The Future Is the Past

More of old Madisonville today.

            Madisonville rests on a flat spot atop a hill. A total of four streets make up the main drags. The courthouse sits right in the middle. Four traffic lights controlled (control, since that hasn’t changed) automobile flow. The most important section for a kid was on the southwestern side of town where its Mecca, The Dime Store (actually, there were two of them, side by side, until one bought out the other), offered almost anything anyone might want. It was an amazing place. The store had the best selection of toys in town, but also sold all manner of house wares, clothing, records, and the list goes on. It’s where I did all my Christmas shopping, but the thing that fascinated me as a kid was the candy counter. The greatest selection of delicacies known to humankind, more than could be consumed in a lifetime, shouted to my eyes from glass encased bins that revealed every single morsel. Because the candy was always fresh, the aroma hit nostrils upon entrance. I don’t know if the candy was expensive or not, but that didn’t matter because it could be purchased in any amount. The price posted referred to an ounce, but the clerk scooped whatever the candy into a set of scales until the weight matched the order. Anybody who could scrape together three cents could get a nice treat.

            On the southeastern side of The Dime Store was where the taxis waited. There were two of them for awhile, but finally just one. The cost to go nearly anywhere in town was 50 cents, a real fortune then. Across from the taxi on one side and the courthouse a right angle away was the drug store. A long Formica counter lined with stools took up about a quarter of the business space. During a weekday many of the people who worked in town lunched on sandwiches, soups, and chilli, and talked and gossiped along that counter. A full service soda fountain and defacto ice-cream parlor served sundies, milkshakes, and real fountain sodas, including the suicide (all soda flavors mixed together in one cup), and that assured a crowd of youngsters following school in the afternoons and during a goodly portion of Saturday. The drug store was always a good place to see the prettiest girls in the town.

            Madisonville was an exciting place to be on a Saturday morning because that’s when the folks from the country came in to do their town business. The hippest clothing store in town had a long picture window featuring displays of the hippest clothing. Right beside that was a farm supply store, from which emanated a pungent odor, and in front of which a long line of geezers wearing overalls and holding open blade pocket knives whittled small pieces of wood and gossiped as they spat tobacco juice onto the sidewalk as people passed. At the end of that block crowds of people filed into and out of the Bank of Madisonville.

            The north side block across from The Dime Store seemed to be happening as well. The Pure Station was situated on the corner across from the courthouse, and a real old timey station (instead of a hydraulic lift, it had a pit for oil changes) at the other end. Sandwiched between those stations was a shoe shop with a real cobbler, quite unheard of now, where bluegrass jams happened before closing time in the late afternoon. In fact, with few exceptions, nearly everything was closed by the time the matinee feature was over, though most of the country crowd had dwindled by noon.