WALKER: Walker Country Store

There it sat in rural Washington County, hard next to Centralia Rachels and Sparta-Davisboro roads, between them with Centralia Rachels at the rear and side and Sparta-Davisboro at the front door side, the door that was seldom used.

Papa and Grandma, and almost all the customers used the back door with the step, which was really about three feet long and two feet in diameter of a tree trunk, probably oak, with the sides shaved off smooth and flat so that the "step" wouldn't roll over when those brogans and granny shoes touched it as the would-be customers gained entrance into the little store.

My first remembrance of the Walker Country Store was probably around 1949 or 1950. I would have been 7 or 8 years old. As much as anything, I remember the dust that the occasional cars and mules and wagons kicked up as they made their way to the store, or more likely, as they went on by to Warthen, Sparta or maybe Sandersville.

I spent a lot of time playing in Centralia Rachels. In front of Papa and Grandma's house, it was sandy and had little pea rocks that washed out of the ground when a good rain settled the dust and watered the crops.

My recollection is that Sparta-Davisboro had redder dirt, at least in front of the store, and it had a ditch across the road from the store that, in late summer, was usually loaded with maypops that were fun to play with — throw at playmates, make pigs with stick legs and tails and stomp them hard with your bare foot and make them pop.

The store was probably, at most, about 15 feet by 30 feet. It had a little porch on the front and a tin roof. It was made of rough wood, probably pine on the outside, painted white. I'm no carpenter, but it appeared to me that there were two boards laid with a strip between to cover each seam. It was heated by a pot-bellied stove in winter and it was heated, very hot, by God in the summer.

I don't remember a sign as to ownership or names on the store until it was no longer operational. I put one on it around 1989 which read "Walker Country Store, David F. Walker & Josephine May Walker."

When Papa was "running" the store, it didn't have regular hours. Generally, if you wanted a 'Co-Cola' and cheese, or snuff and chewing tobacco, candy and maybe fat back or kerosene, plus some plow line and nails, or anything else, you came to the house, which was immediately adjacent to the store, and hollered out, in a loud voice, "Mr. David, I want to go in the store," and either Papa or Grandma would come out, unlock the store, and let you in to buy what you wanted. Those that Papa considered worthy were extended credit with appropriate entries made in a long, gray and blue, slender book.

I wrote that folks hollered out, "Mr. David ..." Actually, lots of them hollered out, "Uncle David, I want to go in the store." I never gave the "Uncle David" any thought until I was older and Daddy told me that he had living at one time 76 first cousins. It dawned on me why so many of Papa's customers called him "Uncle David." You can figure it out.

As I said, I owned the store later in my life and was proud of it. Of course, I never ran it as a store. And, when I sold the "Walker Home Place," I offered the store building to my cousin, Johnny Swint, who lived right down the road from Grandma and Papa's house. A condition was that he would have to move it off the property I had sold and by a certain date.

Johnny Swint is a really handy man and smart. He figured out how to move the store and set out to do it, but when the moving started, the store fell apart and all that was left was a pile of termite infested wood and some old, weathered tin. It was sad.

The Sparta-Davisboro Road is paved today. There is a big power company easement through the farm and close to where the store used to be. The Walker Country Store signs, Papa's candy case, the kerosene pump and the Coca-Cola box are in Perry. All I have now of the store building are memories, and wonderful memories they are. It was a more exciting place to me than Wal-Mart could ever be. Sometimes, I wish it was still there, and folks would holler out to me, "Mr. Larry, I want to go in the store." It won't ever happen.

Larry Walker is a practicing attorney in Perry. He served 32 years in the Georgia General Assembly and presently serves on the University System of Georgia Board of Regents. Email: lwalker@whgmlaw.com.

This story was originally published January 9, 2016 at 9:10 PM with the headline "WALKER: Walker Country Store ."