EDITOR’S NOTE: Old File’s Store down on Bringle Ferry Road has been gone for more than a year now, moved to Gold Hill to be part of a historic village.
But Greg File remembers what he saw and heard there, remembers the tales told and opinions argued by the men who gathered around the pot-bellied stove when he was a kid, tagging after his daddy.
And one day he decided to write them down so they’d never be forgotten. And gave them names. And shared them with us last year and has plenty we haven’t heard for a second helping during this year’s holidays.
File’s Store run by my Uncle Lee File was a filling station for cars, grocery store and a meeting place where people would leave their cars and ride with each other to their jobs at cotton mills and anywhere else more than one worked.
Lee would be open when those shifts were coming or going, staying in the old store till 3 or 4 in the morning, keeping a fire going in the old pot belly stove that was in the middle of a square box used as a spit catcher.
The fire greeted his customers and kept his drinks and perishables from freezing.
People came from miles around to get a cold drink and one of his sandwiches. He’d cut the meat about a half-inch thick off a long loaf and make the sandwich, and you had your choice of mustard or mayonnaise, all for about 10 or 15 cents.
The store was the meeting place for men to talk politics, sports and farming. They’d sit on nail kegs around the pot belly stove, some of them chewing tobacco and spitting on the stove and into the box partly filled with sawdust, but all of them solving the world’s problems.
The store also had a post office in the rear.
Lee would go to town once a week to buy stock for the store and would take orders on bread and other items that wouldn’t save over a week freshly.
One time while he was at the bakery smelling the fresh baked pies, he decided to bring a few new pies back to the store hoping they would sell.
They sold well, and it wasn’t long before people were anxious to try them.
One day Ore came in the store and decided she would try one of those pies people had been talking about.
She unwrapped it and took a bite out of it, but she didn’t take it out of the cardboard pie pan, and she had quite a time with it, but she wouldn’t be outdone.
“How is it, Ore?” Lee asked her.
“It’d be all right,” she explained, “if the crust wasn’t so tough.”
Feed Bags
File’s store sold flour and feed to his customers. He stacked the bags at the back of the pot belly stove on a platform where people could see them. I spent a lot of hours stretched out on those feed bags waiting for my dad to go home. Back then the bags had pretty designs on them, so women sewed them together to make dresses and shirts.
Ore would sometimes brag that her underwear was labeled, “Grimes’ Best!”
Dirty Tricks
My grandfather — Columbus File, known to everyone as Lum — and his brothers were quite creative when it came to humor.
One day my grandfather was asleep, and his brother, Jink, played a dirty trick on him. He took a feather and tickled Lum’s nose, watching closely to see which hand Lum would use to scratch his nose.
Then came the dirty part. He had found some fresh chicken manure, and he put it on Lum’s finger — and tickled his nose again.
Jink said if he hadn’t been a good runner and Lum could have caught him, Lum would have beaten the tar out of him.
Coming tomorrow: Getting all they seen.
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