Of course, Eufaula is a good thirty five miles from my house and the Big Store is eight miles past that but a summer evening is a good time for a drive. Ponder and I always liked to drive with the windows down catching the smells from whatever grew beside the highway. That evening, the smell was mostly honeysuckle. I caught a stink of paper mill once or twice and a big whiff of skunk as I passed a motel, but mostly it was honeysuckle. It was honeysuckle when I turned toward onto the short road that ends in the Big Store parking lot. Now, no one told me about that road. It was dirt and chert rock for half a mile before it dropped so steep, the chert rolled off the road. It drop was full of gullies from rainstorms and I had to shift down and ride the brakes to get to the bottom. I hated to think about how I’d get up on the way back. Once it bottomed out, the road just fanned out into a parking lot without any lights or pavement. I didn’t guess there would be so many cars! It looked like a…
I was working as night aide for Mr. Kenneth Riley when I heard the Big Store’s membership had opened up; night aides don’t hear as much as the day help but Mr. Riley’s Depends ran out early one week and his great niece, Helen, brought out a case complaining about the trip she’d made to get them. “Can you get me a glass of tea, Viola?” she huffed. “I’m about to perish from this heat” “I’ll bring it to you as soon as I get your Uncle Kenneth changed” I said. “He’s been going through those diapers fast and I don’t want him to get sores waiting for a fresh one.” “Never mind, I’ll get it myself then” she said and made a face. When I came back from her uncle’s bedroom, Helen was sitting with her heels up on a kitchen chair, swilling iced tea like she was the Queen of Sheba. “When did the Big Store start keeping late hours?” I asked her. “Last year, I think,” she said. “Probably, when the credit-union people started going.” I didn’t understand that. “The credit union?” I asked. “No credit union around here hires enough folks to make The Big Store…
Not all trash is trash: that’s the first thing you’ve got to know. I’ve picked over, cleaned up and used other people’s trash all my life but I know the difference between a bargain and cheap. It’s all about quality and no Big Store can sell that off its underground shelves, no matter what you hear. You need to know how to shop. My name’s Viola; never mind how old I am, it’s probably older than you. I’m a widow woman and I’ve spent most of my life working for somebody else. I was serving on the breakfast line at the Piggly Wiggly when I met Ponder, the man I married. used to say he walked in for a sausage biscuit and walked out with me. Ponder picked trash for a living, buying a car or cabinet someone didn’t want, then mending and selling it to someone else for a little higher price. That kind of a job doesn’t bring in wages, not the kind you can show the government, so I stayed at the Pig, serving breakfast until the store shut down. After that I cleaned houses and sat with sick and…