Terry Mercantile Company

This Saturday my Dad, father-in-law and I built a fence. To be more specific, half a fence. But the hard part- digging eight holes and setting the posts in concrete- is over. Next week I'll buy some wire mesh and hopefully, I'll have a fence for my dogs.

We underestimated the amount of concrete we would need by a few bags, so I had to run to the Terry Mercantile Company halfway through the job in order to finish.

I had never been in the actual store, but I had passed it several times. Terry is a tiny town, but this store takes up what could be the best piece of real estate in the area- in other words, to pass through the town is to go past this store.

I pulled in next to the concrete ($2.98 for a 60-pound bag) and walked in.

I might as well have walked into a different century.

I was in a general store- not a Wal-mart, not a Kroger, not a Walgreens. A real, God's-honest-truth general store. Feed and seed. Preserves and jellies on a shelf against the wall. Fishing poles near the counter. At any moment I expected Andy Griffith to walk in and start whistling before singing "Amazing Grace."

The floors were wood- real wood. As in when they built the place they went and cut down some trees, milled them, and selected the inner pieces (the heart, so to speak) for the floor. They shone like honeyed blood. The ceiling appeared quite tall- maybe fifteen feet. The place felt old and timeless, all at the same time. (I attempted in vain to find a picture online of the place- there are none, according to Google Image Search. I fear that any attempt to take a picture of the place that isn't in sepia tone will result in instant death. Must investigate.)

"How may I help you?" a man asked behind the counter.

Baffled at the personal service, my circuits momentarily backfired. Human connection the instant one walks into a store? I cannot compute.

I regain my composure and I tell him I need five bags of concrete. From out of nowhere another man appears and says, "Five bags? Are you parked near the concrete?"

I nod, at this point sure I'm in a strange dream, and the man is gone before I finish.

Another man appears, this one looking at the fishing poles. He seems way too happy. He asks where "just the poles" are, and I realize my head is about to explode. Here I am blogging away about how Emerson's philosophy has been cast aside, and this man just ten feet away is living it. Away with the reels and bait, he seems to say. Just a cane pole, a string, and a hook and I'll be fine.

I look up and the man behind the counter (I assume from his countenance that he owns the place) is writing up a receipt. Let me repeat that- writing up a receipt. Computers? Hogwash! Why do with machine what can just as easily be done by pen? He didn't say that, but I wouldn't have been surprised to have heard it come out of his mouth.

I ask him when this building was built, and he pauses from his arithmetic briefly and cocks his head in thought. "Oh," he says, and pauses for dramatic emphasis, "Around the 1890s, I believe." He says it with a mystical tone that hints that somehow, he was around to build it. The mercantile owner, the man who never grows old and watches the town go by around him.

For a moment, I believed that iPods and laptops and the Internet and power windows and gasoline engines and electricity had melted away. I am fully convinced that if a guy had walked in with an MP3 player, either he or the building would have promptly vanished, never to be seen again. I wouldn't bet against that store.

I gave him a twenty and received my change just as the other man reappeared. I thanked him, still in a daze.

And then I left- walked out the doors, climbed in the truck, and headed back out into the cruel, linoleum covered world with low ceilings and store owners who could care less, as long as you hand over your money.