A year before the first world war,
Pete Bale built him a store
in a little town where folks around
just heard of Henry Ford,
‘cause it was horses then and farming men
and dirty, barefoot schoolchildren,
but everyone dropped in to take a look.
Then by 1937, gas was eighteen cents a gallon,
and the loafers on the porch had settled in
watching cars fly by at 25 miles an hour
while the man who bought Pete’s store
picked on a Gibson.
Down at Hubert Atwell’s Store,
the folks who stop don’t shop no more
at Hubert Atwell’s Store,
they bring their cameras, bring their kids,
‘cause now it’s just a relic
of the times that came before.
Years gave men in space and KIAs
from Vietnam and two world wars,
poured color in the TV—
time poured asphalt on the road.
Now the cars fly by too fast to wave,
so how would people know
about sweet Lara at the counter
or the old men around the stove
who talk so slow.
And if the stove could talk,
it’d tell you many tales,
and if Lara kept the shelves wiped off,
she’d probably make more sales.
But it’s the layer of dust and rust
that anchors down the memories,
makes it hard for guests to understand,
and hard for ghosts to leave.
Copyright 2001. All rights reserved.