Between Chase City and South Hill, Virginia, there used to be an enormous Union 76 Gasoline sign that served as a halfway point between the two small towns. Like an infinity moon, the orange glass lit up the night sky, serving as a beacon for anyone traveling on US-47.
Today, the tangerine sphere, along with the country store with a single gas pump that sat under it, is long gone. Only a slab of concrete remains. But even when I drive by today, I can still see my grandfather’s old country store with its tin rusted roof and sagging, wooden screen door that slapped you on the way out. The crunch of peanut shells underfoot, the fizz of Mello Yellos, and the pop of sardine cans marked the place where the regulars congregated. The place was more than just a store – it was a time capsule, a memory trap, a place where dust carried whispers.
On the outside, the store wasn’t much – a white A-frame, a couple windows, a chimney for the woodstove in the back. But inside was a heap of old stuff. The aisle on the right held overalls and Wranglers along with low top Converse from the 1960s. There was a wall of tools and rusty fasteners next to teal green freezers of live bait and Sealtest ice cream. Whatever you needed, my grandfather had it in stock or could order it for you. That’s what made the place so grand. There were buckets of nails and dented cans of pork and beans, saw blades and bread, oil filters and Beechnut chewing gum. Every aisle was something new to examine or ponder. Everywhere, there were things you didn’t know you needed until you saw them: bone-handled pocket knives, tins of salve promising cures for ailments long forgotten, soda bottles with half-peeled labels. Shelves bowed under the weight of glass jars packed with candy that I’d never heard of. The whole place smelled of sweet feed, pipe tobacco, and something deep and musty, like history itself.
As a 13-year-old, I would sit and listen. In between stories, I might peruse the aisles or look at goods that were long past their shelf life, waiting for the thumbs up that meant I could have a bottled Coke on the house from the roll-top ice chest.
I didn’t know it then, but every minute that I spent inside that place burrowed itself deep inside my bones.
During a recent trip with my own family to Valle Crucis, North Carolina, all those memories come flooding back. Even though we are in a different town – in a different state completely – once we pass the switchbacks and cross the creek and washed out footbridge, the profile of a similar structure always tricks me into thinking I’m right back at my own family’s country store – a place that hasn’t stood since 2000. Even the smell is the same.
This trip south has become our own tradition. Atticus pops a Cheerwine, and Levon grabs a Moonpie. We buy mustard-flavored pretzels and salted peanuts. But while the boys eye the candy within an arm’s reach, I stare at the old porcelain Pennzoil signs and cardboard cutouts for Redwing boots that are kept up high on the top shelf. There are Sun Drop bottles and potato chip tins, an old sack for Yukon’s Best Flour, and a poster for Hal Burns Snuff. All of the signs and antique merchandise seem like they were stolen from my grandfather’s store. When I see a salesperson, I point toward the ceiling. “Any of that for sale?”
“Sorry,” the lady says. “That’s the heart of the place.”
I nod, understanding completely, but still wishing I could take a Chase and Sanborn Coffee crate home. I reach up and run my fingers over the edge of a Little Debbie logo barely legible under decades of wear. I’d be happy with any of it.
When we’re done looking at the knives and debating between hats, we head to the field a few hundred yards away where the boys toss a baseball or cast a line in Dutch Creek. It’s where both boys caught their first rainbows, and where we surveyed the wreckage after Hurricane Helene. When it warms up, we buy homemade ice cream from a small little stand.
How long does it take for a trip to turn into a tradition or become “something our family always does?” I’m not sure, but this trip defines that feeling.
Back in the car, Levon reviews his bag of candy – a tangible time capsule of Cow Tales, Bit-O-Honeys, and Big League Chew. He bites off the end of a candy-cigar like he’s marking the routine with a bit of celebration. Spring’s last gasp, before a sudden shift and a gear change in the rhythm of our lives. The summer calendar is already heating up with camp dates, big birthdays, and a new driver’s license. This July, that chase will also lead us to England. A different road, sure. Cheerwine will be tougher to find along with any orange Gulf gasoline signs. But the feeling, just like a ramshackle backwoods shop, will bury itself within us and create the sort of memory that pops up when you least expect it. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll find a place that smells like sweet feed, pipe tobacco, and history – a place where time whispers, and another roll-top ice chest waits to be opened.
