When I was young, and my life was an open book…

I’ve lived a few places. I’ve spent way too much time in California. I ended up in the California town I live in for two reasons. 

1) It was where my love, wanted to live.
2) It was, 30 some odd years ago a compromise. Living here allowed me to stay in California without losing my mind, be able to work. & provide for my love.

In truth way back in the day, I was on my way out of California. I got sidetracked for 30+ years. Oops!

I visited this little town originally because I was gonna get laid and figured it would be a fun diversion for a weekend. Strangely, a relationship bloomed. We dated for 3 or 4 years, then I moved up to this picturesque mountain town.

When I first got here, we had a police substation, the fire department, a general /hardware store, grocery store, several bars, more churches than I thought reasonable for the size of the town, and an odd collection of shops & services.

It was the hardware store that always caught my attention. It reminded me of the general stores of my childhood. There were always older men sitting in front of those stores smoking pipes or cigars discussing the events of the day. 

This hardware store often had similar older men sitting on a bench chatting although they weren’t usually smoking.

At the time, this hardware store sold ammo, and snake rounds. They sold hunting slingshots, a couple brands of arrows, & I think one model of recurve bow.

Wandering around the town in those first few months, I felt at home. I told my love, “This is country enough for me,” and it was.

We built a good life here.

Now that I’m older… Okay much older, I find myself thinking about those older men from my youth sitting and chatting amiably in front of the old country store.

They knew everyone coming & going, the rare stranger to whom they’d provide accurate directions. (It might take a while, if there was a discussion about which landmark was best to turn left or right at.)

It was quiet at the country store, sometimes the men would sit contemplatively lost in their thoughts, looking out on green fields with cows lowing in the distance.

At the time, I didn’t understand them. Now, I begin to, and wonder if they were looking at the fields, or out over the years of their lives, recollecting and thinking what they’d might have done differently. While appreciating the luck or divine intervention that informed the parts of their lives they’d not change.

I’m not ready for the chair in front of the general store quite yet. I do however want a country store close at hand. It’d be nice if that store had a “guest chair” that I could try on.

My town still has a hardware store that’s a lot like a general store. They no longer have a porch with benches or chairs.

Times have changed, even in this little town. We have homeless people, they’ll create makeshift camps in odd places. They’ll sleep on benches or stairs here just like they do everywhere else in California and perhaps other states as well.

The response is to remove the benches and put gates over vestibules to encourage homeless people, vagrants, and drug addicts to move along. I don’t think this response is a good one. I think a more proactive approach is needed. Unfortunately, I know that my little town will never adopt one.

Over the years, my little town which used to be very conservative, has become a pretty liberal enclave. Now it’s about using the “Approved” names for things. Homeless should now be called “Unhoused” and that sort of thing.

More power to them!

None of their Neo-progressive crap is of any interest to me at this stage of my life. I’m looking for a country store.

I’m looking towards shedding this California persona I created to blend in. Due to my Southern accent, Californians treated me like a moron when I first got here. Well I was smart enough to see the problem and correct it, you arrogant pricks. Most of the people I dealt with in my career never knew I was from (gasp!) a flyover state in the South… 

I know, scandalous!

Now in the years that I was hoping would be calmer which have turned out to be more contentious than the Vietnam era, I’m longing for a little country store like those I remember from my youth. 

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.