Memories of a place long gone

When I flip through the card catalog of happy memories in my mind, I often flip quickly past my grandmother's house. I haven't really dwelled upon it in some time but each time I think about it, I smile. Some real love stayed there. Let me take you on a tour.

The house stood at the four corners as a giant, yellow monolith. Based solely on square footage and comparing to some of the plantation homes in Louisiana, the place was a mansion but it never seemed that way to me. The house didn't cover much street frontage but stretched back about three times as long as a regular house. The place was old, having been built in the 1800's. I've been told it was the town's stage coach depot at one time.

At the front of the house stood three or four concrete steps, leading into a concave doorway that welcomed visitors like a pair of open arms. Above the door hung like a shingle was a massive, metal Pepsi Cola sign with the words "M & M Store" in almost unnoticeable black, block letters along the bottom. (M & M stood for Moses and Marjorie, my grandparents)

My grandparents ran what today would be called a convenience store. Growing up, we just called it a candy store. The entire bottom floor, with its twelve-foot ceilings, was dedicated to this endeavor. When you walked in, several rows of shelves containing various teeth-rotting confections ran perpendicular to the door. To the right was the front counter and the cash register. To the left, tucked undeneath the windows, were the newspapers and magazines.

I remember the store was always dark. Not in a scary way but in a comfortable way. There was wood everywhere - the floors, the counters, the shelves, the magazine racks - and it had all been stained dark by many years of use.

On display behind the counter were several family heirlooms, including several duck decoys, some of which my grandfather had carved himself, and a bottle of something called "Old Crow." I must have read that label a hundred times but never understood what it was. I knew it wasn't liquor, although it was packaged similarly, but it never registered so its intended use is lost to me. Doesn't matter, it's intended use in the store was to be on display.

Off to the right, past the counter was the bread and dry goods followed by the milk coolers on the back wall. To the left was where the pinball machine used to sit. We didn't play it much but someone always had a coin ready if we wanted to. I remember one time, my uncle Jerry was playing and all three of us kids were watching him, He stopped to take a phone call and, coincidentally, had three balls left to play. He was on the phone long enough that each of us had a pretty decent turn at it. We sat innocently in our same positions as he returned to find his game finished. He wasn't exactly pleased that we had enjoyed ourselves so much at his litteral expense.

Beyond the "game room" was a storage room and the back door. I'm told, and have seen pictures to corroborate, that the store room was once a lunch counter. It didn't seem nearly big enough but I am assured it functioned well and my mother spent many an afternoon working there.

Dead center of the store was the staircase. It was a little steep but wide and welcoming - at least by my standards as a ten and fourteen year old boy. Like the floors and fixtures in the store, the banister was made of dark, well-worn wood. It moved a little when you gripped it but it was solid.

The staircase emptied on the second floor into the kitchen. The kitchen was yellow and had a large window. By stark contrast to the first floor, the kitchen always seemed bright - even at midnight. Maybe that was because of the color, or the window, or the placement of the lights but I think it was because of the people who were always at the top of the stairs waiting for us whenever we arrived.

Back toward the front of the house was the living room with a wood-burning stove for heat that took on several different shapes over the years - including the 1970's orange cone. I remember the carpet was a dark green and I think there was wood paneling on the walls. Several well-loved chairs and a sleeper-sofa were arranged about. In the corner stood the antique, upright piano. It had been painted a light blue and the paint was forever flaking off. I don't think I ever remember it being in tune and I certainly don't recall anyone ever actually playing it. It was more like a once-functional sculpture retained for sentimental value.

Past the living room was the balcony. The balcony ran the width of the house and had a four foot tall railing of solid wood slats. Support posts interrupted the view here and there at symetrical intervals.

Along the length of the house, opposite the windows in the living room, was a long hallway. Along this hallway were the bedrooms. Grandma and Grandpa's bedroom was closest to the front of the house. Uncle Tom's bedroom was just off the living room. I remember he had a bright red bedspread and I used to sit in his room and listen to a Glen Campbell 8-track on his stereo - using headphones, of course. A couple of other bedrooms opened off the hallway - one of which had been nicknamed "the 'tater bin" for reasons that are lost to me now - before emptying back into the kitchen near the top of the stairs.

At the back of the house, behind the kitchen, was uncle Jerry's bedroom. Jerry's bedroom usually had a high temperature variant because the window wasn't seated right. I also remember that the light switch didn't work and he used to have to tighten and unscrew the lightbulb to turn it on and off.

After my grandfather passed away, my grandmother closed the store - something she had been trying to get him to do for a long time - and eventually sold the house. It still stands today bot not as I remember it. The law firm that bought it gutted the first floor (I've seen pictures of the house with the back half of the upper floor supported only by stilts), then restored the outside to its original historically significant shape. Gone is the inverse-window-seat entryway. The balcony is gone, too. The entire building is a relatively featureless rectangle now painted a light brown. From what I could see of the inside, the first floor is a long hallway, with offices on either side, interrupted only by the staircase - all that remains of anything my minds eye finds familiar.