Down on Main Street

My father ran a hardware store in downtown Oxford. On one side of his store stood a pool hall and on the other, Jones Drug Store. Across the street was Morton-Sherman hardware, a slightly larger and better-lit store than my father's, and both owned by George Morton. Both stores had their own loyal customer base. Morton-Sherman attracted the tradesmen - painters and carpenters; Morton's drew the farmers. I often recall my father hefting one hundred pound sacks of feed onto each shoulder and walking it out to a farmer's pickup. Dad believed that service was included in the sale.

During the winter, when there were no crops to tend, those farmers who knew the guitar or banjo or autoharp would spend the days around the coal-fired pot bellied stove, playing bluegrass and spitting into empty coffee cans. My dad could play with the best of them. Customers were seldom in a hurry and the store was often full of people enjoying the music.

Some days, when things were really slow, my dad would pull out the barrel with the checkerboard and he, in grey work shirt and a farmer in bib overalls would slap the board, mumbling "King me". Dad always played the red checkers and won more than he lost.

My father dropped out of school in the fourth grade. He was needed on the farm. He grew up with a love for the soil and an appreciation for the farmer. Dad learned math on his own. He maintained a ledger in which he wrote how much seed, fertilizer, and canned goods he loaned out to farmers on credit. At harvest, the farmers would sell their crops and come pay their bills. If my dad knew they'd had a tough year, he forgave much or all of the debt. That's how he and other businessmen treated their friends and neighbors when I was growing up.

Saturdays were the busiest days at the store. My brother and I would walk the four blocks from our house to the store. We'd look at the candy jar and our dad would nod his OK for us to take a peppermint or horehound stick from the jar. Sometimes we'd help out by weighing and bagging nails or filling glass jars from the molasses barrel. Usually my father would give us movie money for a matinee at the Orpheum Theater. If there was any money left, we'd buy bubblegum, candy and comics at Roses Department Store. Across the street from the Orpheum was the fire department and the court house. In front of the court house was a news stand called The Blue Dot. The Blue Dot was run by a blind man. As children we were always amazed that he could make change from paper money just by the way it felt.

Oxford's downtown consisted of one block of stores on Main Street, another block of stores on College Street, and two blocks running horizontally in either direction from Williamsboro and Hillsboro Streets. The east end of town was anchored by a couple of service stations, one a Texaco and the other Esso; the west by a Chevy dealership. To the north was the Methodist church, and to the south was the First Baptist Church. In the dead center of town were two barber shops - Basement Barber Shop where I got my first haircut, and City Barber Shop where the good barber worked. Within those six commercial blocks were businessmen, bankers, judges, deputies, and ministers, and all knew each other by first name. Six days a week, these people passed each other with a wave or finalized a contract with a handshake and a promise; they tipped waitresses, checked the oil and washed windshields, fed parking meters, rang up sales and wrapped packages.

On Sundays, downtown Oxford was quiet, except at the Methodist and Baptist church ends. Awnings were rolled up and the blue law enforced as the townspeople worshipped and rested from six days of labor. Those were truly Happy Days for me; simpler, friendlier times when my dad made a decent living for his wife and sons. Certainly things weren't perfect back then, but people like my dad lived as good a life as they knew how. The lessons I learned have stuck with me and I strive to live up to my dad's example. I wish my children could experience the childhood I enjoyed.