The Storyteller: Ullie’s General Store

Ullie’s General store was on Walker’s Bend, near the banks of the Coosa River in St. Clair County, AL., USA, North America, Planet Earth, in the Sun’s orbit. Ullie’s general store was an especially important place, at least to the few hundred folks living around it. To quote Tom T Hall, we were one hundred miles from nowhere and a million miles from harm.

Ullie was a confirmed bachelor and lived in the back of his tin-roofed, wood-framed store, where you picked up your mail, pickled pigs’ feet, or boiled eggs embalmed in an ungodly red cayenne pepper- hued broth of vinegar.

The store was set at the bottom of the hill on a well-traveled dirt road at an intersection that was a metaphor for salvation; the right took you to the Sedden Baptist Church, and the left took you to Sodom and Gomorrah or known around these parts as Birmingham.

A long, deep front porch welcomed whosoever willed to sit on the discarded pews from the aforementioned church.

When O’Dell won his bet on the Alabama/ Auburn football game, and in a drunken stupor, down at Ullie’s, declared he was “buyin’ all new furniture for the church.” Of course, this set off a fierce debate amongst the deacons, but dark oak and padded pews prevailed.

On this very porch, all politicians were mandated to kiss babies and make outlandish promises. Most Saturdays, Uncle Lester and his boys played and sang gospel hymns, bluegrass standards, and a few crowd favorites; “I Wouldn’t Take Her to a Dogfight, “But I’m Afraid She Would Win,” and “You’re the Reason Our Kids are Ugly.” (Yes, these are country standards; I did not make them up). A long, thick black rubber house with a bell attached to the end of it announced any vehicle that pulled up to the gas pumps out front.

Inside the store, sensory overload bombarded your olfactory function. Molasses- tinged feed, hickory smoked beef jerky, and freshly tanned leather goods all caused you to take a leave of your senses and immediately take control of your credit card, causing you to buy things you never knew you needed. (It Is rumored Ullie later sold this formula to Costco).

We did not need People Magazine or a newspaper in Walker’s Bend; Every day, a fresh load of…. news and gossip were served up by the denizens of our community.

Ullie heard the ladies discussing the upcoming 20th high school reunion, and several asked if he had any weight reduction aids. Ever the entrepreneur, he hit upon a brilliant idea (maybe demented); he would take Black Draught, Ex Lax, and Prune Juice, mix it all in gallon jugs he used for his “makins”; Stick a label on it, and call it “Joggin’ in a Jug,” guaranteed weight reduction, the label promised “immediate results.” A large pyramid of “Joggin’ in a Jug” was displayed by the front counter.

My Aunt Leoma, an ample girthed lady, was his first guinea pig, errr customer. She had tried dieting; in fact, she was on two diets at the same time; she said one diet did not give her enough food. That evening, she poured herself a large glass of the weight reduction shortcut, envisioning herself in that bouffant sleeved, flowing to the floor, floral print, size two dress hanging in the hall closet, which would be excellent revenge on her high school sweetheart that jilted her at the high school prom twenty years ago. Settling into her Barcalounger, she finished off her glass of Joggin in a Jug and settled back to watch her shows on the round screen, woodboxed, black-and-white TV. In the middle of “Gunsmoke,” IT HIT HER! She scrambled out of the recliner in her white socks and red nightgown, barely making it down the hall; she nearly broke her neck, skidding on the linoleum floor and getting to the thunder bucket.

The next day, she marched into Uliie’s store, madder than an extra chromosome in an Appalachian gene pool. Aunt Leoma poured that bright green liquid all over Ullie! She stormed out the door and said, “If I had wanted to go jogging, I would have bought tennis shoes instead!

After the altercation with Leoma, Ullie upgraded his security system—we didn’t realize he had one. He traded his little Mexican hairless Chihuahua for a 100-lb Rottweiler. He was ready for the next irate, ample-girthed lady who came through the door.

Bruce Walker chooses to see the humor in life’s situations and he speaks to a wide spectrum of organizations. To contact him, email: bruce.walker2@gmail.com.