Day: January 3, 2011

Cornfield, the winter pasture, Hebron, N.Y.

Work is beginning on the roof.

I have to confess that I haven’t gone into the general store all that much in the last year or so. I used to go in often, and on Sundays I played chess with my friend Jacob Worthington. I went in sometimes for sandwiches, or for cookies and muffins. It gave focus to a small and spread out community where people rarely got to see or talk to one another. General stores, like family farms, struggle. It’s tough to compete with the box store supermarkets, which offer so many more kinds of food and much cheaper prices. I do the cooking and shopping in my house, and there wasn’t enough of what I needed there. After the store burned, we all realized what it meant. Another blow to the notion of community, individuality, identity in a nation increasingly marked and dominated by mega-companies who sell cheap stuff and grow and grow.

So Hebron seems determined to get the general store going again, and I am on board with that. Buying local starts right down the road, doesn’t it? And perhaps the fire and the community support will also make it possible for the store to reinvent itself a bit and be re-energized. We will support it, I believe. Lots of people in town already are, offering money, tools, supplies, sweat and support. Marie Mulligan lost everything in the fire, and we all want to see her get her life back, and it seems we all want to see our general store back. Sometimes you have to lose something to appreciate what it is. I have rarely seen a community as determined as this one is to see the Bedlam Corners General Store open again.

Just as family farms and libraries are not just about farms and libraries, general stores are not just about buying things. In America, bigness has been unleashed, and run amok, destroying communities, businesses, and cutting the cords that tie people to one another. So we become angrier and more disconnected. General stores are run by individuals and entrepeneurs who put their lives into their work, who comfort people when their relatives die, when their sons go off to war, when they are lonely and want to talk to somebody. So there is a hole in the fabric of the town people want to fill.

The store inspired the name of my farm. Bedlam Corners is the intersection where this history old store sits and it was named after the Bethlehem Hospital in London, the world’s first insane asylum. On weekends, Londoners used to go out to the hospital and throw rocks and tomatoes at the inmates, and there was so much chaotic crowding, the hospital’s name was shorted to “Bedlem” and then “Bedlam,” and the name became synonymous with crowds and confusion. The general store sits at an intersection that was so crowded at the turn of the century – hotels, mills, machine shops – that it was named Bedlam Corners. So the store was named, so was my farm. I’ve agreed to do a talk/signing somewhere in town over the next few weeks to benefit the store restoration fund, and also to take photos of the restoration as it proceeds and put them up on the website.  Can’t think of a better use of the blog.

Like family farms, general stores are perishing everywhere, devoured by greedy corporate monoliths. It would be a meaningful thing to save one.

Stopped by the Bedlam Corners Store this morning, and the dumpster is filling up and the chute is ready to clear out the charred upstairs. Some new wood has arrive, and work on the roof is going to begin shortly. Two weeks ago, nobody in town thought the store would ever re-open. Now, almost everybody does. The Rev. Debbie Earthrowl of the Hebron United Methodist Church is spearheading the rebuilding and she loves the idea of my keeping track of the restoration progress through photos on the blog. The upstairs of the store is pretty much shot, but the basement is intact and much of the store itself.  They’ll do it. Donations can be sent to Maria Mulligan c/o Glens Falls National Bank, Main Street, Salem, N.Y., 12865.

Every morning, Maria and the donkeys have a huddle to start the day. Fanny decided to try hair before she went to the hay. She liked it.

Maria wasn’t as wild about the idea.

Barn cats know how to catch the sun when it gets chilly. Minnie loves to perch on the fencepost by the big barn and soak up the heat. Barn cats can take care of themselves.