Possum Philosophy: Taking a Sunday drive down memory lane

By ROBERT CAHILL/Columnist

My dear wife and her mother are both big gospel music fans. My mother-in-law even subscribes to a gospel singing magazine. There is a gospel music singer that my wife, Terry, likes very much. His name is Mark Bishop. He was originally a member of a family group known as The Bishops. However, he now is evidently a solo act. I don’t care for his style of gospel. It is more the style of bluegrass. If I want to hear gospel, I much prefer the big choirs that do Southern rhythm and blues gospel.
Bishop writes a column for this magazine and in all fairness he is not half-bad. In fact, at least in my opinion, he is a far better writer than he is a singer. But then, the same could be said of me and, in either case, it is not exactly high praise for our writing skills. Occasionally, he writes about his life and growing up. He is from a small town in rural Kentucky and it is obvious we had similar upbringings. His latest column was one on this topic. It was about the Sunday afternoon drive through the country including a stop at some little country store for soft drinks and often sandwiches.
My Mom and Dad have been on my mind much more than usual this week. Were they still been alive, Tuesday, Aug. 19, would have been their 63rd anniversary. Some of my fondest memories of childhood were the Sunday afternoon drives through the countryside throughout Smyth and Washington counties. A rare treat was the infrequent drive when we would venture either into Tazewell County to the west or Grayson County to the east.
My Dad would load up the family car with everyone he could stuff into it, sometimes one or both of his aunts who lived with us. Other times, it would be my grandmother Smith and my Uncle Buzz or some other of Mom’s bunch.
My Dad was a car man. I suppose he is where I acquired the auto syndrome. He could and often would drive for hours. It seemed like he knew the proprietor of every little country store along the way. Back then, the roads were rural enough that if one needed a potty break, Dad just pulled off the road and whoever needed relief would just step behind a handy bush to answer the call of nature. However, after a couple of hours of driving, he would stop at some little roadside market for snacks.
We’d all pile out of the car (if it was warm weather, we’d be sweaty and dusty, few autos had air-conditioning in those days) looking like a road-weary band of gypsies and head into the store to shop. The storekeeper would pull out a big roll of bologna or even sometimes spiced ham. He would then slice off a big, thick slice, sometimes a half-inch or more wide, lay it on a slice of bread, and slather it with mustard or mayonnaise or both if you wanted. They would then pull out a huge block of what Dad always called “cooking” cheese, cut a big slab of that golden-yellow goodness and add it to a sandwich. If you were truly lucky and it was in-season, the owner would slice up a big red tomato, fresh off the vine from his family garden and add that to the fare. The storekeeper would proceed to wrap the sandwiches in wax-paper and stuff them into a brown paper bag.
Next came the most important step in the visit, choosing drinks. They were always kept in a big cooler, some of the more modern of which were actually that, a cooler, while many were just a metal box with a lid and packed with ice.
Now this choice was not as simple as you might think. Although most of my family and I have always been Coke people, there were so many more considerations in those days. You often had your choice of not only Coke or Pepsi, but the multitude of NEHI flavors, especially in the summer (or so it seemed). They made the best strawberry pop ever to grace a boy’s tongue and equaled in flavor only by their peach. Now grape was another matter. While NEHI Grape was good, it couldn’t touch the small but delicious Grapette. And then there was the only orange soft-drink I ever considered fit for human (at least a human boy’s) consumption. This would be the original Orange Crush, bottled in the small, funny shaped, dark brown container like a medicine bottle. It was not only the absolute best orange drink, the bottles made wonderful BB gun targets.
Sadly for a kid, flavors weren’t the only complicating factor in choosing your Sunday-afternoon-drive-soft-drink. There was the matter of size. Cokes then were usually in six and one-half ounce bottles. Regular bottles would usually hold 10 ounces. But there was also the relatively new RCs that came in a whopping 16-ounce giant, but for my money were not quite as good tasting. The whole thing often came down to a boy’s taste versus his greed.
During this entire process, we would listen as the grown-ups in the store talked about everything from the health and wellbeing of any mutual acquaintances, the crops (in season), the weather, the fishing, farm prices, world news and local politics. Someone was always sharpening a pocket-knife and if you carried one yourself, as I have since about the age of 5, would give it a lick or two on the whetstone for you. There was nearly always a radio playing tuned to preaching, gospel singing, a farm program with livestock and feed prices, local obituaries, a swap-shop, country music or a baseball game. Many times the storekeeper would slip you a piece of candy or gum when they thought your parents weren’t looking.
These stores were amazing. In a small space, they would pack a grocery, lunch counter, farm supply, guns and ammo, fishing equipment, a few plumbing supplies, pocketknives, a bit of other farm-related hardware, sewing supplies, often gas pumps, and sometimes such stuff as boots and hats. These were, in essence, mini-Walmarts.
As much as I liked the drives, I think I enjoyed listening to the grown-ups talk. If they didn’t know you, they always asked your Dad or often your grandfather’s name. They would then usually run through a sometimes lengthy family history.
Kids today don’t get this opportunity. The Walmarts and others like them have done away with the country stores I knew as a kid. Today, if a kid spends any time in a car with their parents and family, they usually have their cell-phone busy text messaging; their iPod with headphones or ear-buds in blasting or maybe even a DVD player showing a movie.
Sure, now there is a modern convenience store at almost every intersection. And true, they are convenient, with gas and lottery and coffee and deli-food and snacks and clean (some anyway) restrooms. And yes, Walmart and the other big-box stores have everything and at a cheaper price. And I know that gas is too high and the environment too damaged to have the luxury of just riding around your local countryside for the fun of it.
But thanks to the Sunday rides, I saw lots of places I would never have seen. I met lots of folks I would never have known and I got to know more about my parents and family than I would otherwise.
Besides, today’s stores may be convenient and have lots of things at cheaper prices, but they are cheaper made. And you won’t find many where you will get a bologna sandwich with all the fixin’s cut as thick as you want. And you will be hard pressed to get a tomato on your sandwich that came right out of a plot behind the store. Nor will you find one where you can hang around and make friends and learn your family history going back two or even three generations. Not every new convenience is necessarily better.

A freelance journalist, Robert “Rocky” Cahill writes regularly for the News & Messenger. His Possum Philosophy column appears in each Saturday edition.