Devonne Brown

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Tincher’s Store and Post Office was the train station once. It stood not a hundred feet from the railroad tracks, and its wide wooden porch doubled as a bus stop in the pouring rain. We had no idea how long ago it stopped being a train station, it was half a mile from our houses, and the bus wouldn’t take us all the way home. Mom and Dad didn’t give us money to stop there after school, or go there on weekends, we had to wait until summertime. We had to walk straight home. Deidre, Robin, Jimmy, and Bonnie, all walked with us. Jeff was the oldest, he walked alone. He was in high school already. The rest of us were in second and third grades, beneath him. 

When summertime came we could ride our bikes to the store. We’d pick up soda bottles from the ditches and trade them for candy bars in Tincher’s Store and Post Office. Sometimes, when we’d find a bottle or two all four of us would get a whole bag of penny candy and sit on the hill beside the railroad tracks and split it. I was partial to caramel creams, Jimmy liked Fireballs, Sharon and Bonnie liked Lemonheads, I don’t care what Diedre and Robin liked, they were mean.

The store was always dark and cool. It smelled of furniture polish and shone, even in the dim light. Mrs. Tincher ran the store, her husband was PostMaster and stayed behind the bars on the post office side of the wide plank floored room. The mahogany glass cases with their curved glass held the coveted penny candy and five cent candy bars. Once in a while our parents gave us dimes to splurge on such treasure, especially if they wanted us out of the house for some extended time. 

We’d throw down our bikes in the gravel, run up the stairs, and burst into the store, Mrs. Tincher would grimace and smile her welcome as always. We never stayed long, but we were plenty annoying I’m sure, always getting the same thing, but taking our time to decide. If our moms were feeling generous, we were able to get drinks. I’d always get cherry soda. We’d return the bottles for nickels and more candy. We weren’t stupid. 

  There were other things to buy in the store besides sodas and candy, it was the Scott Depot Post Office still, and it carried things like milk, bread, and eggs for locals. I don’t remember Mom ever buying anything more than a stamp there. Maybe a pack of cigarettes. You could buy them everywhere in those days.

Its squeaky floors and polished wood lasted as long as we rode our bikes down the hill and pushed them up again. We were the last generation to love it before it closed its doors forever. All that’s left of it now are the railroad tracks it stood beside.