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Pardon the sentimentality. This was the old grocery store near where I grew up. It had as many different names as it had owners over the years. It was called "Gilstrap's Store," "Burgess Grocery," "E-Mart," and many other names I can't remember. (We usually just referred to it as "The Store," as in "would you run up to the store and get some paper towels?") Somehow, we thought it would always be there, but it closed for good sometime around 1997 or 1998, judging by the Winston "No Bull" sign in the window. (I remember that sign going up in the window not long before the store closed, and the original Winston "No Bull" campaign came out in '97, so I'm guessing the year the store closed was 1997.)

The door on the right was actually a separate business, the town barbershop, which closed long before the store did. That barber shop was the first time I ever experienced air conditioning, and it really helped the guy's business during those hot, sticky summer months, since the neighboring town didn't have an air-conditioned barber facility. Later on, someone rented the old barbershop and tried to make it into an ice cream shop, but it never really did well.

It's sad to see something that was once so vital to the community abandoned for so long. We still don't have an old-fashioned barber shop or an ice cream parlor, and another grocery/convenience store opened around the same time that this one closed. That store now has the distinction of being the only convenience/grocery store in town, so I'm guessing he may have had a different attitude toward the old store closing down. (Norris, SC, US)