Note: June 2005 update: Sadly, O.O. Rufty's, the general store, featured in this story is now closed for good. The website featured in the story is no longer active either.- Ralph Grizzle

Our State, November 1998, 1,594 words

Going, Going, Gone: People, Places and Things of Yesteryear

Marking our place in time by remembering the past.

By Ralph Grizzle

Harry Hartley loves to tell the story of an Atlantan who, on her way home a couple years back, stopped in Lexington, North Carolina, for fuel. A few days after arriving home, she realized that she'd lost her credit card. When it failed to show up at area Atlanta establishments, she thought she'd try calling the station in Lexington.

Trouble was, she didn't know the name of the station. All she knew was that the attendant who assisted her wore a bow tie. With that bit of information, she dialed a Lexington operator and explained her problem. "She told the operator that she remembered that the station attendant wore a little red bow tie," Harry says. "The operator said, 'Oh, honey, that's Mr. Hartley.' "

It seems that everyone in Lexington knew Harry Hartley back then. They still know him now. That's because Mr. Hartley has owned and operated Hartley's Exxon on Lexington's Main Street for 61 years. And for 61 years, he has worn a tie. "I do it out of respect for my customers," Harry tells us, adding that in 1970 Exxon, then Esso, recognized his station as having the best image among 5,000 service stations in North Carolina.

Harry Hartley comes from a time when gas station attendants were the front-line salesmen for oil companies and independent filling station owners. He epitomizes the old image of cheerful professionals in crisp white uniforms who greeted each customer by name, checked the oil, water and air, inspected the hoses and fan belts, and washed the windshield.

He entered the business in an era when gas stations pursued customer loyalty with good, professional service, an era that fell into decline in the late 1970s and early 1980s when rising labor costs forced many stations to install self-service pumps. A decade later, filling station attendants pumped only 30 percent of all gas sold in America. Harry Hartley clings on, still pumping at age 79.

The professional service station attendant is one of many elements vanishing from contemporary North Carolina culture. Remember Piedmont Airlines? When flying was something to look forward to? How about airports before the hub-and-spoke system? Or when "direct "meant that your plane didn't stop anywhere along the way? Today, the term is "nonstop."

Remember outdoor clothes lines? They've been replaced by electric and gas dryers. What about drive-in movies? Though a few still exist in our state, back in 1956, America claimed 5,000 "ozoners," as they were known in the trade. Multiplex indoor theaters have taken their place.

Not too long ago, downtown theaters were the entertainment centers of the day. If you remember those, you'd be in good company with Gene Hawkins. Growing up in Durham, Hawkins and his brother needed only a dollar for bus tokens, movie admission at the old Rialto, popcorn and a couple of sodas.

A retired minister and schoolteacher in Franklin, North Carolina, Hawkins says it's important that we remember the friendly ghosts of our past. "We hark back to those days as we get older," he says. "We want to discover our roots and mark our place in time. Those things have meaning for us. They seemed to have a permanence in our life."

Hawkins says that remembering the past also reminds one of the good, old-fashioned values. He remembers when Dell comic books included a pledge to parents up front that essentially told them that what was inside was good, wholesome entertainment.

Mr. Hawkins would feel right at home in Manteo, where H.A. Creef still runs a downtown theater. Ye Old Pioneer Theater is reputedly the country's oldest continuously operated theater owned by one family. Provided that at least three people show up, Ye Old Pioneer Theater is open nightly, even at $3 a ticket. There's a different movie each week. The week we called, which was right after Hurricane Bonnie blew through, Creef was showing, appropriately enough, "Gone With The Wind."

Creef's grandfather opened the original theater, called a "movie house" back then, in 1918. It burned, and the "new" theater was put up in 1934.

Talking to Creef, I note that some of his words carry a hint of the dialect peculiar to the Outer Banks. He says, "hoi toid" when the water's up and explains that the pronunciation is a Scottish brogue. I've heard it before, and you probably have, too. David Yeomans, down in Harkers Island, once told me that his brogue was a remnant of Elizabethan English. These dialects are vanishing from North Carolina culture on the winds of change. "I'm the last child of the original Yeomans," David told me. His nephew, Chris, a schoolteacher who gives tours of Cape Lookout during summers, has no trace of the dialect.

You might hear hints of Scotch-Irish dialects in Western North Carolina. What you're less likely to hear, though, is a square dance being called. This past summer, I caught Frank Mast calling one at the old Apple Barn in Valle Crucis. Frank still had the strong voice but confessed that sometimes there's a shortage of strong dancers.

"I tried calling one for Tony Wilson over in Johnson City, but he couldn't get anybody to dance," Frank says as he wipes sweat from his brow during a break from a rigorous calling. "You get rusty on it, but then you get a bunch of people out there who know what they're doing, and it all comes back." Unfortunately, Frank says, there are fewer bunches who know what they're doing.

Frank's grandfather started Mast General Store in 1883. It's come a long way since, with stores scattered throughout Western North Carolina. If you show up at the Valle Crucis store today, you can still warm yourself by the old potbellied stove, but you won't be able to buy live chickens or coffins like your parents might have. It was, after all, the store that had everything.

The general store that claims to have everything over in Salisbury is O.O. Rufty's. Still doing business the way it did 90 years ago, Rufty's carries feed and seed, dry goods, canned goods, hardware, lawn and garden, fertilizer, gifts, even push plows. The slogan is, "If you can't find it at Rufty's . . . " The ellipsis points are Rufty's, not ours.

"People come in here not just asking for a number-six wood screw," says O. O. Rufty II. "They usually come in with a problem. We offer solutions, something the mass market merchants aren't doing." Survival, however, has meant adapting to change. Thus, Rufty's has a web site www.oorufty.com. "We're old-fashioned," Rufty says, "but we're also a modern business."

We forgot to ask Mr. Rufty if we could get an old-fashioned soda at his store, but we knew we could at Fordham's Drug on Greensboro's Elm Street. A 39-year veteran at the trade, Jerry Farrington will mix you a coke, a cherry smash or a root beer float the way it's supposed to be done. "A lot of people bring their kids in to see a drink made the old-fashioned way," Jerry says. He notes that the old drugstore celebrated its 100th anniversary this past July. Its flooring, ceiling, soda fountain counter, backdrop and shelves are all original.

Those who remember drugstores like Fordham's will remember the Watkin's man, who went door-to-door peddling his goods. You can still find some of his goods on the shelves at T.S. Morrison in Asheville. The Watkin's products sit between Colgate's Octagon All-Purpose Soap, "economical to use," and InnerClean Herbal Laxative. You can get Horehound candy at T.S. Morrison, established in 1891. You can also get a 6 1/2 ounce Coke, for 85 cents, not a nickel anymore. Sore throat? Try Thayers Slippery Elm Throat Lozenges, prized by opera singers and made from Elm bark.

Though there are other varieties of elms, American elm bark is almost impossible to come by. In the 1930s, Dutch elm disease began choking American elms to death. A few pockets remain, but the fungus is unstoppable.

Suffering a similar fate are the American chestnut trees, which once stood high and mighty on many of the dry ridgetops of our mountains. The ridges were so crowded with chestnuts that when the canopies were filled with creamy-white flowers in early summer, the mountains appeared snow-capped.

In virgin forests, mature chestnuts averaged up to five feet in diameter and up to 100 feet all. But in the early 1900s, blight all but destroyed the tree that was prized for its rot-resistant lumber and the nut that it produced. The chestnut, though, is on its way back, thanks to a restorative program by the American Chestnut Foundation. Asheville's Biltmore Estate is the first "outplanting site" for the re-establishment of the American chestnut tree.

These are only but a few examples of people, places and things that are going, going, gone. Remember when a letter took three days to get to a destination instead of in three seconds with e-mail? When you got a real person on the other end of the phone instead of voice mail?

Remember the smell of burning leaves on a crisp November afternoon, before leaf blowers? When doctors made house calls, because you were too sick to leave the house? When the milkman delivered bottles of milk to your door?

They all live on in our memories. And sometimes, if we're lucky, we might just run into a little piece of the past. I know that the next time I'm in Lexington, I'll pull into Harry Hartley's Exxon and ask him to fill 'er up.

Comments
This is in rsponse to an article by Mr.Grizzle "Going, Going, Gone: People, Places and Things of Yesteryear." In this article you mentioned a store near and dear to my heart. You see I am only 26 and my very first job was as a stock boy at OO Ruftys. I went on to college and subsequently flunked out of NC State after four years, got a job with the telephone company and transfered to Natchitoches La as a lineman. Even though i am still young I can honestly say that the best education I ever received was from working at OO Ruftys!! I worked there for about two years, ilearned about fixing hudson sprayers, selling wooden Gander Mountain Ice cream makers, selling dry seed by the ounce, 1/2 ounce ... these are memories and a way of life that will always stay with me as my journey in life continues. For some reason tonite i decided to see what i could find about my home and where i grew up and worked and i came across this site on a google search and it flooded this homesick North Carolina boy with memories!! Sadly, Ruftys is closed and so is a piece of my life that I will always cherish. I dont know who will get this email or who will read it but whomever it is know that i was taken back on an emotional journey that helped me feel just a little closer to home. Thank you, Brandt Vickers