Norris: [My father’s general store, Bloxom Brothers] was pretty big for a country store. ….
There was an upstairs … the upstairs was where they sold feathers … . They also sold glass … they cut glass for various things. I can remember fiddling around with the glass cutter. … They sold everything from horse collars to shoes, hats, patent medicines, and of course, the usual groceries and meats.
… They sold a little bit of everything. Mouth organs, I can remember, horse collars, rope, patent medicines – just about anything you’d need, anything for farmers you’d need. …
Lee: Did people come and hang out there?
Norris : Yes, they did. The farmers would come in particularly on Saturday nights, and most of them … in the ’20s they would come by horse cart. Dad had hitching posts out beside the store. I can remember that very well, they’d come in horse carts for their weekly shopping. …”
Lee: During the Depression, and even before that – did they trade?
Norris: Oh my goodness, yes. Absolutely. We had, in the back of the store, a separate thing for chickens. They’d take chickens and ducks in trade. And they issued … I’m not sure I can find one … You’ve seen those old store due-bills, haven’t you?
Lee: I don’t think so.
Norris: … I have one somewhere for two cents. They’d bring chickens and corn also. We had two corn stacks in the back. Corn and chicken and, I guess, ducks – I don’t know, but I can remember the chickens. They’d take chickens and trade them – you’d get a due-bill, which you had to spend there, of course. That’s fair. …
I remember molasses came in huge barrels, but I don’t remember trading anything as far as that’s concerned, but eggs – eggs were a big product. That was the main product, as a matter of fact. The farmers would bring them in. I can’t remember where the eggs went, but … Dad had a little hammer … that he nailed up the crates with. I don’t know what ever happened to it, probably buried with him, I imagine, ’cause I can remember so many times people would use that thing and not bring it back – in the family – and he was tough about his hammer.
… Saturday night was a big night. …. we would work on Saturday nights and sweep up after everybody was gone. We would stay open until 10 or 11 o’clock – 10 o’clock anyway. And then sweep. It was a pretty big store.
From an interview with Norris Bloxom, summer 2010.