The NYT this week published A Pandemic-Driven Love Affair with All Things Vintage: A new generation of homebound shoppers is developing a hunger for antiques and other hard-to-find items online and on Instagram.
and I Miss Being Part of an Audience: Crowds can be mindless, even dangerous. But that feeling of losing yourself as you experience art together hasn’t been replicated since live entertainment went online.
I felt that. Both of those pieces. Hard.
Not too long ago, I ran an errand for a friend — he needed something from a store, but he knows I don’t go in places. He actually said to the person on the other line “can you meet my friend Ginger in the parking lot? She doesn’t go in buildings.”
Sure enough, other than the two houses in our pod, I’ve maybe been in a dozen other buildings since last March. I’m already a sentimental / nostalgic person, but oh, the idea of walking in a place without having to think about… the chain of events if I were to get sick or just asymptomatically pass something on to another person… I yearn for the ease of going anywhere without the weird calculus of the what-ifs. And I miss being around lots of people. Having a shared experience with a big group. I want that back.
This is just that kind of place and experience: it’s the Old Delina Country Store in Cornersville, Tennessee
Yes. A little restaurant in an old country store in the middle of nowhere.
All these pics are from the last two or three years.
The store is 125+ years old. When we last visited inside in 2019, we met the owner, who talked to us just forever about running a country store, and the employees were so nice and gracious with us.
We had a little of everything — sandwiches, hamburgers, onion rings, ice cream
…and ice cream on fried pies
The fried pie flavors included peach, blackberry, cherry, coconut cream, apple, apricot, chocolate, lemon, blueberry, strawberry, strawberry cream, key lime, Bavarian cream, raspberry cream, and raspberry
It’s one of the first places we’re going back to when we all can. Miss it in the very best, sweetest way. Thinking of making a Google map of old country stores — just need to figure out what the specs would be (older than x number of years, has a certain atmosphere (which will be hard to quantify but ‘you know it when you see it’), some will serve a menu while others are truly country stores e.g. they sell Golden Flake but also a little hardware…that kind of thing). Have one to share? Email me and I’ll get one started. xoxo!
I’m going alllll the places once we all can again.
Pics of some other country stores that have my heart:
The Old Country Store in Lorman, Mississippi:
Jefferson Country Store in Jefferson, Alabama
Gibbes Country Store in Learned, Mississippi
Pond Store in Pond, Mississippi
Simmons-Wright Company in Kewanee, Mississippi
