mr. stewart

today is cool enough that the constant drizzly rain makes it feel like one of those stay indoors days. the leaves are gone up here in the little mountains and everything is gray. so we put on jackets and warm hats and braved it all to drive all the way to delhi. why? who knows why anyone goes to delhi. it's a tiny town with a s.u.n.y. school, a diner, a gas station and a few small shops of the hardware, book and antique variety. and then there's stewart's. i'd been eying stewart's most sundays we'd drive to delhi. since our own local hardware store burned down in the spring, we've been spending quality time at the ace hardware there in delhi, even got ourselves ace rewards cards. we're that kind of people. we bought a lawn mower there, grass seed, dowel rods, paint. they have the farm implements spray paint there that we used on the metal lawn chairs. it's that sort of place.

so today we went and, being saturday, stewart's was open. it's one of those old fashioned department stores that hasn't changed much in the last 100+ years since it first started. there are two front doors, each leading down a long aisle. there's a set of glass and wood counters between the two aisles, one facing out toward each of them and at the back of the store and the front, a short aisle runs across, joining the two. a rectangle. the store's fixtures have been there since before electricity, i'm pretty sure. the place has more flannel shirts than you can imagine. when you walk in you know what sort of place you're in. the lighting is different, higher up, maybe, or a wattage that isn't made anymore. there's a faint smell of wool and light bulbs and boxes.

when you find a place and look in from the outside, you have ideas in your head about how it will be when you go in. and if that place looks like something maybe out of the earliest parts of your childhood, something that could have stretched back even to your own grandma's childhood maybe, you might even be a little bit afraid that going in will do some damage. you worry your idea of the place will be smashed by your interaction with it. you worry that your own foolish imagination has created a place that never existed in your memory even though you pretend it did.

and so i walked in with more than a little trepidation. i'd built it up so much in my mind. an old fashioned place with absolutely nothing i really wanted but everything i wanted to be around. and it was all that. it was everything. there were socks everywhere. and flannel pajama pants. sewing notions. baby clothes. suits. but the best part was mr. stewart. we walked in on the right side and a woman was working in the window. she said hello, asked if we needed anything, then left us to marvel at the place. we walked down the aisle, turned, walked along the back, then turned to walk the long aisle up to the front. and there he was behind one of those wood and glass counters. mr. stewart. he asked if we needed any help and we assured him we were just looking, so he started visiting. first of all, you should know that mr. stewart is not as old as the store, but they've certainly seen plenty of the same things. he's this side of ninety, but gaining on it. he offered to show us something we wouldn't expect. now, i was ready to expect just about anything in this place, but we followed him back to the end of the counter where he hunted around in the ancient boxes lined up on shelves behind the counter and finally produced some of the softest wool long underwear i'd ever snuggled up against. black, although he mentioned white as another option. folks prefer the black, he marveled. now, i am familiar with the concept of wool long underwear but shopping online you can't really touch the fabric so i didn't really know what i'd been missing. while i dug my hands into the wool he told us pretty much the history of wool long underwear and how he'd got a large order of the long pants and been selling them, only to find they didn't have a fly. evidently quite a problem for menfolk in this part of the country. so he called up the company and chatted with a nice customer service person and finally got someone a little higher up. he explained the fly issue and i guess now they're making the men's pants with a fly.

it's certainly a better story when you hear him tell it because he cracks himself up a few times and he has a wonderful laugh. he points to the boxes behind him on the shelves and tells us how a woman on a film crew offered to buy some from him for some movie. he offered her some he had upstairs in storage, free. they were making some sort of movie and wanted a set that looked like his store and i was at a loss as to why they hadn't asked to film in the store. it was already a set. it was everything they wanted, i'm betting. but he never heard anything more about the film and i wonder whatever happened to all those extra boxes.

so there's this magnificent storyteller running this tiny store in the middle of the mountains when every other retail business in this country is cowering and breathing shallow and he doesn't seem a bit ruffled. and he calls up these companies to place his orders on the phone. a real phone. land line. he talks to the folks who make the stuff he sells, puts his voice right in their ears. he knows the stuff he sells. he knows everything he has in the store and thinks we might like these long underwear even though he's still partial to the brand he carries that these soft wool things compete with. just how he is, he says. but he is right. i need wool long underwear just like these and will get a pair when we're back in a few weeks. the long sleeved ones. he wants to know if the sweetie needs a suit. guesses pretty close to the sweetie's size. i am absolutely sure that when the sweetie next needs a suit we should come here. we have to.

mr. stewart says he wishes he could find a way to charge for entertainment and i am hoping he doesn't because i am sure i will go broke if he does. i promise we will be back and although people always say that in stores i really mean it. there are things in there i need. mostly i need to listen to his stories. he tells about going to the mercantile next door as a child, how there were four stewarts and because stores sort of ran tabs there was always some confusion at the end of the month. he'd go and get fleischmann's yeast for his mom and they lady who worked there knew the right kind to send back with him but her brother, the other owner, never did. his stories turn to ash when i put them here on the page because i'm remembering them from one telling and he's remembering them from real life and a thousand tellings. he'd throw out names like my grandma used to, like we were supposed to know all these folks who were probably long dead before either of us were born and i found myself trying to map out the whole bunch. who knows who. who fits where. in a few weeks, i will go back. i will get my long underwear and a few more stories. try to wedge them in with the ones i heard today, see where they fit. i'm going to ask him about allen ginsberg. i understand he shopped there.