My folks owned and ran a country grocery store just south of Pine
Bluff, Arkansas for 40 years. There wasn’t much separation of life and work for
us. You walked through a door in our kitchen into the back of the grocery. We
knew all the customers, save for the occasional stranger stopping for gas. The regulars consisted mostly of the elderly and working poor. They ran monthly
credit accounts and settled on payday or “old-age pension day," as it was
known back then. My sister and I perfected our skills in driving by transporting many of them to and from our little store.
Each year about this time, my daddy would order Christmas presents
for our customers. One year it might be a bag of assorted nuts, another a box
of chocolate covered cherries. When the customers came to the store in December,
they would hang around waiting for their present. Sometimes Daddy would pretend
to forget and keep them waiting. I thought that was a bit uncalled for, even as
a young child. My mother would often chide him for it. He always came through with a smile, though.
Don’t get me wrong, Daddy wasn’t a mean person, just a tad
mischievous at times, probably as a result of boredom more than any trace of unkindness.
No, he was a generous man. Many is the
time I’ve seen him load a sack with groceries for a family stopping in
dire need of food but with no money. When a tornado ravaged our community in
1947, killing 32 people, he gave away the contents of our store to the
surviving victims and went bankrupt for a spell.
Now, I think back on it and wonder for how many of those
customers, it was the only Christmas present they received. I wonder if they
kept it displayed with pride until the 25th arrived. I wonder how
many rationed the contents well into the new year, how many may have passed
them on to families poorer, even, than they.
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| Trifle, treasure, or just the thought? |
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