.........miss the old store. Welcome To Steinhausers General Feed & Tack. Built in 1937, or there abouts. The date marker is above the door, but has eroded with time. It was across the tracks in Brookshire and you could watch Southern Pacific trundle through. I could always tell when something was going on in Brookshire by the crowd outside where Old Man Steinhauser would post what he usually considered important news for the community on an old cork board outside the store. Usually. Crime reports (who got caught DWI and if Morris or Jester caught the evildoer) farm price reports who was giving birth who had died most importantly was the menu price and the daily beer flavor in the beer box. He always changed the beer 3 times a week. Sometimes 4. There was a bucket you threw $.50 into to pay for a frosty cold one. If you couldn't pay right then an IOU would do. The store was in a great tin barn like structure with a rusting roof. A long porch with tables and an odd assortment chairs surrounded half the building. Alot of older gents sat outside and drank beer and tamped their pipes and played chess or checkers. And the plants. Cuttings for fruit trees. Starter tomatoes. Seed potato's that stank to high heaven. But it was AC'd. The guys who worked at Steinhauser really appreciated it when hefting heavy grain and feed sacks at the dock. I remember when I first met Old Man Steinhauser. I'd just gotton into the family business and went to pick up some stock feed. I walked up the wooden steps and here came a big old man (6'8'') 320 lb. giant of a man with a hand out that to me looked like a bear paw. I was sure I was about to die from some unwarranted transgression of country code. Instead, he politely introduced himself and asked if I was Old Jess Dickey's grandson. He'd expected me a decade ago to help run the rice farm. Which he reminded me has lain fallow for a decade since Jess had died, and should be ready to produce some bumper crops by now. Inside it was a wonderland of farm implements, farming information, horse tack, and seeds. Work cloths that promised to outlive their owner. Everything anyone needed to run a farm or ranch. The seed bins brimmed with every known type of seed imaginable and I could use a little dipper to scoop out as much or little as I wanted, and put them into a little bag and weigh them myself. Then I'd take the seeds up to the old brass register, (the manual kind with a NO SALE tab) and whoever was working the till asked how much did I get with no questions asked. Old Man Steinhause died about a year ago. Everyone in Brookshire, Pattison, and Monaville came to see the old man off. Good-bye Old Stinky everyone still misses you and your old country way.
His son took over and immediately built a new store out by I-10. The sign simply reads "Steinhausers". Computerized. Sanitary. No porch. No cork post it board. No ice box beer. No chess or checkers. Fancy dress hats and go-to town shirts. I'd only wear that stuff to go to the dance hall in Monaville. Go in and get your business done and leave. Fast and efficient. Loyld Steinhauser Jr. always said that a business is a business and money was the most important goal of any business. He didn't approve of the way the old store was run and operated in the first place. Now I go in place a computerized order, pick up want I need and leave. I quess he's right. Or maybe not. >