General Store

Somewhere in the world there are still places where old men still sit on stoops and shoot the breeze. It used to be on the sunny porch of the general store, back when I was growing up in rural Ontario. Even by then there were modernizations to the cliché. The pickle barrel had been replaced by a soft drink machine. But then, in less than a generation, the general store was gone. Any that have survived have become cutesy tourist traps selling oversweet fudge and jars of “homemade” jam with frills of calico covering the lids.