BEVERAGE ICE CHEST

Located in Manton, Kentucky.
From time to time in the last few years have posted photos of this store. ( Might make this a New Year Tradition )
A year ago it was closed and has since been reopened in the last few months as an antique consignment shop / general store. The taking down of the shed that was built on to the side gives it better balance and finally lets in a bit of daylight.
Vannie Newton was the long time operator of the store,and to find out what Vannie left on the wall you will have to read Bob Hill,s article from March 2000. I remembered it from when it was published in the Courier Journal and stumbled upon it tonight following goggle searches on the photo of the park shelter that i posted a couple days back .
Hope that you enjoy the column!
...............

Courier-Journal, The (Louisville, KY)
STAFF
March 5, 2000
THE COUNTRY STORE
These warm little places
once seemed to be everywhere
now Newton's Grocery is a rarity
BOB HILL, The Courier-Journal
MANTON, Ky. - When's he's not whistling to himself, Vannie Newton is telling stories to other people. The whistling is constant, sometimes spirited, mostly indecipherable except for occasional snatches of ``polly-wollydoodle all the day.'' The stories are throaty, dry and wry, mostly told on himself or customers of his venerable Newton's Grocery, the punch lines not the least bit worn out from all the telling.
Or - if the setup suits - Newton can deliver a whole story in one sweet line:
``Vannie, this place ever been held up?''
``They'd have to get it on credit.''
Newton's Grocery occupies a sagging, rusty, 80-year-old tin-sided building in what's left of Manton, Ky. It's in Washington County, faces directly across Hardin Creek into Marion County, with Nelson County just down the ! watershed, a rustic, knobby area that's spawned equal amounts of Kentucky history and characters.
Newton's is one of a dying breed of old general stores, unchanged by time, customers or remodeling. There are other stores in nearby Loretto, or Botland, but they've been modernized somewhat. You can't even find Manton - much less Newton's store - on most Kentucky maps.
``I don't think there's any more stores like us around here,'' Newton said. ``At least not that I know of.''
Newton's doesn't come with postcards of itself for tourists, the commercial self-parody of stores in Rabbit Hash or Rooster Run, nor the poetic tilt of Penn's Store in Gravel Switch. Newton's comes with a worthless TV antenna on its roof, cigarette smoke, a lumpy pile of coal to feed its potbellied stove, bologna sandwiches for the lunch crowd and an owner who has been there every day - without vacation - for 50 years, save two spells in a Louisville hospital for heart surgery.
! ``The furthest I've ever been is right there in Paducah,'' said Newto n, 69. ``I have been to the Smoky Mountains, but that's not as far. . . . We ain't been much travelers, I can tell ya that.''
The ``we'' in Newton's travelogue refers to his bachelor brother, Bobby Newton, 57, who farms the family place nearby. Bobby comes by the store for about two hours each midday to give Vannie a rest. Bobby's been as far as Indianapolis. The brothers are well aware of the larger world. Many of their neighbors and family work in Louisville Newton's Grocery long sold The Courier-Journal. The larger world just doesn't hold much appeal in parts of downtown Manton.
``I'm on vacation all the time,'' said Bobby, whose body just seemed to fold neatly into whatever chair in which he was sitting.
``I was in an airplane once, but no more,'' said Vannie. ``I didn't like it.''
He was standing behind an old store counter, a lean, whitehaired, chain-smoking man in a plaid shirt and work pants. The morning light pushed dimly through high, re! ctangular windows. The potbellied stove radiated heat through the store. Two other potbellied stoves, not in use, sat next to it a country store can't have too many potbellied stoves.
``The first one came from Belknap Hardware in Louisville,'' Vannie said. ``It was shipped out by train. I ran up across the second one somewhere, and the third one I bought from somebody else for parts.
``People has tried to buy it, but I don't care if I sell it or I don't.''
An air compressor, barbed wire, old hubcaps, a rusted stack of license plates all sit in one store corner. A wheelbarrow of coal will feed the stove. A halfdozen fans steer warm air around the store, serving as its only air conditioning in summer.
Wooden shelves are lined with motor oil, insect repellent, empty bottles, bread, soft drinks, shampoo, breakfast cereal, toilet paper, SOS pads and cookies. Way in the back of the store are bottles of shoe polish so old that all the liquid has evapora! ted. A couple of drink coolers squat heavily on the wooden floor. Smal l pieces of tin with numbers on them - once used to advertise gasoline prices when the store had pumps - have been nailed to the floor to cover some of the cracks. A 1977 calendar hangs just

Matt Monachello. One of my favorite people of all time. If anyone knows where he is, could you tell him that I love him and miss him and to call me??? Last I heard he was living in Norway with his husband.

Matt was truly one of my best friends. We made quite a pair. We weren't even allowed into parties in Antioch, because we were so obnoxious... one time we went, in Matt's big huge gold 1970's Cadillac or whatever it was, a bunch of us crammed in there. The host caught Matt and Emma pretending to make out on his dad's car in the garage, Keri and me scaling a bookshelf to get a copy of "For the Love of Benji" at the top, Tim and Julian for fighting on the front lawn, Doofus and Nick for, well, being Doofus and Nick. Not terribly bad stuff, but still. The host kicked us out and as we drove past the party, with tons of kids spilling out of the house (and we were the problem?) Matt screamed, "I FORGOT TO GIVE YOU YOUR HOSTESS GIFT!" and hurled an enormous ceramic bowl that he found in the trunk of his car at the house -- it smashed all over the front walk. I thought that was genius. The only problem was that Matt was the worst driver in the world -- there was no peeling out in a cloud of rebellion and smoke -- he crawled to the stop sign, put on his blinker, and turned right. I nearly collapsed with the hilarity of it.

I met Matt in the best possible way; the pure act of it was so grand that it makes me laugh to think about it. We all used to go to this club once a month called Noh Club, at the Kabuki Theater in Japantown in SF. Before it was a movie theater, it was a nightclub -- I saw X and The Cure and Madness and all sorts of bands there -- and Noh Club was this elaborate "underground" club that went on. It was 18 and over, but everyone got in. And what everyone did was meet and park in the Safeway parking lot around the corner on Geary, where we'd drink contraband wine coolers or Thunderbird or whatever someone could find, smoke awful clove cigarettes, and try to look as cool as possible with big hair and lots of makeup. (That went for the boys, too.)

So one night I was standing there with a bunch of people -- Traecy, Bob, whomever else -- and this big pick up truck came screeching past. "Oh no," we thought. "JOCKS." Jocks were the bane of our existence. But instead it was some punk rock guys who looked slightly familiar, and there was a guy in the back.

"HEY!" he screamed, pointing at me. "I KNOW YOU! HEY!" He stood up to crawl out. , but the truck kept going and he tumbled out. I ran over to him and he scrambled up and grinned. "You're Karen! I'm Matt! Now we have to be friends because I just fell out of a truck for you!"

And so, that night, and many years afterwards, we declared our love for one another and always pointing out -- he fell out of a truck for me. How great is that???

<< Arhiva >>