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Category: Tales from the Co-op
13 years at one job computes to a crap ton of stories.
Last week, I decided that I needed to learn how to can before everybody I know crosses over & there’s nobody left to teach me. I mistakenly thought this would be fairly simple. I ask a coworker, who is known for her huge garden & her season-long canning of green beans. She promptly informs me that she can’t can tomatoes, that her husband always does it, she’ll send him to talk to me next time he’s through. Inwardly, I’m dreading this, I don’t talk to him a lot, because outwardly he projects a kind of gruff demeanor, even though I know he’s really not. I’m not sure how he’s going to be on giving me direction for something so precise. The very next day he’s in, & I bring it up. “Oh, it’s easyyyy….it’ll take you twenty minutes, tops.” This sounds promising. “Okay, is this something I need to come watch you do, or is it something you can tell me how to do right here, right now?” I asked. “I can tell you right now. It’s simple.” “Alrighty-roo. Hit me. Wait, do I need to make notes?” “You got a good memory?” “Nope. Hang…
A soft, gentle, much needed rain will be falling this morning at the gravesite of Mr. Ralph Newman. Maybe I should call it a “mourning rain”. Ralph might’ve got to Heaven & made that his first order of business, ’cause he sure knew we needed it. My heart is with all the Newmans this morning as they lay David’s daddy in the earth. Many of you know him, have bought hay from him, have seen him working in the fields. I loved Mr. Newman. He was one of the first farmers I ever waited on when I came to work at Co-op. He was patient with me as I hunted item numbers for his requested feed and baler twine. He has been patient with me over the years as I tracked down the right bolts, seeds, shoestrings, oil, vaccines, and information for him on herbicide & pesticide application rates. I’d spot him ambling along the aisles of the store & I’d break off from whatever I was doing to go speak to him. Well, go holler at him, is more accurate. We got along good because his hearing had been sub par for several years & I tend to talk loud. ” Hello, Mr. Newman!” I’d bellow, & he’d grin ear-to-ear. “Hello, Amy!” He’d holler back. Or sometimes he’d call me “sis”. It…
Y’all settle in. There are a few places in this world where life gets real. You know what I mean. Where rubber meets the road. Hospital rooms, church altars, courtrooms, gravesides, and bars at two a.m, to name a few. Delmar Maples was my co-worker for my cumulative years at Co-op. He didn’t say much, but that’s ok, because what he said counted. He always, always, said “Good Morning,” (which seems to be becoming less common these days). If yes or no was adequate, that’s what you got. I think the first time we ever really had a conversation was when he was showing off his first grandson, he carried him all over the store, grinning ear to ear. Delmar was a small man, with ropy muscled arms, dark eyes, and a scraggly beard. He was never without a mesh-backed “old man” hat that he carefully folded down in the center, essentially making a crown around his head. He traveled with a limp & a whistle. Delmar changed the oil in Patsy many times, & filled a bunch of propane tanks for me & the rest of Sevier County. He didn’t complain or ask for a break in the rain & sleet & snow. He simply bowed his head to the weather & kept working. He crushed boxes too, & I’m ashamed to admit how many times he saved…
This is a picture of yet another lunchtime catastrophe. I went to Food City for Sushi Wednesday & was tempted by their olive bar…I thought this was bell peppers & mozzarella balls in garlic sauce. I could not have been more wrong. I bit into what I thought was a delightfully sweet red pepper….and immediately my eyeballs began to sweat. I thought, well, I can fix this by eating a bite of mozza…rella & tried repeatedly stabbing it with my plastic fork. It refused to be impaled. Desperate now, I pick it up with my fingers & popped it in my mouth. It was a plump clove of garlic. Gary is watching all of this transpire from two feet away with a mild expression, much like a cow chewing its cud from the safety of its pasture while the farmer is electrocuted by their fence. I had no water because who needs water with mozzarella salad? I dash to the fridge in the small engine department. Luckily, I had both water & mountain dew stockpiled. I gulped at both as soon as I got the lids off. Shooooweeee!!! I will be more diligent in my shopping next time.  …
Upon returning from lunch, I retrieved from my purse all the essentials for coloring my lips back in & laid them on my desk. I had a few customers walk up, so I was waiting on them & here comes Gary. Not everyone knows Gary, so allow me to paint you a mental picture: Bull in a china shop. Does that do it? Alright, so here he is, hovering. “Did that guy come in & pay for that trailer?” “I don’t know, I just got back from dinner.” “Well, he said he might be in today, or he might wait till next week. He ain’t pickin’ it up till one day next week anyway, here’s his title. It’s an 8×10–” “Let’s write the item number on here, what is it?” I asked, reaching for a pen. “Three-zero…no wait, let’s see…three-seven-zero-zero…hey! Wait a minute! What IS this?!???!” Unbeknownst to me, he had picked up my Clinique lip liner, thinking it was an ink pen. “Gary! That’s my lip liner! Dang!” The customers were hee-hawing & I was too. What a Gomer. Have a nice day…
Two funerals in two days is too many. It makes you think about your own mortality, that’s for sure. Rex Pitner was killed on his tractor Tuesday evening, but by all accounts he went quickly & doing what he loved. I will miss Rex. He was a big man, which if you judged by looks alone you would think he was easily riled. That was not the case. He had an easy smile & loved to kid me. I dished it right back out. I never saw him angry, which is something, because he was in the stor…e at least twice a week (& despite our best efforts, we typically end up eventually ticking you off one way or another). He never ever ever had an ink pen & always wrote a check. I didn’t mind loaning him my pick-of-the-litter ink pen because he never failed to give it right back. If it hadn’t been disrespectful, I’d have liked to slip one in with him tonight. Hate for him to be unprepared 😉 Happy Trails, Mr. Pitner…
Most of you remember him as “The Mule Man” at Silver Dollar City and later, Dollywood. Somewhere, my mom has a picture of he & I together in front of the mill, me grinning like a mule eating sawbriars. Later, when I came to work at the Co-op, I was astonished when he came walking up to buy sweet feed. I hadn’t thought about him in twenty years, & thought he was long gone to heaven. He was OLD when I was little! But here he was, just acting like a normal person, shopping at th…e local feed & seed. I remember after he left, I was beside myself! I had just been in the presence of a real celebrity!!! Gary & Judy were laughing because he was just a regular mountain man to them, & unbeknownst to me, had lived right over the hill from me “in the valley” years ago (& missed it desperately, as he would tell anybody that asked). Red, indeed, was a regular customer, I came to know soon after. I was always dazzled to wait on him & would engage him in conversation every time I had the opportunity. He worked at The Mine in Governor’s Crossing for awhile & would regale me with stories of the tourists who remembered him from their vacations in years previous, taken with their parents. And now here they were with THEIR kids, & had to have…
