I was just thinking about my childhood and realized that I had an unusual presence in my life when I was a child. It was the old mom and pop corner store that was down the street from my house. It was the popular hang out for the kids. It was where parents would send their children to buy the staples of milk and bread when they ran out. The store had a wide variety of penny candies (for anyone born in the last decade or two penny candy would be the equivalent of nickel or dime candy or is it quarter candy now) and many a child’s allowance was spent on sugar highs there. The bad kids could even go in with a fist full of cash and buy as many cigarettes as they wanted. Keep in mind this was in a time before cigarettes became truly evil . . . they were only mildly evil with a smooth flavour back then. This store was definitely a part of the community, but it was also like part of the family.

I know what you are probably thinking right now. Lots of people had the corner store experience. In any village, town or city a person could have had this experience. Well, the store I am referring to was called Fin, Fur and Feather/Forbes’ Variety. The name may throw one off, but it was quite normal to us. Like any convenience store it had all the basics and ¾ of the store was dedicated to selling the bread, potato chips, magazines, etc. You know the variety. Everything one would expect. The other ¼ focused on guns. Well, not just guns. The Fin, Fur and Feather part was a hunting and fishing store. Right beside where the little chubby fingered little children were looking with nose pressed against the glass display at candy, fat fingered bearded men were looking around the store with nose pressed up against the barrel of a rifle.

If I grew up in the country, this would probably be normal but I grew up in a medium sized town that had no particular connection to hunting or fishing. In fact, my hometown is one of the few in Nova Scotia that has no real connection to fishing. And if a deer were found with in the city limits, it would have been shot (but only by a camera) and placed on the front page of our town newspaper.

In all our families we have that strange uncle/aunt/cousin/brother/sister/etc. character. I like to think of the old corner store as one of those characters. It helped to shape the person I have become and for that I will always be bitter.

Ps. The store eventually closed down over a decade ago due to competition from a chain store. Nobody was shot.