Just enjoying a little bit of nostalgia, this is Lost Mountain Store, when I was a kid.

The Country Store

by Anonymous

~2 minutes

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FAR OUT beyond the city's lights, away from din and roar,
The cricket chirps of summer nights beneath the country store;
The drygoods boxes ricked about afford a welcome seat
For weary tillers of the ground, who here on evenings meet.

A swinging sign of ancient make, and one above the door,
Proclaim that William Henry Blake is owner of the store;
Here everything from jam to tweed, from silks to ginghams bright,
Is spread before the folk who need from early morn till night.

Tea, sugar, coffee (browned or green), molasses, grindstones, tar,
Suspenders, peanuts, navy beans, and homemade vinegar,
Fine combs, wash ringers, rakes, false hair, paints, rice, and looking glasses,
Side saddles, hominy, crockery ware, and seeds for garden grasses.

Lawn mowers, candies, books to read, corn planter, household goods,
Tobacco, salt, and clover seed, horsewhips and knitted hoods,
Canned goods, shoe blacking, lime and nails, straw hats and carpet slippers,
Prunes, buttons, codfish, bridal veils, cranberries, clocks, and clippers.

Umbrellas, candles, scythes and hats, caps, boots and shoes and bacon,
Thread, nutmegs, pins and Rough on Rats, for cash or produce taken;
Birdseed, face powder, matches, files, ink, onions and many more,
Are found in heaps and stacks and piles within the country store.
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I mentioned in my last video how sad it is that so few young men today have an example of an actual man in their lives. I invoked the men in my childhood, and although I didn't name them specifically, I was referencing my father, his brothers, boyhood pastors, and deacons, teachers at the local college (we lived on the campus of a Bible College), the man who delivered vegetables and fruits with his product truck route, the colorful and excentric Fuller Brush salesman, who was always invited to dinner, and asked to say the blessing. He would always begin his prayer in a sing-song manner, pronouncing "Our Heavenly Father" very slowly, the pitch of his voice from high to low, then he would bring petitions, praying for actual people, like a machine gun, rapid-fire, finally ending slowing "and Father, bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies, and bless the souls who have prepared it. In our mighty Savior's Name, Jesus Christ."

Uncle Sam F. drank too much but was very kindhearted and eager to teach a young boy about metallurgy and art. I was an expert welder by age ten. I was driving the farm truck at eight. Playing the piano very well at age five, Sam called me Paderewski after Ignacy Jan Paderewski; Sam had seen him play. Pop and his brothers often sat in a circle at the shop, on weekends on the lawn, or on the porch, swapping opinions about culture, politics, and geopolitics. I learned so much from them that I CLEPed through two years of college-level political science, having never read a book on political science. Uncle Arthur knew Daddy King, and Dad and Uncle Harvey were friends with Senator Talmadge. Dad owned an auto-alignment shop and was no one special in worldly terms, yet when he reposed, they estimated the crowd at his funeral to be between 3 and 5 thousand people. I remember the deacons opening the window on the parking lot side of the auditorium so the people standing under umbrellas would not miss the funeral. I was shocked; hundreds of people were outside in the rain, showing their respect. Compared to the men today, those men were giants. They connected to the real world around them. They were not isolated in the cyber world, feeding their fantasies, but working, teaching, playing, laughing, joking, and living in real time and real space. Those whose consciousness is totally cyber today have no idea how artificial their life is, nor what it takes to be a man.

We had a big dining room table with pull-out slats inserted that would seat sixteen people, five on each side and three on each end. Many Sunday dinners, the table was extended and full, and many children sat at kid's tables (fold-out card tables) and the breakfast table in the kitchen. When my sister met the love of her life and his family came for dinner, it was set up on the side lawn. His family was 16, including mom and pop, and ours was ten, plus cousins and grandchildren. It was filled with joy and celebration, and when it came time, every head bowed, and the Christian God was acknowledged and thanked, and yes, prayers were stated for individuals who were struggling.

Let us not pretend it was some golden time. Cousin Lamar had a brain injury and was paralyzed in an accident, unable to communicate. It was decades before we learned he had been mentally whole, totally aware of everything around him, but unable to press the thoughts from his brain to his mouth. When he began to speak nearly two decades later, it wasn't easy listening to what he had to say. Another cousin had polio, and a dear friend (5 years old) was kidnapped, raped and murdered. The neighbor boy was mentally ill. He was highly intelligent yet spent most of his adulthood in custodial care. The local college president was a peeping tom; another neighbor was an ex-cop felon, the sweetest guy when sober, mean as a snake, and violent when drunk. And all of it was taken in the flow of life that was REAL.

I've watched on YouTube the giddy Ph.D. Steve Turley gush about the new Christian era Jordan Peterson is ushering in, and it reminds me men are so few in this era, and for the most part, it is not their fault. Turley doesn't have a clue what a Christian era is. He and all young men exist at the end of a seventy-year-long assault on the meaning of manhood. Turley's expectation is a fantasy, and he's too feminine to know it. Lord have mercy.