In this modernizing world there are still bastions of days-gone-by. One such bastion exists in Berkshire in the feed store next to the railroad tracks.
When I was growing up there was an old Agway down by our railroad tracks. We would pass it on the way to the library and there would always be the enticing smell of grain drifting around outside. If you went inside there was the aroma of feed store, that mingling smell of grain, tools, and innumerable other things that all combined together to make the feed store smell. To me as a little kid it smelled of oldness, a steeped age that held a hint of mystery.
The Agway eventually closed, falling prey to the dying agricultural industry. It was replaced, in a different part of town, down on Main Street, by a store for the modern age–a hardware store that carried brand-name animal feed for your small time needs. It is a useful and friendly small town store but it is very up on the modern age.
Once we moved out of town and into the countryside and began raising animals, the new hardware store was the closest place to get feed. The agricultural industry has died out so much in this area there aren’t a lot of places to get feed, so it is pretty much the local store or nothing. Then, about three years ago, a neighbor friend told me about a feed store in Berkshire. Now it is a half hour drive out to Berkshire so it isn’t exactly close, but the price per 100 lbs. was about six dollars less than at the local town hardware store. Buy enough feed, and the savings would be worth it.
Out to Berkshire I went. The trip is something like “over the hill and through the woods to Grandma’s house” with a rather steep descent into Richford. It isn’t an unpleasant drive to take on occasion, though I try to get enough feed to make the trip only every three or four months. Once you’re through Richford, Berkshire is a few miles beyond. It is one of those small towns which seems to consist almost entirely of a main street. If you turn down a side street and drive two houses you find yourself back out in the country again. The feed store is down one such street. It sits next to the railroad track. If you cross the track you’re back out in the countryside.
The side street always feels like it comes up suddenly so I pick it out in advance by the hay elevators sitting next to the road. Across from the intersection there is a house that says Berkshire Public Library. I am curious about public libraries but I find this one slightly intimidating to a stranger. It is a little worn (perhaps someone might say run-down) and it looks like it is perpetually closed. The sight of the building makes me think that too few people go to the library out here.
The feed store is some family run operation. I can’t remember the name of the store because there is no sign out front and every time I call to make sure they have enough feed in stock the phone is answered with such a hasty salutation that the store name is gone before I’ve even heard it properly. It is the sort of place where you don’t need to know the name anyhow. It’s the feed store in Berkshire, open 9-5 on weekdays, and till noon on Saturday. Closed on Sunday.
The store looks as if it is from the bygone era when Agway was in its heyday. The place is anything but modern. It has the high front dock, the wood worn and uneven. It seems like there is always some old farmer sitting out on the dock simply watching the world go by, and sometimes there is a whole crowd of people swapping stories and talking about the weather.
You have to cut through the feed storage area to enter the small office/store. There is an ancient wooden desk darkened and scarred with age at which all transactions take place. Various farming odds and ends for sale are hung up around the narrow room. There is a battered couch for sitting on, and an old heater stove of some type. The store owner and manager is an aging man, rail thin and scruffy, who seems to smoke almost incessantly. When there isn’t a crowd out talking on the porch they are crammed together inside the small store eating food that someone brought or else simply jawing. Your bill is calculated out by hand on a scrap of paper, then written up with a pencil on your receipt. They take cash or check, no credit cards.
It is the strangest little operation, and most strange, I think, because when you go there you realize fifty years ago this wasn’t strange, it was the way of life. When you go to the Berkshire feed store you realize you are stopping in at a bit of history, and when you leave you wonder how much longer it will be around.
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