When the Smoke Clears

In our town there are basically two places to buy groceries. The superstore that is in just about every country town, where one can buy food, clothes, shoes, paint and CDs, sits on the outskirts of town, the only place with enough space for its ever hungry grey bricks. Though on a bypass around the downtown, it warrants its own traffic light and holds its neighbor stores within its consumers’ gravitational pull. The stores sputter and burn out frequently, fronts quickly replaced with another person’s dream of the perfect shop.

The other place is a local grocery “chain.” They are a chain in that there are three stores of the same name spread in disparate mountain towns. The local store’s shopping center is more run down, more centrally located to the square, old cracks in the pavement crumbling away into larger scars through the years of neglect. The stores accompanying the local grocer also show the wear of years, many of them having been around for some time, barely doing enough business to justify electricity but familiar in their age.

At the big box, standing in line to check out, I generally do not need to talk nor listen to anyone. The lines stretch out evenly. The consumers shopping tend to be those who are relatively new to the county, those having moved here in the last 10 years or less. I do not slight the convenience of our main center for most things needed. I appreciate the choice of whether to go there or not.

But I prefer to shop at the smaller store. The selection isn’t as great. The names on the products aren’t as well known, but they put forth an effort and the store is usually populated by the long time residents, many of whom are the fifth or sixth generation in their family to have been born and raised here. The butcher gets creative, making sculptures with the day’s ground beef tray on display in his case. This week it looks like a giant smiling pig with two black olives for eyes. Each time I visit I see gentle people, older couples moving slowly up the aisles together, arms interlocked, the secret of happiness found.

It’s always a bonus when you know who is going to be working. I know that when one of the local football heroes is on the register, I can check out in NO time flat. He’s a handsome, big boy which means the line of local women will stretch out appreciably while one or two other lines will be nearly or completely empty. They can be so obvious sometimes, but it makes me smile, a simple familiarity, a simple comfort.

Partly inspired by Jim’s Why Do We Live Here?

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