Those of you that read this regular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile or so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River. It was a rural sort of place that did not particularly appreciate education, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.
My maternal grandmum married John Mackey, a really nice man who had been a doughboy during World War I. She had been widowed for many years (my grandfather died years before I was born) and John had been married briefly decades before, so he was essentially a bachelor.
John had a little candy store on Main Street in Hackett where he sold candy, cold soft drinks, flashlight batteries, and sundries. He never made any money with the store because he gave so much stuff away to kids (like me). He lived in the back of the store until he married my grandmum. He had a little pension for serving in World War I and also a black lung pension for being a coal miner for years.
The store was the gathering place for the old men in town. He had an awning over the storefront and several benches and chairs under it. He also had chairs and tables inside for winter and he had a pot bellied coal stove in the store. At the time coal was readily available for the consumer market in Hackett.