Let's Talk About Tomorrow because Today is Too Sad

For all the kind folks who ask, when I would write again, well today is the day.

As some of the more cat savoy of you may have guessed...BOOTS is a boy. He is in the terrible twos right now and we are suffering, but expect him to move on to an older more well behaved cat sometime soon. Orange tabby cats are almost always boys as the color is gene linked. I will post some of the details of his exploits in the side panel for those cat lovers but suffice to say we believe him to be a special breed of Kanawha Cat and encourage others to adopt a kitten from Vera if you want an entertaining smarter than usual cat for your home too. Vera lives in the killer curve of 410 just before you reach the store.

The store has presented more challenges than we ever imagined. I will cover some of those for the people who read this blog because they contemplate opening a store in a rural area. Our issues may not be yours but still I think it will open your eyes a bit. Actually it has pretty much made our eyes nearly pop right out of the socket on at least 2 occasions.

The good people of this community have some very definite ideas about what they want in a store. As best we can tell it would serve them well if it were something like

Texaco gas station attached to a What a Burger, Stop n Go, Feed Store, Brookshires that had quaint evening get togethers for couples and a ladies night out sort of a homey YMCA with Party City on one side and a Captain D's on the other at the rear we need a Denneys for coffee around a wood burning stove and in the center we should have a combination of the Dollar Store and a Neimen Marcus outlet not to forget the take out window that operates 24/7 and a delivery service for shut ins. All this with a person so personable they can chatter in two languages to who ever drops in and entertain them with stories while checking out the dead snake in the bed of their pick up.

Do I miss it, Hell Yes! Would I do it again? of course! But not alone and I would not let it bother me if I was paddling as fast as I could and the boat just kept taking on water. When the Baptist wanted Wednesday evenings and the Methodist wanted Sunday mornings I would just bail faster.

WHY, because you can find a man who patches his beloved dogs neck with duct tape and you can watch a fawn take its first step from your front door and you can know you are a fifth generation who will be buried in that red sand. Because with every demand, complaint and threat came ten smiles, and gifts from their labor and hugs to sustain you and even the grouches mean well.

It is unbelievably sad to close the store. We will empty and seal it up this next week. The circumstances that caused this turn of events actually started about 3 months ago but they just kept growing until I had to think maybe God was telling us something.

Reasons the store is closing:

1.First is the obvious that I had something like a small nervous breakdown and had to come home to regroup and resign myself to needing Bill before I can try again. Still Michael kept the doors open when he could.

2.The cold winter electric bill was over 600 dollars one month and 400 the next. The licence to sell cigarettes renewal $180.00, remember we sell about 5 packs a week. The big freezer was on an unidentified breaker and got turned off by accident spoiling all the food inside. Could you hear a loud suction sound coming from our bank account as it shrunk?

Michael spent 6 years going into debt to get a bachelors of science in mathematics degree with a minor in physics. He lived at home drove a junk car and worked at fast food. With no scholarships he graduated with school loans hanging over him. For three years he worked with under privileged children in a Charter school in South Dallas. Then he thought he would become a Marine but he hurt his leg and he said his second choice adventure was Kanawha. He applied at Detroit and he got the position. Michael had become very adept at helping students actually like Math and raising test scores. He told me he really liked his students who were bright and interesting. Michael will miss the kids, but he is spending weekends planning a big adventure with one of the armed services.

In 9 months you can give birth to a baby who will bring you great joy, cost you more than you ever dreamed and worry you to death. The past nine months have taught us a great deal and caused many sleepless nights but this store is our baby and we will be back and next time we will be smarter, somewhat debt free and better prepared for success. God willing.

Estimated reopen 3 to 5 years. Look for us once a month and for several weeks in the summer. We will be spreading that mountain of mulch and finishing off the kitchen area in the store.

Two 1/2 Months

Evening Hours

We have been given a kitten. She is orange stripes with white boots and the shape of Florida on one hip. In addition she has a perfect bib and tummy of white. It took two grown men to bath her. She is 6 inches long including her tail. We have all fallen in love with her. Will has taken ownership of BOOTS who purrs like a Harley and chews his toes and fingers. At night she rubs under his chin and licks his ear lobe then curls up in the crook of his arm to sleep.

Michael will be opening the store after school and plans to keep it open until he goes to bed. He plans to keep it open when ever he is there.

I am home dealing with medical issues. I miss the store terribly and look forward to Bill and I returning to run it together in the future. Because Michael is opening the store in the evenings, I will continue to buy for the store and Bill and I will help him keep it filled with basic and seasonal items.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the success of the store these past 2 ½ months. Look for us on some weekends each month as we finish covering the walls, putting more shelving in place, putting in heaters, installing a real kitchen, building a restroom and storage building. We learned a great deal about running a store over these six weeks that may enable us to better serve our family and friends in this community. It has been an unforgettable experience.

Bottom of Week Three

I could not have imagined the magnitude of support we have had from the North 410 Loop including Manchester and Woodland areas all the way to Pinhook not to forget the kind folks at the Woodland Methodist Church and the Leesville Baptist Church. Thank you seems inadequate. All the kind words, offers of help and business have helped get us to day 20.

My husband has become a super shopper with a keen sense about what will sell and what has the right "country" feel to it for our store. When I return home he has a collection of aquired items all ready to go, packaged and waiting.

But this journey has not been without some holes in the road. Maybe we are predisastered and from this point on no harm can come to us:0)

Just call us Red Neck.
The new freezers had to be replaced because they were both delivered damaged. Sears said, use the freezers until the new ones come so we filled one of them. This was then emptied into the replacement freezer when it arrived only to find the top sliding door was damaged and after a trip to Paris to get the first freezers door this was resolved. Then we discovered something not in the ad, every air conditioner and refrigerator must have its own breaker. So with only one plugged in, we filled it with eggs, chicken breasts and numerous other cold products. As we closed the door the top shelf fell and caused a crush of food. We removed everything cleaned it up and threw away eggs. The shelf supports looked way to small to support the shelves and after numerous adjustments and several more cleanups we called Sears. This is the day before we open. So to summarize. We have only one freezer and only one refrigerator that can be plugged in and lots of food to replace but no shelves that stay in place in the one refrigerator unit. And 24 hours to solve this problem. The Sears man told us to twist tie the shelves in place. Yes if anyone in Paris was witness to a woman chasing a man around Sears with a carton of broken eggs and having a meltdown…that was me. On Sears behalf I will say they were always courteous even when I cried and threatened to take my business to Home Depot. The twist ties did hold the shelves and we can say on opening day we were truly red neck! The new heavy duty brackets for the shelves came and they are a big improvement over the screws we were trying to use and the twist ties. Michael spent about 4 hours installing and moving food. The electrician to rewire the building so both air conditioners, freezers and refrigerators could run at the same time $355, the food to replace what was mutilated $50. Note: just because you have plugs does not mean you have enough power to use them. I highly recommend Allen Stevens.

Theft is Costly.
We have been conned out of 100 dollars of merchandise and money. So now our friendly little store has a we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone sign and when you check out you will see yourself on a recording device connected to a camera. This mistake in judgement on our part cost 400 dollars in security equipment. On the upside it happened immediately and we were not victims over a long period of time.
Note: 99.9% of the families in this area are hard working decent folks, but all it takes is one to put you out of business.

That’s Not a Body in the grave out back.
To get ice cream here in a frozen state requires 80 pounds of ice carefully positioned if the outside temp is 100 plus and you have a 3 hour drive. Now ask us how we know. My sweet husband brought me a large box of ice cream for the store with a traditional amount of ice and he quietly buried it outside during the night so no one would know. Mike and I have developed a system using the huge coolers and 4 twenty pound bags of ice. We surround the box like it is an igloo. Ice is $3.99 for 20 pounds and this is not a big box of ice cream but it is all that will fit with that much ice. It is cooler today and this is my turn to go to Cedar Hill so if the weather holds we might be able to fill that box again. Maybe we can stock up during cool weather. We sold that ice cream at a loss if you consider the ice and manpower required to get it here.

The bonus protein from Sams.
We purchased a large bag of dog food from Sams and took note their prices were 5 and 6 dollars cheaper than Costco for the store brand. However Sams dog food came with it’s own colony of ants. Fortunately for us they decided to march in formation probably planning to expand. We took a loss on 50 pounds of dog food. The whole store was fumigated “just in case” one got away.
Cost about 28 dollars for bug spray and trashing dog food.

Expired not Retired.
The small tortillas and several other items went past their due dates. I need a basket where about to expire foods are greatly reduced so our customers can take advantage of them instead of the trash can.
Sausage biscuits and sandwiches. I was told by a cowboy that if I had sausage biscuits made up in the morning by 7:30 I would sell them. And I have sold a few. The remaining ones have either been eaten by me or trashed. The sausage biscuit business has been picking up. At this point I am not making anything but I am close to breaking even.

Cooking?
I am cooking in a combination of these three appliances. An electric skillet that has a hot spot and temperamental controls. A large crock pot too big for small items but nice for a big batch of pinto beans and ham. And a toaster oven that does a bang up job of baking 4 biscuits at a time.

Our Customers.
The best customers in the world shop here:
The little girl who calls this “her store”. She worried because she had to go to camp and couldn't make her daily trip to shop.- The sweet family that speaks little English, but buys microwave popcorn.-The big man with his hair in a knot on one side of his head who speaks wisely about plumbing - The gardener down the road who brings me his produce all weighed and in a basket and we split the profit.- The gentleman down the road who gives Mike road warnings and faithfully stops in to tell me his teens will be by later.- The retired fella who works for Circle C “to have something to do”, and is a dependable part of the lunch bunch.-
Our weather lady who stops for her daily M and M fix.- The retired policeman who offered his services if I need them and his talented wife who lives on blueberries. They requested and always remember to purchase skim milk. - Two new friends, bring me customers, memories and smiles. They buy lunch and my doodads a bowl here and a towel there.- And an extraordinary 90 plus lady who bought my last mop and sat sharing memories of her life as a teacher in Detroit and Woodland. She remembered my Grandparents just before my Grandfather got sick and died. - There are more and each is precious.

What Sells in Kanawha
Bill and I had a few disagreements about what kind of stock would sell in our country store. So we each chose 3 things to gamble on and see if anyone bought them. The 59 cent mood lipsticks were one of mine and sold to little girls and ladies alike. I think the price was right. The hot sauce he chose has been a good seller with 4 bottles gone.

Frozen convenience foods and canned vegetables are moving slowly.
Back packs were a good choice because we sold 3 of the 5 already.
Paper plates in large packages do not sell but smaller packages are gone.
The usual whole milk and white bread sell well.
Selling 25 packages of lunch meat and wieners were a surprise.
We sell very little cheese.
Dried Pinto beans sell almost as fast as I can put them out
but rice and noodles are not selling.
Paper towels have out sold toilet tissue and no one has purchased a box of facial tissue.

Feed Time
The deer hunters are beginning to feed the deer. I hope to feed the Deer Hunters. I moved my open time from 8 to 7:30 and if God can give me a little push I may try for 7. It takes 45 minutes to dress and open the doors…there is more to do than you might imagine in the mornings and most of it requires I be conscious and somewhat functional. I think that may have happened sometime in my past but today it is going to take some real effort to roll out of bed at 6am and be perky. To put this where you might understand. One of my favorite customers came in by himself about 10am and I ask where his wife was. He responded, “still in her nightgown”, to which I replied…”I used to understand that” …and he finished my sentence…”before you retired to run the store”.
Yep, 6 twelve hour days a week. You gotta love it here or you just won’t make it.

Sweat Equity

The trial run to see if our new coolers would safely transport frozen food Cedar Hill to Kanawha was not without a few hitches. Mike and I hit Costco first and found a small supply of frozen food items that were intended for resale to the average family. My guess is the ratio of frozen to refrigerated is about 10 to 1. From this you must subtract anything you think is not going to sell well in your store or not in small enough quantity. So the broccoli that comes in four smaller bags is perfect but we passed on 96 burger patties. After gathering all the suitable products we headed for Sams where I thought the pickin's might be better. Corn on the cob that separated into two 12 ear bags and Pillsbury pastries that were designed to be seperated into boxes of 6 sounded great. The other items I found will work well in the store freezer, but the corn on the cob and the stroodles were glued together so tightly they had to be repackaged. Which leaves us to question can a person survive on corn on the cob and strawberry stroodle for a month? The cooler unit worked great even in a 100 degree day. Mike and I almost had a melt down though, unloading everything. A cooler large enough to span the back of the truck is much heavier loaded.

Milk Wars...Oak Farms gave us the low down on the milk wars. Seems Kroger decided to take on Walmart with $1.99 a gallon milk. Walmart responded by matching their price and Brookshires was left to call them on it or bow out. So here we are knowing the price Oak farms can sell us milk at and looking at the $1.99 a gallon price in Brookshires for our own use this week. We checked it out in Cedar Hill and our Kroger had the same below cost price. I doubt this hurt those large companies and no doubt recipes with milk were popular, but the prices are going back to normal now. We hope to have some normal to prices in the immediate future. seems Oak Farms has closed the refrigerators in the Paris Oak Farms and trucks run from somewhere else. It is a shame as those folks in Paris are real nice.

The Bread Business is another story. Earth Grains which used to be Merico sold to Sara Lee and became Little Debbie which filed for chapter 11 in May. So we remembered the Mrs Bairds truck on 195 and read how the truck routes were offered to the employees who drove them and those who chose to were in business for themselves. Other routes were closed down. Fortunately we can get bakery items at Costco and Sams in small enough quantities to resale.

I spent three days on inventory. It is way more than I anticipated but hopefully this fill the store project is a one time thing as refill should be much easier. I found some really revealing wholesale prices that left us with great retail prices unfortunately I found an item that will take our family a good while to use as I bought a whole case. Guess I can mull that over how that happened while I munch on corn on the cob and stroodle. So far most of the prices look fair and some are down right bargains.

While we were sweeping june bugs one morning, Edna Maddox stopped by to visit. She is a member of the Woodland Methodist church and invited us to attend. Upbeat and friendly we hope she will come again. Later that day we had two handsome young gentlemen stop to ask for a cold drink. Unfortunately we are not ready for customers, but they said they will return once we are open.

We are waiting for our first Kanawha electric bill with the Air Conditioners running. Enough to make a person nervous as we have not even opened for business. We are playing AC tag with the two trailers and the store, running the units where we are working and turning the others high or off.
Because it was hovering at or above 99 degrees I understand the term sweat equity! When we arrived back in Cedar Hill, Bill had been paying house and store bills so he had raised the temp in the house to 78, this is a two story so the upstairs was "cookin'" at about 83 degrees.

A funny thing happened when I turned on both AC units. They tripped a breaker. My Daddy was incredibly mechanical. He inherited this gene from his Draper line. His grandmother was a Lynn and they have some documented feats in this regard. I on the other hand am a total zero, possibly in the negatives if possible. So alone with the breaker box and labels from three different store owners, I did the only thing that came naturally. I turned off everything, just flipped them all. It was action or lay down and cry. After I realized maybe that was not so smart I had no time for tears. Remember there are no phones that work, so on my own I found the breaker for the units and remembered to turn them on one at a time. I also found the freezer breaker before it came off the 20 degree mark and we are all still trying to find out what else I turned off in my haste to "fix" it. I put this right up there with getting used to spiders in the sink. It all comes down to how much you really want a store.

Canadian's are 2 feet short.

The new/used trailer was set in place snug in the middle between Mike's small trailer and the store north wall. The hutch from the dining room and dresser out of our bedroom in Cedar Hill were in the store after two trips by Bill and sons. Mike went job hunting in the surrounding area. Bill and I celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary. Will and Mike moved 20 feet of 8 foot high shelving seven feet. The Sears refrigerators and freezers were delivered. Bill and Mike sawed and nailed for three straight days. This finished the window surround and the enclosure for the ac units. The shelf for large bags of animal feed is complete thanks to Mike's sawing several dozen wood slats. Will drilled holes so the strips that seal the plywood could be attached. He sawed them to length and nailed them in place. Bill determined that Van knew what he was doing when he wired the store, as we have separate breakers for each plug along the south wall.

After a long week we are back in Cedar Hill for another load, fresh laundry and some good byes to Bill and Will. Mike and I have a long list of to-dos over the next two week span. Part of this includes transfering our insurance to a company Stephen told us about. It sure helps to have a son who has been in the area a while.

Do not believe the Frigidare people when they email you to say you have 8 feet of cord on each unit they make. Those Canadians think 6 is 8. The men who mow along the roadside left us a neat path to the sign in Woodland so it is measured. Woodland has a new venture. The little building with a bay has become a car repair shop. The road crew stopped to tell us to carry bait...minnows and worms. A cat stopped by to share our ham sandwich and Will named her Fay-Lee to which she did not respond, however she liked the scratching behind the ears and later that evening she brought a friend. Will is especially fond of cats and highly allergic to them. He gets around this by washing his hands after petting.

The plan was adjusted for those short Canadian cords, and the store seems on target to open in July.