Note: It should be remembered by those who have been following the exploits of The Curmudgeon, that before the transformation into his present character — and after a two-year sojourn in the US Army — he completed a degree in liberal arts.
Then he worked around Asheville for years, first as a telephone solicitor for burglar alarms (you would be amazed at how cheap this service can be!), then for a different company selling home medical alerts with a hard sell that began by telling the person answering the Robo-Call that the product being sold had been purchased for the customer by a member of his family who wanted to help him out but was embarrassed by caring.
He then worked for a major appliance outlet but that job fell apart with the sale of the store and the eventual property change from appliances to a popular motel chain. With that he decided to try his hand at being a blackjack dealer but found that his inability to remember number sequences led to that job fading into the night.
He felt that a personal assessment of his talents might be better in the warm atmosphere of the General Store so it was a rainy Wednesday morning when he parked his Chevy truck in the side parking area of the General Store, and walking into this wondrous salute to all things great and small, almost tripped over the wash bucket being used by Mrs. Storekeep to wash the old wooden floor.
“Sorry, Curmudge,” she said, “I didn’t expect to see anybody this morning until the rain let up.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he answered, “but I’ve been getting very discouraged lately about the world in general. My daily glooms seemed to be telling me that a cup of coffee would be just the thing to brighten up my day.”
“I’ll brew a new pot,” she said, “just give me a few minutes to mop things up.”
So with still-dripping shoes he walked to the back of the store where the Post Office maintained a branch of boxes. Finding his own repository he twirled the letter combination, opened the box and removed some bills: a circular for subscription rebate for Harper’s Bazaar that featured an article on the return of Madonna (he had no idea she had been gone); a special deal on The Wall Street Journal; a large and colorful magazine published by the electric company featuring fun ways to bring the electric thrill to his back yard by installing a wet bar and an electric bar-b-cue; and, finally an invitation to be first in line for buying a condo located on the shores of an obscure lake located on the side of an obscure stream in the hinterlands of Madison County.
While he read his mail, silence reigned in the store; the only sound that of Mrs. Storekeep’s mopping, and the rustle of his advertising pages as he ripped up each page and consigned such to the large trashcan over on his right.
Cityfella entered the store, and being a most perceptive man (though he was born in Georgia), he immediately sensed that the Curmudgeon was not in his usual tip-top frame of mind.
Removing his Ingle’s baseball cap, Fella walked over to wish Curmudgeon his best wishes and prepared to listen to a great amount of vocalizing about the state of the world — but nothing emerged from the Curmudgeon’s mouth.
There is something to be said about personal gloom but this was the kind of day that very little would be forthcoming.
“Curmudgeon,” said Cityfella, “I do feel your pain because this morning I received notice from the managers of the property our vacation cabin is on, that some thirty-five years ago it was a dumping ground for a very large manufacturer of industrial electric hardware and certain chemicals have leached into the ground.”
“It seems to me,” said Curmudgeon, “that today would be the best day for us to invite the Storekeeps to an early lunch, where the food is reasonably good and the local beers are available in refreshing amounts.”
And turning to the lady with the bucket, and using her real first name asked: “Elaine, care to dump that bucket and call your husband in from the storage shed to join us, and at the same time put a sign in the door “Back at 3:00?”
“I would be delighted,” she answered, and soon the four of them were in the Curmudgeon’s Chevy, off for an unexpected adventure that will be reported in next month’s column.
Peter Loewer has written and illustrated more than twenty-five books on natural history over the past thirty years.
