Maggie's Store
Part Three
I
now have reported the cemetery legend and the my mother & grandmother
gravestone bracelet find. We have
never made anything out of the occurrence AND I have not stopped visiting and
“cleaning up” old cemeteries and their edges. Returning to the whole tale…: Going out included “a” “stop” at “a cemetery” “too”. In fact, all along the way was “trunk
it” and that was either an “anything” or “get that” or even the desirable
“better wrap that one up”. And
more: “HERE NOW we were going BY
and SEE THAT” old table in the yard and that was NOT there “last time”. Or more likely; the very tip of an old
table just very slightly toward the barn door so that all one could see from
the road was, to me, then, NOTHING.
But I “learned” “how to do” “that”; to “see” “stuff” in barns from...
THE ROAD. Before long and including
the words “The Doctor” we’d be “in there” (inside the FARM HOUSE) and I’d be
bored to death unless there was a molasses cookie tossed my way so as to buy
time out of ME... . Tedious and
took the WHOLE DAMN DAY. Except,
of course, IF we “went” “somewhere good”.
I
was near two decades old before I “KNEW” somewhere from the “WHERE ARE
WE?”. This latter was my
as-brought-up mental image of this …into the wilderness... travel in the back
seat. The endless hill and dale,
“UP” the “interval”, “DOWN” “the river” or “CROSS” to the “flats”... would
STILL befuddle me if I had not done extensive map in hand research since
then. I have and to relocate
“lost” spots has been career long for me for I soon learned that I ...could “do
a better job at it” (buying antiques from the old places) than “They” did IF I
could just …FIND the places... again.
ONE
of these places... WAS... “Maggie’s Store”. I liked going to Maggie’s Store. It was “somewhere good”. This is because when we went “there” I could always “buy”
“as much” “candy” as I “wanted”.
There was a two folded reason for this but I honestly didn’t care about
that at that time. ALL I knew was
that this woman, who was as round as a field pumpkin, as big as a hay pile, as
jolly as Santa Claus and as profane as ...you are not EVER gonna be... would
come barreling out of the back door of her old farm house as soon as my
grandmother pulled in toward “the store” and she’d be in that store’s rear door
behind the counter before we’d be in the FRONT door and there... time stops for
me.
I’m
not one to be nostalgic and I can prove that I’ve stripped to the bare walls
(bought everything out of) place’s like Maggie’s Store AND I also know that I
learned to DO THAT (“strip ‘em) before it was “popular”[1]
so, IN FACT, have sold AWAY cheap more nostalgic country store “collectibles”
so that even if someone took their EMPTY BASEMENT and their FULL Mr. Wallet and
played serious collector till a BLUE MOON, they are not... gonna... ever. And... I am dead serious here... the
stuff... is not the same... out of context (no longer resting in its original
little Middle of No Where, Maine Maggie’s store setting). Collectors should not be bothered by
this notice and their collecting is fine but… it took ME twenty years to learn
that and all I’m doing is passing MY hard learned expertise on to you. UNLESS you were at a “Maggie’s Store”
when you were four... AND fourteen years later stripped closed up Maggie’s
style stores… after stores… of ALL the “stuff” in them … and sold “it all”… into
“fine” “collections”... IT IS BEST TO TREAD REAL CAREFUL on this
“subject”: The “stuff” is better
(more poignant) when in its original setting.
This
is because it really is not JUST the stuff... that made the store. It had to include the sun, just after
high noon, beating down on the car window behind which I sat. It had to include the sand on ground in
front of the store that made the little bit of dust and the little bit... of
tire crunch when we pulled in. And
my grandmother saying “Don’t touch anything”. And the little sloped porch with the soda pop and candy
signs. And the ... “coke
machine” that was actually a red metal lined wooden box with only the very tops
of “all kinds” of “pop” bottle necks sticking out of water with ice in it...
. Then a little jingle from a bell
on the screen door that one “kicked in” or “pulled out” and had a sign
advertising something on that too AND never closed right and... inside we would
go after saying something to someone (usually an old male) who sat outside on
the porch stoop next to the “pop”... “machine”.
These
stores... had... no lights, no sales girls, NO cash register, no place to stand
if you were a “large party”, no counter space, no... OPEN shelf space. IT also had NO cracker barrel, pickle
barrel, checker board or ole wood stove for the “old farts” to gather
“around”. That’s because these
WERE NOT “old” “county stores”.
The only appliances were the “POP MACHINE” and the “gas pump” and THOSE
were outside. OTHERWISE the dark,
dirty, fly buzz filled, crammed full of “EVERYTHING” “store” was “YOUR ON YOUR
OWN” service that included Maggie, who, should she not know you and everything
ABOUT you, was coolly eyeballing you, your companions, your car, your license
plates and YOUR WALLET. Get along
little doggie.
“WOW!”
was and is my still effervescent opinion of “THAT PLACE”. “GONE” is what I was “in there”. I don’t know WHAT Grandma and MOM
did... because I “WHO CARES!”. SO
the fishing tackle was “no good” but SHE SOLD bows and ARROWS; “real ones”. And below the candy counter were boxes
and boxes of “this stuff” that I didn’t know what it was but UP ABOVE where the
boxes of candy bars “are” was this shelf with a “REAL” World War I GERMAN
helmet. “Huh.” to that because I
never dared ask to touch it. AND
anyway, there was enough “other stuff” so I didn’t have to what I’d call
“dwell” on that. Behind me, which
was at that candy case, was “a real lot” of “other things” that seemed to be of
interest to “THEY” who were “with me”.
Then there was this little slit between the cases that “lead” behind the
“counter” to this, well, “area” that had “there’s more” and this side door to
this side room “out back” “TOO”.
Now to me, then, this seemed to have things like gloves and socks,
stacks of clothes, boxes of this & THAT, some table top trays of smaller
offerings I’d call “curiosities” because I wasn’t supposed to “touch those” but
did handle EACH specimen in ...EACH tray... including the “snaps”, “smoke
bombs”, “stink bombs” and well, that store sold EVERYTHING as far as I was
concerned. So the moment I was out
of the car I wasn’t much of a problem to the “They” “go’en out” and IF I got
winded... I’d go outside and drink a “Pop; anyone you want: YOUCANOPENIT on theSIDEOK.” And sit...
out there just like I was suppose to because anyone who came acted like I was
supposed to be drinking a “Pop” there and that my mother and grandmother were
SUPPOSE to be inside and go to talking to them about “The Doctor” and even
every now and then some OLD guy would come and sit with me and tell me AGAIN about
how he went “to school” with my Uncle and HOW he “couldn’t understand “WHY” he
didn’t “BAIL OUT” like the “rest of the crew” and... did I know he “had a son”
which I DID NOT except for these old farts telling me how he was “wild” and
“married this French girl (French-Canadian) from Lewiston” and “had ah son”
that NO ONE in my family EVER mentioned.
So I had pretty much... another soda “pop”... when I got into one of
those HEAVY conversations and since “no one seems like to care” and “Here, get
me one too; the cream soda” so I did for him “too”.
[1]: There was a certain moment, about
1970-71, where I “learned” by accident, from a woman whose dead now, about how
to “go around” to these “little stores; you know what I mean” that were “being
forced to close” because “everyone” started going to those “new stores” outside
of the towns that TODAY are “strip malls”. At these little closed stores once run by the Maggie’s of
the little world, I’d buy “everything”.
And I mean “everything”; the building would be “empty” and all the
exterior “signs” “taken off” and even the “globe” to the gas pump... AND I
would take the pump too but most time it was “TOOMUCHOF A PROBLEM” to “get” so
I DID leave that.
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