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| Rogers' Store Museum, Carsley, Virginia (click to enlarge) |
Imagine it is 1931. Despite the Great Depression, you have managed to hold on to your business as a Funeral Home Director. It is a beautiful Sunday afternoon, the weather is perfect and you and and your family decide to go out for a drive in the family car. You love your car. It is a 1927 Nash Ambassador. You love how the windshield tilts open to allow fresh air to circulate into the interior. You love the tufted mohair velvet upholstery. You love gripping the walnut steering wheel. You worked really long and hard to finally afford and buy this car and you love taking your family out for a Sunday drive.
As you drive through the countryside enjoying the day, farmhouses are scattered about, you see the occasional small, white clapboard church as well as fields of newly growing crops with intermittent forest. There is just enough breeze that the emerging leaves blow in the wind. It is a perfect day for a perfect drive into the country.
As you approach Rogers' Store, your children start calling for you to stop so they can buy some penny candy. Besides being a small, country general store, Jim Rogers also runs the local post office, pharmacy and sells gasoline—Good Gulf! A good premium gasoline suitable for your Nash. You would never buy the cheap fuel. But at $.17 a gallon, you think how expensive gasoline has become. While the kids are inside picking out a few pieces of candy, you will have your car filled up from the state-of-the-art 'gravity-fed' gasoline pump.
Stopping next to the pump, your three boys bail out, run up the stairs and into the store with your wife close behind trying to slow them down. The spring loaded screen door quickly closes behind them making a loud clack as it slams shut. We all know that sound. Within a few seconds, Jim Rogers' boy, Tom, comes out and starts to hand pump gasoline up into the glass sight tube which will then use gravity to drain into your tank. It will only take a few minutes.
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| Nash Ad by way of Fair Use |
It is common in the early 20th Century in America for people to not be rushed, spend time talking with neighbors and businessmen as well as just enjoy a slower pace of life. You and Jim spend about 10 minutes discussing the weather (of course), the effects of the Great Depression, his family, your family and a variety of other local topics. You both agree that the two of you can't cure the 'ills' of the world.
At last your wife and three boys emerge from inside the store. They all climb into the Nash. You shake Jim's hand, thank him and his son while paying for the gasoline, climb into the Nash and slowly drive away.
Not only was there a satisfying Sunday afternoon drive in your beloved Nash, but you also had some quality time with a good friend and neighbor. Life in the 1930s.
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Thanks for looking. Enjoy!
Dennis A. Mook
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I do have to wonder if the store would even have been open on a Sunday. Many weren't in the 1960's and 70's, at least in the part of Ohio I grew up in.
ReplyDeletePart of your story reminded me of something. My parents were both teachers, and with the summers off, we would take lengthy camping trips around the country. I can still remember my Dad saying that if gas got about $.39 a gallon, we wouldn't be able to go out west anymore.
Jim, when I arrived in Virginia in 1973, the Sunday “Blue Laws” were still in effect. For those of you who may not be familiar with them, briefly, on a select few retail establishments were allow to be open on Sundays. Most had to close. Drug stores, grocery stores, gas stations, etc. could operate but department stores, etc., had to stay closed. Government enforced religious rest, I think. Lol Of course, growing up in Western PA, they existed there as well. That said, since this small country store was more or less a grocery store plus sold gasoline, I suspect it may have been open. Good point, however. I had totally forgotten those laws. The cheapest I can remember gasoline was at a Boron station (I think Boron was a subsidiary of Standard Oil, now Exxon)in my hometown. It was $.29 a gallon. Thanks for your comment.
DeleteIt was a good story Dennis, and I wasn't trying to be critical.
DeleteThrow a camera in the car, and it's still a pretty good way to spend a Sunday. :-)
Jim, no worries. I never took your comment to be critical.
DeleteWonderful. Has me thinking of the drive we took from Massachusetts to Los Angeles in 1954 so my dad, an aeronautical engineer could work at Lockheed. Not quite the 1930s but far enough back to see America living a simpler life. And before seatbelts!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment Peter. I’m glad my little experimental story brought back a good memory.
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