1810. That was the address given to Cass Grocery when old Highway 41 became Cassville Road. Cassville Road used to be THE highway 41 (or Dixie Highway) until they constructed the current one. It was the main drag from Miami to Michigan until I-75 was completed in the mid-70's, thus killing hundreds of businesses in the process as travelers abandoned Highway 41 for the expediency of the Interstate. Bartow natives will notice all the abandoned buildings on the highway between Cassville and Adairsville, those used to be hotels and stores. Cass Grocery remained, however, unscathed. A bastion of small town America holding firm against the Wal-Marts and the Dollar Generals of the world. A rock that everybody else broke themselves against. (+1 for Legends of the Fall reference, and yes, I just compared the store to Tristan Ludlow, sue me)
Our people were loyal to us. Come hell or high water, they traded with us and tried their best to never enter Wal-Mart, Lowe's or those giant truck stops where nobody gives a crap who you are. They just want you in and out as quick as possible so they can take their smoke break. Not us. We may have to charge a little more for certain things, but we didn't hustle you out the door with an insincere "thank you, have a nice day" like we read it off a teleprompter. I think people appreciated that.
If we ever had a moment to rest, we would sit on the benches and people watch. These were some of the best times to get to know Cassville in all its glory. I would grab two glass bottle Coca-Colas (which are manna from Heaven, nothing in the universe tastes better), hand one to whomever was working with me and we would sit there and take it all in. You never quite knew what you would see or hear, but rarely did the citizenry ever let us down in terms of entertainment. Just like Two Run Creek, we had some very peculiar characters meandering past our little dusty corner. Here are some examples of what you may see:
1) "Get on it!!"
One thing we absolutely loved to do was entice people to lay drag at the four way stop. If a single car pulled up and nobody else was coming, we would yell "Get on it!!!" to the person driving. We would follow that up with a hand motion that signified that we wished them to burn rubber. More often than not, if that particular person was a Cassville native, they would oblige us. It did not matter what year, make or model of vehicle either, they would rev up the engine and do their best to spin their tires, inciting hoots and hollers from us. It could have been the most beat up Caprice Classic on its last leg and they would stomp the accelerator to the floor for us. Some of the best drags ever laid up there were from Honda Accords and Nissan pickups, I'm serious! My friend Rocky drove a late 80's model Ford Ranger, 4 cylinder, manual transmission, primer gray, about 200,000 miles on it....a real gem. That dude could turn his foot sideways, hold the clutch, the brake and the accelerator down at the same time and cook the tires as good as anybody. He once scored a million cool points when he actually lit a cigarette while he was spinning the tires. He took a drag, smiled and blew past us, and we obliged him with whistles and high fives.
One of the best was from a guy that lived across the street from the store. He completely restored a Ford Gran Torino, the same model used in Starsky and Hutch. It was immaculate too, with its red and white paint, shiny wheels and best of all, the roar of that engine. He spared no expense on this car, and I swear it could have pulled the store off its foundation. One day, he took it out for a spin and he came up to the four way stop. We just so happened to be sitting outside. "You think Ronnie would get on it?" asked my co-worker, Russell. "Nah, not in that car, that's his baby," I said most assuredly. "Aw hell, let's see," he replied. Russell stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled as loud as he could, Ronnie looked over at us and Russell yelled our typical phrase and delivered the hand motion. I fully expected Ronnie to shake his head, laugh and just ease past us. Nope. I saw his eyes and knew he was going to come through for us. You always knew because a devious smile would suddenly form on their face and the revving would start. Ronnie fired up that monster engine and unleashed a drag unlike I have ever seen up there. He sat in place for ten seconds as the tires screamed on the pavement. Smoke billowed out from under the car like it was on fire. It got so thick that we could not see his car anymore. Then he released the brake and shot like a cannon out of the cloud of smoke and past us fishtailing, complete with a rebel yell and a fist pump out the window. We were hooping and hollering, jumping around and high fiving, when the smoke alarm went off in the store. We had opened the windows earlier and Ronnie had put out so much smoke that it crept into the store and set the alarm off. He got a free beer for that one.
**Ronnie also "barked second," which gets you another cheer. "Barked second" means that when your transmission shifted to second gear, the tires gave a tiny squeal. Big deal in Cassville.
Another good one was my friend, Paul. He had a shortbed Chevrolet truck that supposedly had a Corvette engine under the hood. He also had illegal slick tires on the rear, so "getting on it" had a whole new meaning for him. Further, Paul lived for it. He absolutely loved to cook his tires and make us go crazy. He would do it even if we weren't outside, so we would run out and see him. One day, he came in after work and bought some random things and shot the bull for awhile. "Alright y'all, I'm gone, " he says. "Get on it when you leave," ordered Russell. Paul backed out of the parking lot facing north and started revving in the middle of the road. Tires squealed and smoke went everywhere, I ran into the parking lot pumping my fist and egging him on. He took off like a shot and traveled about 50 feet when a Sheriff's Deputy in SWAT gear walked into the middle of street and stopped him. Apparently, we did not realize that a meth bust had just taken place about two doors down. They heard the commotion, walked outside and Paul was caught red-handed. The cop ordered him to park at the store and wait until the paddy wagon came to get the methheads, then he would get his ticket. He sat there for about an hour fuming. Just another day in Cassville.
**As far as I was concerned, I never laid drag. I drove a 1997 Ford Ranger that couldn't "pull a greased string out of a cat's @ss" according to my co-workers. I literally had to turn the air conditioning off if I went up a steep incline.
2) Out of Towners
With I-75 being so close to us, we got our fair share of "tourists" passing through. 50% wanted to see Cassville, the other half were just lost. Most of them were of the Midwestern persuasion and older, so there were plenty of black sandals with black socks (a dead giveaway, as per the late, great Lewis Grizzard. RIP Lewis, give Catfish a pat on the head for me.) People named Bob, Bill, Marge, Barb...the typical old Midwestern names. The wives would tell us how "cute" the store was and describe a similar place back in Ohio. The men would make a remark about gas prices (ours was always too high) and then stride over to the ice cream cooler.
That ice cream cooler was the BANE of my existence. I hated it. Seriously, I told Dad if I ever took over, I would roll that thing into the first fire truck barreling down Cass-White Road. It contained eight three-gallon tubs of Scotty Mayfield's finest ice cream, but to me, it was eight opportunities for aggravation, annoyance and twenty minutes of Windex and sticky hands. One half of the cooler froze too hard, so four of the eight tubs would be as hard as a brick. Those were undoubtedly the four flavors that EVERYBODY wanted, and they all wanted a double. Speaking of flavors, we carried the basics (chocolate, vanilla, cherry, strawberry, butter pecan, black walnut, rainbow sherbet) and one random that Mayfield would sell us (usually Moose Tracks, Turtle Tracks or Birthday Cake). I'll go into the ice cream cooler more later, I could write an entire book about that spawn of Satan.
Anyhow, out of towners always wanted ice cream. Always. They would act like they have never seen an ice cream cooler before, run over to it and stick their face in the glass. The undisputed king of first questions, "what flavors do you guys have?" would come out. Cassville natives already knew, or if they needed a refresher, "what flavors y'all got?" I would go through the list of painfully obvious flavors. Chocolate is chocolate....in Georgia, Ohio, Canada, Kazakhstan....it doesn't matter. Undoubtedly, the next question, "oh, you guys don't have _______?" would rear its ugly head. The blank represents some off-the-wall flavor that nobody ever wants, like Rum Raisin or some other flavor that rural Georgians would not touch with a ten foot pole. I wanted to say "yeah, we have a secret cooler under this one, that's where the Rum Raisin is, I'll run down and get it." They would pause and ponder, "I don't know Barb, what should we do?" the man would remark and wink at me, like I was 6 years old and he just told me Santa Claus was real. Both would end up getting vanilla. The vanilla is frozen solid, of course, and they want a double "scoop." Cassville people say "dip," not "scoop." He pays for the ice cream, remarks about the price (too high, as always), and notices my grandfather's mounted largemouth bass on the wall. He compares it to a fish he once caught (his was bigger, of course) and compares his life to my grandfather's, since they are of the same generation. Being in customer service, you have to watch yourself, but I wanted to say, "Sir, no two men in the universe could have less in common than you and my grandfather." He wouldn't be caught dead in black socks and sandals, that's for dang sure.
3) Giving Directions to Out of Towners
As I stated, 50% of them were just lost. They would pull up on the front when they saw us sitting there and say, "excuse me young man!" It was obvious they were lost by their frazzled appearance and the giant useless map in their lap. In their defense, rural Georgia is one of the worst marked areas in the United States. Half of the road signs are stolen (I plead the Fif...I plead the Fif....One, Two, Three, Four, Fif!) and the DOT simply never replaces them. Interstates and highways intersect but you have no idea where or how far away. It's a colossal disaster.
Giving directions is an intricate process at Cass Grocery. Whomever is the oldest has the right of first refusal. Older Cassville men LOVE to give directions. They live for it. It's a bum rush to the car to see who can start talking first. Now, these guys know exactly where you need to go and what roads you need to take. The problem is in the description. The only way to illustrate this dilemma is play out the conversation. I'll use the names "Billy" for the Cassville man and "Jo" for the out of towner woman.
Billy: "So, y'all lookin' for Calhoun, huh? I used to live upair (up there) so you in luck!"
Jo: "Oh thank goodness!"
Billy (pointing north): "Alright, y'all go up yonder a piece, get on the four lane....." ("the four lane" is highway 41, which is a four-lane highway, hence "the four lane")
Other Cassville man: "Naw, Billy, they need to get on 75!"
Billy: "Junior, shut the hell up! It ain't faster! I timed it, it ain't no quicker. Look, y'all just listen to me. Get upair on the four lane, go about twelve miles, pass by Summerville Highway.." (that's Highway 140, but these old guys don't do numbers)
Yet another Cassville man: "It ain't twelve miles! It's only ten! Hell, they's too much traffic that way, y'all need to get 411 over at Pine Log and take Summerville Highway across Folsom."
(Jo is looking more and more flustered)
Billy: "Ten, twelve, it don't matter. You'll pass by the tar (tire) place and go up the road a piece and you'll hit Calhoun."
The other men then debate the authenticity of Billy's directions, tell the out of towners about three other ways to get there and they all end up arguing as the people drive away. This happened nearly every single time. God bless us.
