Recently, I mentioned the country grocery store my parents owned. Started me thinking. What was it like, back in the day, to run or depend on such a business? Here are some things I remember.

- Daddy cutting perfect slices of bologna and “lunch-meat” with a butcher knife. Later in life, he purchased a used slicing machine. It was faster, but no more accurate.

- People purchased one roll of toilet tissue at time. No worries about running out. Last year’s Sear’s Catalog was always on standby.

- The old folks untying their money from a pocket handkerchief.

- Nothing was priced. The customers who shopped there bought so little that they knew the cost of everything.

- When someone purchased a box of sanitary napkins, Daddy would immediately place it in a separate grocery sack while they continued to shop, a quiet display of modesty lost in the fog of history.

- Families stopping by on their way to town on Saturday morning. The girls wore their second-best skirts and the boys’ hair would be oiled and roached. Faces would be scrubbed until they shone like glass.

- The store stayed open until nearly midnight on Saturdays as people did their shopping for the week or maybe the month. We would fall asleep listening to the sounds of “The Grand Ole Opry” drifting in from the store radio. Groups would gather outside, and once a woman sliced another’s arm with a razor over a “man-squabble.”

In mid-afternoon, there was no business. Daddy would curl up on the store’s counter and nap, If a customer came in, they would wake him and make their purchase. Then he’d curl up again.

- In mid-morning, selected salesman and tradesmen on break would gather in the store, around an old pot-bellied stove in winter, and enjoy themselves. They would swap lies, stories, and rumors. When their voices dropped, my mother, back in the house, would know they were telling jokes and threaten to “take a broom after them.” She never did, though.

- An old woman lived at the end of the road that ran by the store. My sister and I carried groceries and old newspapers to her. She gave us roses, in season, for my mother. She was the oldest person I could imagine, really ancient. I imagined later in life that she might have even been born into slavery. Then I found her on a census role. She was about 70 when we were kids … like I say, really ancient.

- In the summer and fall, the whole family would turn out for “cotton-picker” or “cotton-chopper” trucks. That, though, is a story for another day.

Bet my sister could add to this under “comments” if someone encouraged her.

Our store and home in later years.