The General Store

We called it “the drugstore,” but it really was more of a General Store, something you would find out in the sticks. Which, in a way, we were. We were the sticks in a little village on what Mother Nature had created as an island, since filled in with silt from the river and fill for the nearby airport. Up until a dozen years before we moved out there, it really had been an island, nearly half a mile offshore, linked by the swamp and river silt.

So there was the drugstore. It was also a Fourth Class Post Office; there are plenty of Post Office people who don’t realize there exists something smaller than a Third Class Post Office. This one was located in various parts of the store. The scale for letters was just above the drawer that contained Dr. Scholl’s foot products. A larger scale was over by some OTC products and the largest was down in the corner. Stamps were in a drawer behind the watch display.

The single delivery was stuck between old prescription files in the pharmacy section for the postal customer to pick up; he lived way down in the swamp and it was easier for all involved to do it this way.

There was a soda fountain and a card section; now you can buy eats, some clothing and probably still the school supplies it always carried. And, of course, a telephone booth in the corner. We even had the daily weather report from the Coast Guard and, of course, the seasonal tide tables for the benefit of beachgoers. All that’s missing is a reunion of all the kids who worked there over the years.