Photo: More beauty lives in an old country store than the newest McMansion.
By Tom Poland, A Southern Writer
TomPoland.net
Title my photo Struggle. Caption it: Dreams die along the back roads. First two sentences: Can’t even sit in a chair and look forward to better days. Stuck in reverse.
A man could write 100 stories about this place. Here’s one of ’em.
Many old buildings suffer a life of failure and repurposing. I see it all the time. An old grocery store becomes a hair salon. An old hair salon becomes a grocery store. Why I knew of a store where a man could get a haircut while they put new tires on his car. It survived, one of the few.
I ride past businesses doomed from the start. No one in their right mind would put up a business where some dreamer did. I’m sure they blamed their demise on bad luck, but some landed on their feet because not all bad luck is bad.
“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”
Cormac McCarthy said that. Need an example? The flu keeps you from making a road trip with the boys. Your buddies hydroplane into a tree. One of ’em dies. But let’s not be so grim. There’s a silver lining along the edge of that rusting tin.
Whether it’s resistance to change or fear of the unknown, many a soul stays put in rural areas as others take flight. Those left behind must make a go of things. Survive. I’ve seen business that opened with the proverbial snowball’s chance. I don’t know if bravery or tomfoolery makes people open businesses doomed to fail. One thing’s for sure. You see how brave people are. You see how foolish they are. You see how they dreamed. You see how they struggled.
In my travels I see crumbling dreams . . . nightclubs in the middle of that vulgar place in Egypt . . . a used car lot, old gas stations, churches, yes churches, mansions, one-time elaborate roadside stands, a personal loan operation, an old folks’ home, a hot dog eatery . . . a flower shop. And one fine old home with a library of books fallen askew, with pages read by roaches and mice.
Let’s acknowledge a truth. More beauty lives in a dilapidated old country store than the newest McMansion. You won’t find vinyl on old buildings and they don’t give off that cookie-cutter vibe. They’ve lived and loved and now their time has come. Sounds familiar, does it not.
This veteran appeared to be a used car lot. Now the clock ticks away its final days. It won’t shock me if a bulldozer puts it out of its misery and a Dollar General pops up like a white mushroom after rain.
“Buy Gold and Silver,” as I call it, doubled as a business and home. It surely didn’t buy enough. Golden threads and silver needles cannot mend its heart and all that haint blue paint can’t run off its ghosts.
Struggle. Struggling’s good for people. I can name several “only children” who inherited fortunes and didn’t amount to squat. Nothing challenged them. Why one fellow used his inheritance to lounge around and do drugs. That’s how he’ll be remembered. He’d be better off as an old store that tried to buy and sell gold. A place where dreams of El Dorado remained a myth.
“At least I tried,” he could say.
The next time I pass this old trading post, I will turn that chair around. Someone can sit and watch the world go by. And someone, please, rescue the fine old screen door. Give it new life and hear its double-slap thank you. I will thank you, too, good Samaritan of the back-road haunts.