By Joann M. Ringelstetter
In April, 2010, on the fifth day of a two-week photography trip, Ruth and I stopped at Baynes General Store, located at a rural crossroads in Caswell County, North Carolina. There has been a general store at this crossroads for around 160 years. Baynes General Store has been operating pretty much continuously for the past 100 years.
The current store was built circa 1907 and it was called Baynes and Harrelson until 1920, when Mr. Baynes paid his debt to Mr. Harrelson and renamed the store Baynes General Store. Since the store’s beginning, people of all ages have come to buy groceries, snacks, drinks, tobacco, clothes, and other necessities. If they didn’t have cash, they would trade something they had, such as livestock, milk, or eggs.
Because the store is located in a sparsely populated rural area, it has always been a place where people gather for both formal and informal meetings. In the old days, a Caswell County judge and bailiff held court in the store once a week. People came and continue to come to gossip, shoot the breeze, discuss local and national politics, or just hang out with friends and acquaintances. When we arrived at the store, there were numerous cars parked on the side and in front, people going in and out, and others chatting on the porch.
We pulled in and parked our car on the side of the store. As we got out, a man named Wallace, who was sitting on the porch steps was looking at our Wisconsin license plate. Then the following conversation took place:
Wallace: “You from Beaver Dam?” (a city northeast of Madison, Wisconsin)
Joann: “No.”
Wallace: “Oh, you from Harken?”
Joann: “Pardon me?”
Wallace: “You from Harken? I have friends that live by Harken Marsh.
Joann: “Oh, Horicon Marsh? No, we’re from Madison.”
I mean no disrespect by this, but I knew our conversation might be a little challenging due to his southern accent. So I’m going to respectfully put the phonetic spelling on a couple of words in this story so you see what I mean.
We told Wallace that we had been seeing plowed fields with raised rows of dirt and we were wondering what was being planted there. He told us they were getting ready to plant tobacco. Some farms were planting as much as 150 acres of tobacco. Tobacco is a very labor-intensive crop, so we commented on the amount of work involved in that.
As we talked with Wallace, his friends, Irving and Lawrence sat nearby listening. Well, Lawrence mostly listened. Irving, on the other hand, gave Wallace a hard time.
We told them that we grew up on a dairy farm. Wallace said there wasn’t much corn being raised in “Colina” (Carolina); it was mostly tobacco. Then he said that he had taken a trip once to Chicago and didn’t see any corn. But then he drove west of Chicago and it was “all corn, corn, corn.”
Wallace started talking about “the stuff made from corn that sweetens soda pop.” He said he couldn’t remember what it was called, but it was some kind of syrup. Well, that got Irving going and the following conversation took place:
Irving: “Fructose corn syrup. If you don’t know something, ask somebody.”
Wallace: “So you’re from Madison? Is that the capital of Wisconsin?”
Irving: “Yeah, you ought to know that from the 5th grade.”
Joann: “Are we playing, ‘Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?”
Irving: “Well, Wallace only went as far as the 6th grade.”
Even though there was a lot of talking and laughing going on, Wallace’s faithful companion, Buster, relaxed at Wallace’s feet.
Wallace: “I went to Milwaukee once.”
Irving: “I don’t like big cities.”
Wallace: “I went to New York City in 1957 and I would never go back. I don’t know why anyone would want to go to New York City. There’s too many “payple” (people).
Irving: “Well, if you didn’t like it in 1957, it’s 150 times worse now!”
Wallace said he had been a farmer his whole life and that he was planning to raise about 20 acres of tobacco that year. Then he tried talking us into traveling about 12 miles off of our planned route to go see his tobacco barns, which he said were kind of run-down. So, we politely passed on his offer and told these gentlemen how much we enjoyed visiting with them. They told us to have a good trip.
When you take a trip to another state, I encourage you to do some shunpiking on the backroads and to visit places like Baynes General Store. You never know who you’ll meet or what you’ll learn.
Happy Shunpiking!
Joann
Photos in this blog post can be purchased as wall art, paper prints, downloads, phone cases, and keepsakes by clicking on the photo. You will be taken to the gallery website where you will see a big blue "BUY" button. Or to see all photos available, click on the "Browse Galleries" button on the menu at the top of this page. Thank you for your interest!
Shunpiking To Heaven Backroads Blog
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Thursday, July 12, 2018
Gardens at Agrace
By Joann M. Ringelstetter
Four years ago at this time, our dad was nearing the end of his life at Agrace Hospice in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. On the evening of July 9, Ruth and I went to visit Dad. When we got there, however, the staff were working with him, so our stepmother grabbed a sandwich and we went out to one of the patios.
On a previous visit, I had noticed some very beautiful flowers outside Dad’s window and was impressed with Agrace for creating beauty to lighten the hearts of patients and their families.
So, Ruth sat on the patio and kept our stepmom company while I explored all the gardens around the complex. I found pink hydrangea bushes,
orange lilies,
blue hydrangea bushes,
yellow lilies,
and many other lily colors. The gardens were beautiful and they brightened up an otherwise sad time in our lives. We were grateful to Agrace for maintaining these wonderful gardens and for the care they gave our dad as he prepared to leave this world.
Happy Shunpiking!
Joann
Photos in this blog post can be purchased as wall art, paper prints, downloads, phone cases, and keepsakes by clicking on the photo. You will be taken to the gallery website where you will see a big blue "BUY" button. Or to see all photos available, click on the "Browse Galleries" button on the menu at the top of this page. Thank you for your interest!
Four years ago at this time, our dad was nearing the end of his life at Agrace Hospice in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. On the evening of July 9, Ruth and I went to visit Dad. When we got there, however, the staff were working with him, so our stepmother grabbed a sandwich and we went out to one of the patios.
On a previous visit, I had noticed some very beautiful flowers outside Dad’s window and was impressed with Agrace for creating beauty to lighten the hearts of patients and their families.
So, Ruth sat on the patio and kept our stepmom company while I explored all the gardens around the complex. I found pink hydrangea bushes,
orange lilies,
blue hydrangea bushes,
yellow lilies,
and many other lily colors. The gardens were beautiful and they brightened up an otherwise sad time in our lives. We were grateful to Agrace for maintaining these wonderful gardens and for the care they gave our dad as he prepared to leave this world.
Happy Shunpiking!
Joann
Photos in this blog post can be purchased as wall art, paper prints, downloads, phone cases, and keepsakes by clicking on the photo. You will be taken to the gallery website where you will see a big blue "BUY" button. Or to see all photos available, click on the "Browse Galleries" button on the menu at the top of this page. Thank you for your interest!
Sunday, July 1, 2018
The Rest of the Story
By Joann M. Ringelstetter
In our last blog post, Ruth told the story of the fun we had with some people we met at lunch in Shawnee, Ohio in the spring of 2012. What she didn’t tell you was what happened prior to lunch that day and a related occurrence a day and a half later many miles away.
Prior to arriving in Shawnee, we had stopped to get gas and bought a big bag of ice for the cooler. Rather than mess with the cooler at the gas station, we decided we’d wait until we got to a park in Shawnee to do that. Irwin, our trusty GPS, does a fairly good job of telling us where parks are located, so we followed his directions to take us to the one park he knew about.
Irwin guided us along the main street where there were many old historic buildings that we would have liked to photograph immediately. But we knew we needed to get to the park to take care of the cooler. So, we turned down a side street off the main drag and followed Irwin’s directions. He said the park was at the end of the block. When we got there, unfortunately, there was no park. After expressing our frustration to Irwin, we turned around and headed back towards the main street to find someone who could tell us if there was another park in town.
But we were worried about the ice melting in the bag, so we pulled over on that street to deal with the cooler. On one side of the street, there was just a wooded area. On the other side there was a hill with a house on top. And near that house was a storage shed that had been painted with a “Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco” sign. We pulled the cooler from the cargo area, unloaded all the food, drained it, replaced the ice, and reloaded it. Then we tried to find someone who could tell us if the town had another park. Luckily, it did and that’s where we met the two women with the hungry children.
That night, we stayed at a motel in Athens, which is about 40 minutes south of Shawnee. The next day we started heading north (in our usual roundabout way). We planned to stay overnight in Berlin so we could explore the Amish countryside the following day. As the crow flies, Berlin is about 2.5 hours from Athens, but we spent the day zig-zagging along the backroads of central Ohio, admiring many beautiful farms along the way.
And we passed through many small towns where we explored the streets for special treasures, like this service station sign for Buick and Ford cars, along with Firestone Tires.
That evening, we checked into our motel in the heart of Amish country and, as we were unpacking the car, we noticed a woman watching us and looking like she had something she wanted to say to us. Finally, she approached us and said, “I feel like I know you.” Well, she didn’t look familiar to us and we didn’t have the same feeling about her. So, we waited to hear more.
She then asked us if we had been in Shawnee the day before. We said that, yes, we had been in Shawnee, and we were thinking that maybe she had passed us on the street while we were busy photographing. But then she asked if we had pulled over on the side of the road and emptied our cooler. Again, we said that we had, and we were trying to figure out how she knew that because no one had passed by while we did that. Also, here we were two hours north of Shawnee and someone was describing our exact movements in Shawnee the day before.
The woman then sheepishly explained that she lived in the house on the hill, with the Mail Pouch Tobacco shed, and that she was watching us the whole time, trying to figure out what the heck we were doing. Well, we had a good laugh over that and we ended up talking with her for quite a while before wrapping up our day and figuring out where we would be at first light the next morning.
As the famous radio storyteller Paul Harvey used to say at the end of his broadcasts, "And now you know the rest of the story."
Happy Shunpiking!
Joann
Photos in this blog post can be purchased as wall art, paper prints, downloads, phone cases, and keepsakes by clicking on the photo. You will be taken to the gallery website where you will see a big blue "BUY" button. Or to see all photos available, click on the "Browse Galleries" button on the menu at the top of this page. Thank you for your interest!
In our last blog post, Ruth told the story of the fun we had with some people we met at lunch in Shawnee, Ohio in the spring of 2012. What she didn’t tell you was what happened prior to lunch that day and a related occurrence a day and a half later many miles away.
Prior to arriving in Shawnee, we had stopped to get gas and bought a big bag of ice for the cooler. Rather than mess with the cooler at the gas station, we decided we’d wait until we got to a park in Shawnee to do that. Irwin, our trusty GPS, does a fairly good job of telling us where parks are located, so we followed his directions to take us to the one park he knew about.
Irwin guided us along the main street where there were many old historic buildings that we would have liked to photograph immediately. But we knew we needed to get to the park to take care of the cooler. So, we turned down a side street off the main drag and followed Irwin’s directions. He said the park was at the end of the block. When we got there, unfortunately, there was no park. After expressing our frustration to Irwin, we turned around and headed back towards the main street to find someone who could tell us if there was another park in town.
But we were worried about the ice melting in the bag, so we pulled over on that street to deal with the cooler. On one side of the street, there was just a wooded area. On the other side there was a hill with a house on top. And near that house was a storage shed that had been painted with a “Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco” sign. We pulled the cooler from the cargo area, unloaded all the food, drained it, replaced the ice, and reloaded it. Then we tried to find someone who could tell us if the town had another park. Luckily, it did and that’s where we met the two women with the hungry children.
That night, we stayed at a motel in Athens, which is about 40 minutes south of Shawnee. The next day we started heading north (in our usual roundabout way). We planned to stay overnight in Berlin so we could explore the Amish countryside the following day. As the crow flies, Berlin is about 2.5 hours from Athens, but we spent the day zig-zagging along the backroads of central Ohio, admiring many beautiful farms along the way.
And we passed through many small towns where we explored the streets for special treasures, like this service station sign for Buick and Ford cars, along with Firestone Tires.
That evening, we checked into our motel in the heart of Amish country and, as we were unpacking the car, we noticed a woman watching us and looking like she had something she wanted to say to us. Finally, she approached us and said, “I feel like I know you.” Well, she didn’t look familiar to us and we didn’t have the same feeling about her. So, we waited to hear more.
She then asked us if we had been in Shawnee the day before. We said that, yes, we had been in Shawnee, and we were thinking that maybe she had passed us on the street while we were busy photographing. But then she asked if we had pulled over on the side of the road and emptied our cooler. Again, we said that we had, and we were trying to figure out how she knew that because no one had passed by while we did that. Also, here we were two hours north of Shawnee and someone was describing our exact movements in Shawnee the day before.
The woman then sheepishly explained that she lived in the house on the hill, with the Mail Pouch Tobacco shed, and that she was watching us the whole time, trying to figure out what the heck we were doing. Well, we had a good laugh over that and we ended up talking with her for quite a while before wrapping up our day and figuring out where we would be at first light the next morning.
As the famous radio storyteller Paul Harvey used to say at the end of his broadcasts, "And now you know the rest of the story."
Happy Shunpiking!
Joann
Photos in this blog post can be purchased as wall art, paper prints, downloads, phone cases, and keepsakes by clicking on the photo. You will be taken to the gallery website where you will see a big blue "BUY" button. Or to see all photos available, click on the "Browse Galleries" button on the menu at the top of this page. Thank you for your interest!
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