The store at Myrick's Mill was more than a commissary, providing food and supplies. In the 1950's the store, mill, and pond provided a gathering place with the Humphries' Grocery being the primary social center. My Daddy, known by as Mr. Willie C and my Mamma as Miss Nell, ran the general store. I worked there too, when Daddy insisted. Most of the memories are of people that I knew. I'll tell you about a few.

Mr. Jim lived in a small, two room sort of shack about a mile away on the other side of Big Sandy Creek. He was a little, scrawny man with rotten teeth who always wore overalls and was said to be drunk most of the time. I didn't know that he stayed drunk most of the time because he always looked and acted the same to me. Daddy didn't treat him any different than anyone else which meant that he was about like everyone else, I thought. Mamma told me that he was a drunk. I concluded that she didn't care too much for Mr. Jim. She explained that he often reeked from the smell of whiskey and was rather nasty much of the time. He staggered about when he walked. I thought he was just old. She explained that he staggered because he was drunk, not because he was old. Mamma knew that there were just some things that children needed to understand about getting older. As the years accumulate on my age, I hope a lot of today's Mamma's are clarifying things like this to their children.

I remember one occasion, in particular, when Mamma got real upset at seeing Mr. Jim walking, or staggering, from the pond towards the store. He was on foot because, like a lot of people, he didn't own an automobile. On this winter day, no one else was in the store except Mamma and me. Mamma took all the chairs that usually sat around the old barrel type kerosene heater and hid them in the back storage room with the empty drink bottles. She thought that if Mr. Jim didn't have a place to sit around the heater when he came in he would leave. Mr. Jim, like everyone else, first went to the water cooled drink box and got a Coke. He then asked Mamma for some bottles of vanilla extract. I learned that Drunks who ran out of whiskey would buy vanilla extract, for its alcohol content, and then pour it into the coke. She told him that she had sold out of extract. I looked and saw plenty of it on the shelf. Mr. Jim didn't argue. He just ambled toward the heater to warm up and began looking around for a chair. He didn't see any chairs. Finally he squatted and sat on his heels facing the heater, warming his hands. After a few minutes, he raised his hand toward his face, placed his thumb against his nose and blew hard. Yep, blew his nose and a nasty wad flew out onto the floor near the heater. At that moment a Dr. Pepper bottle flew across the counter and hit the heater. With the bottle spinning, cola fizz flew everywhere!

Mr. Jim had blown his nose on the floor and made Mamma mad! She always drank Dr. Pepper. So, I knew instantly where the bottle came from. Mr. Jim looked around, brought himself to his feet and without a word quietly went to the door and left the store. Mr. Jim never came back while Miss Nell was tending the store. Instead, he would hang out near the mill house until someone appeared so that he could find out if Mamma was running the store before he would go in.

Funny thing, Vanilla flavored Coca Cola is now available just about everywhere. I wonder if some of the folks at Coca Cola got their idea from Mr. Jim?

©2003 - William C. Humphries, Jr.