned vegetables and things like catsup, mustard, pickles and mayonnaise. You could also find cans of Spam, potted meat and Vienna sausages (pronounced vy-eena). The bottom shelf was where you found bread and hot dog and hamburger buns.

Down the left wall were shelves that had the household items like laundry detergent, Clorox in brown glass bottles, cleaning supplies, hair tonic, combs and strange medicines like Anacin pain relief in brown glass bottles, Philip's Milk of Magnesia in blue glass bottles, Serutan, Black Draught, Campho-Phenique and the dreaded castor oil.

At the end of these shelves down next to the cash register there were others that had cigarettes, cigars, lighter fluid and chewing tobacco and snuff. A lot of poor people lived in that area of town and Papa would sell people just two or three cigarettes at a time if they couldn't afford a whole pack. He would also take his pocketknife and cut off just a corner of a plug of tobacco if the customer couldn't buy the whole plug.

In the center of the room was a table covered with boxes of what we called "penny candy." Maryjanes, Tootsie Rolls, jawbreakers, bubble gum and other assorted goodies were crowded onto the table. On tilted shelves at the head of the table were the big candy bars like Zagnut, Baby Ruth, Butterfingers and Hershey bars.

In wire racks beside the candy bars were all the potato chips, pork rinds (we called them meat skins), Little Debbie snacks, Tom's cheese crackers, Moon Pies and my favorite, Stage Planks. Stage Planks were packages of two big gingerbread cookies with pink, hard, sugary icing.

Papa had an old chair next to the cash register and a Rocket Radio he attached to a nail in the wall next to the window. The Rocket Radio was shaped like a rocket ship and didn't require batteries. You listened to it with an earplug that came with it. I remember sitting on the bottom shelf with the toilet paper and listening to Papa's Rocket Radio. I eventually got a Rocket Radio of my own. I found the barbed wire fence in our back yard made an excellent antenna.

Well, you have had the grand tour of Papa's store. I have many fond memories of Papa's store and my life growing up in the small town where things seemed simpler and less stressful than today's world. But, life goes on and I suppose that years from now there will be things happening now that will be fondly remembered.

DeLoach is a professional artist with experience in graphic design, computer illustration, and mixed media. Philip spent ten years as a printer and graphic artist before he became a full-time artist. To see some of Philip's own work, visit his personal Web site, Picture This...

He was a content provider for the Artists' Exchange at About.com for five years. His Artists' Exchange was included in an article entitled "29 Must-See Web Sites for Artists" in the October 2000 issue of The Artist's Magazine.

Philip also dabbles in creative writing.