Arney store
Some of my earilest memories are of my visits to this country store near my childhood home. The owner and proprietor was Doran Arney whose house was adjacent to it. Doran was a car salesman in Johnson City, and his father ran the store for him in the daytime and Doran relieved him of the evenings. Generally, it was open six days each week from daylight to dusk. Back then, no retail stores were allowed to be open on Sundays.
The store is located just more than a mile east of Jonesboro (the town reverted to its original name spelling of Jonesborough in the late 60's or early 70's) on the Boone's Creek Road, and is about three-tenths of a mile from my home on Headtown Road (which is now renamed Union Church Road).
The porch was accessed by a set of wooden steps on the right. Like a lot of similar places of the time, they depended on window light for most of the interior illumination, although there were one or two bare light bulbs on the ceiling. The back of the store had a small storage room for sacks of flower, feed, and other large items.
The furnishings I most remember were the counter that ran along the left side with its candy dispaly, and the ice cream freezer and soda cooler. The ice cream consisted mostly of Brown Mules®, Fudgesicles® and small cups of either vanilla, strawberry, or chocolate Pet® brand that was eaten with a small, wooden, paddle-like spoon. There were also some pint containers of the delights. The soda cooler, or pop cooler as we called it, was a large, red cola chest that had a rack inside that held the bottles just off its bottom. The sodas were removed by sliding each one to the end of the rack and then to the front. It contained Pepsi®, Coke®, RC Cola®, Nehi® orange and grape, Frosty® root beer, Cheerwine®, and Dr. Enuf® along with a few other brands. They were always ice cold.
The store closed in the late 1950's when another competing one with gas pumps opened just up the road from it.
4 comments:
Too bad all these little country stores have pretty much gone by the wayside. They made the community compared to your local
7-11.
Without the mom-and-pop size stores and churches, these small communities of people would have had no way to interact as a group. It is sad the stores have been replaced by retail giants, and the churches by mega-buck castles of worship. We are a mobile people and no longer need to hang out at the corner store.
Well I am not so big on religion and the mega church is nothing more than a money machine and a force for the conservatives of the world to dictate policy. At the very least the smalltown church has connections to the community and does help those that need it.
After my grandfather had a heartache years ago and was broght back twice in the ambulance my grandparents became born again Christians. So of the crap I heard about about their preachers infuriated me. They never had a lot of money. When my grandmother brother died, he was adopted, they took a large part of the money he left them and bought an organ for their church. A few months later that same preacher had the nerve to come to their house and tell that they were not giving enough money to the church. That's nice and godly. Then last year at my grandfather's funeral the preacher said during his sermon, "We are not here to remember Harry today, but to praise and remember God." Wrong asshole, we were there to remember Harry Kennedy.
I believe that religion is a personal thing, and personally I think it is all just too much hypocrisy. The members of these huge churches can rationalize on and on why they need such large and elaborate facilities, but ask them why God needs it and watch the confusion in their faces. Yes, it is about money, power in the community, and self satisfaction. Glory to God!
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