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Browsing Tag: #southernliving

Nugget

A lifetime ago, I was the new girl at the Co-op. I was continually dazzled and awed by the celebrities that darkened our doors. I’ve seen Phil Fulmer, Bill Landry, countless local politicians, loads of Partons (my favorite is Bobby), and the mule man from Silver Dollar City. Seems like everybody needs the Co-op at one time or another. But some of the ones I remember the fondest are the ones who aren’t famous at all. There was an old gentleman, always neat, always precise, always cordial, that came in regularly. And to be honest, I was terrified to wait on him. I didn’t want to mess up. He frequently had one or two sons with him, and their presence just added to my nervousness. More witnesses to see me mess up. One afternoon I didn’t have a choice but to wait on him and his five pound bag of bolts. Gary wasn’t there to bail me out and I had to look up every single size in “The Book”. That’s not the good book, but it is the Co-op Bible. Before the internet, it’s what we had for information. It was like a condensed farming encyclopedia with item numbers, descriptions, pictures, and prices because plenty of Co-ops still wrote hand tickets in the early 2000’s. Anyway, there were several pages of tables for pricing bolts. First you…