So I was sitting on the Porch, doing what boomers do, talking about how great the past was. I was talking about that time the gator charged into the convenience store in Cape Coral. Which led to Grace talking about roadside peanuts and peach ice cream. Which led to Hank reminiscing about the bootleggers behind the Quality Inn. So we decided to each write a piece about a particular store that sticks in our memory. - Beau
…Grace shook her head, looked at me and said
“1979 called, it wants its Converse All Stars back.”
Then she started talking about...
Hammerses
I slammed on my brakes in front of the life-size bronze statues of the band Alabama.
Made a U-turn.
The Mentone B&B could wait a few minutes. I’d just seen a store with a sign that said Hammer’s.
Is that… no way. It couldn’t be the Hammer’s?
Hammer’s. Hammerses, as my Nanny called it, was a block-long store in downtown Guntersville, Alabama. They were known for selling… everything.
The old hardwood floor would creak beneath your footsteps as you walked from room to room, checking out the deals. Hammerses carried beautiful boutique clothing you couldn’t get anywhere except for maybe a big city like Birmingham. As you headed down to the Bargain Basement, there was a sign:
NO SPITTING ON STAIRS
Then you stepped into the dank basement to wooden bins with gardening tools, tennis shoes, Easter candy in November. There were hats with logos you didn’t recognize. Or maybe it was just the poor lighting.
It was known around town that Mr. Hammer bought stuff from fire sales and close-outs across the country. Which could have explained the soot on some of the merchandise.
My Nanny would let us pick out a dime store toy from the basement every time we visited her.
So when I saw the storefront as I was barreling through Fort Payne, I had to check.
It didn’t look anything like the hardwood floors and the wooden bins full of treasure, but I recognized the merchandise. Boutique clothing at a discount. Gardening tools. Hard anodized aluminum cookware—last year’s model.
This was Hammers.
I turned a corner and ran smack into a Christmas tree. Listen. I knew this tree. Fancy brand. I’d priced this exact one in a catalog before.
$400.
And here it was. In a pile of other trees. Marked $39.99.
“This works?” I asked the gentleman behind the counter.
“Sure does.” He flipped a switch for me and showed me all the features.
Blinky lights.
Or steady.
A timer.
The Works for a fancy prelit tree… last year’s model.
I gave it a quick sniff for fire damage and otherwise I couldn’t get that thing in my buggy fast enough.
I could tell y’all that was the only thing I bought that day.
But the pink aviator sunglasses, those telly-twisty hair tie things, and a couple of boutique-y sweaters might give me away.
“How did y’all get this tree for that price?”
He just smiled and shrugged. And kept ringing up my items.
I told him about visiting Hammers in Guntersville when I was little, but a few years ago, I noticed it wasn’t there anymore. Well it was, but it was called Fants and I wasn’t sure it was the same thing.
“That’s us,” he grinned.
He said it was a family-owned store. His father, the original Mr. Hammer, owned the first store. And then folks got married and divorced and maybe said some things at Thanksgiving dinner, and they changed the Guntersville store name to Fants.
Forever in my brain as Fantseses.
The new Mr. Hammer was nice enough to load the tree into the Cadi. And y’all, for a whole week I drove around Mentone, Chattanooga, and half of Georgia with that Christmas tree in my backseat.
Grace isn’t wrong. Those old stores can hold half your childhood.
Ours held half the town. I took a sip of my beer and started in.
Didn’t bother running the numbers
to see if either of them were even around in 1973…
Small Appalachian town. 1973. One stoplight, doing the work of mayor, judge, and traffic cop all at once. It hung there over the river bottom where the road up from the flats finally surrendered to the state highway. That’s where the town decided to exist. Right there in front of the high school, as if education and hesitation shared the same square of asphalt.
The rest of the place arranged itself around that light like iron filings around a magnet. A post office that smelled faintly of paste and dust. A laundry with two machines that shook the building like a nervous dog. The principal’s house, square and watchful. And the old Victorian where Miss Satterfield lived alone behind lace curtains the color of old bones. Even the cats gave that porch a wide berth. Animals know things.
Then there was the General Store. Sometimes called the Company Store depending on who was talking and how much they owed.
It sold everything a person might need between birth and mild catastrophe. Stopwatches. Machetes. A sack of oranges that had ridden a truck halfway across the continent just to end up beside a barrel of nails. If civilization had a junk drawer, this was it.
When I was in high school nobody minded if you slipped the leash during the day so long as you wandered back before fifth period. A few of us would drift down the hill to the hamburger counter in the General Store. Old man Ragland ran it. Ornery as a wet mule but he could cook a hamburger that made you wonder what heaven was about.
One afternoon a younger kid tagged along. First whiskers just starting to poke out of his chin like brave little pioneers. We were leaning on the counter when Otis wandered in. Otis was the town menace, the kind of man who treated public space like a laboratory.
He reached over, pinched the kid’s chin hairs between two fingers, gave a thoughtful tug, and announced to the room, “I got a billy goat favors that.”
That was enough science for the day. We scattered out the door like a flock of starlings, because with Otis you never knew what the next experiment might involve.
Local farmers sold their meat and produce through the store. My family bought a side of beef every spring and fall. Two gallons of milk every week. Real milk. Raw milk. I survived.
Miss Martha ran the grocery section. Quiet woman. Sharp eyes. She decided the butter coming in from over toward Asheville was inferior to the butter she could make herself. So she started selling her own churn on the quiet.
It worked beautifully until old man Ragland heard about it. He told her she could keep selling the butter, but he’d need half the profit for the privilege of breathing his air.
Miss Martha said it wasn’t worth the trouble if she had to split the money. And she stayed good and mad at Tiny Whitmore for months, because Tiny was the one who had tipped Ragland off in the first place. In a small town, betrayal usually arrives wearing overalls.
The General Store was the town’s nervous system. News traveled through there faster than electricity.
A fellow named Moto kept a workbench near the back where he sharpened chainsaws and cleaned rifles. Moto was slightly misaligned with the rest of us. Not broken, just tuned to a different frequency.
One afternoon my dad stopped by to pick up his saw for a weekend’s worth of cutting. The saw was lying on the bench in about forty thoughtful pieces. Moto was nowhere to be found.
Dad looked around, shrugged, walked down toward the river. Sure enough, there was Moto standing on the bank having what looked to be a serious conversation with three squirrels.
Dad went back, put the saw together himself, sharpened the chain, and left a dollar on the bench.
Next time they ran into each other in the store, Moto beamed like a man who had just solved a Rubik’s Cube. “I sharpened your chain for you,” he said proudly.
Dad nodded. Around there, that counted as customer service.
Hank nodded and leaned back in his chair.
“You know, ’79 was a very good year, Grace.”
He grinned. “Wouldn’t know much about anything before that. But, you know, Brooke always did say she wanted to be a teenager in the 70’s.”
Then he dropped some dinner in our laps…
We’ve all got that one thing. You know, that thing that we’ve tried and tried for years to find or duplicate — only to be disappointed with each unsuccessful go-round.
You might think that mine is Grandma’s Sour Creme Pound Cake, or Baked Macaroni & Cheese — maybe Papa’s Cornbread, or Fried Shrimp, even.
Nope. It’s God’s Own Blackened Chicken Sandwich.
Y’all, I’ve been aching for another one of Scampi’s Blackened Chicken Sandwiches for over thirty years now! You won’t fucking believe how good they were. Actually, there ain’t no way you’ll ever experience anything like it. So you’d mine as well just forget about it. It’s like taking your first hit of cocaine, you’re better off just, not.
But it’s too late for me, I’mma Blackened Chicken junkie. And that Scampi’s sandwich is what done me in. I was hooked after the first bite, damnit.
Scampi’s was a little shithole in the back of a convenience store. Well, back behind the store. Now that building is a mattress shop — has been for years. But back when I was in high school, it was the place to be!
I don’t remember much about it. The sign had a shrimp surf’n on it. There was a stage out back that nobody ever played on. They accepted my ID with no questions. The bartender made a mean Crown & Coke, and wasn’t against a Traveler — that’s where I learned the term. And most importantly, Scampi’s served God’s Own Blackened Chicken Sandwich.
I couldn’t resist it, which got me in hot water with Brooke more than once. Y’all, she could fucking smell it on me when I got home! That bad-boy was dank, let me tell ya.
I’d barely even get in the door before she’d be like, “You’ve been to Scampi’s,” all mad.
And of course I’d deny it, by saying that I’ve been doing something else. Then she’d say, “I can fucking smell it on you Hank.” And I’d be totally busted.
Man, those were the days! Young love🥰.
Anyway, Scampi’s didn’t make it very long. I think I remember them getting in trouble for underage alcohol sales, or something like that. But I don’t know anything about that😉. And the drinks nor the scene ain’t what I miss about Scampi’s — it’s that damned chicken sandwich.
Y’all I’ve been looking for another one to be just as good, hell even almost as good, ever since — with not a damn bit of luck.
The closest I’ve come is at the Oasis Bar & Grill in St. Augustine Beach, Florida. Their Blackened Chicken Sandwich is marvelous, but it ain’t no Scampi’s.
It’ll be a pure miracle if I ever taste one as good as that’n again.
I once made a record called “Nostalgia For a Past That Never Was”. You never really know after the fact what actually happened and what flavor your mind remembers. But then, once you’ve had a world-class blackened chicken sandwich, the details become very sharp indeed!
So put on your pink aviators, pull up a chair, and groove to Grace’s ridiculously fine mixtape. Oh, and ask for the 90% tree discount next time you are in Fort Payne. - Beau
If you’re gonna tell Southern stories on the porch, you gotta have the right cocktail and the right music. I’ve got the mixtape handled. - Grace
Down on the Corner — Creedence Clearwater Revival
Paradise —John Prine
1979 — Smashing Pumpkins
Whitehouse Road — Tyler Childers
Friends in Low Places — Garth Brooks
What I Got — Sublime
Beautiful Disaster — 311
Heading South — Zach Bryan
Someday — Steve Earle
Wagon Wheel — Old Crow Medicine Show
This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) — The Lumineers
And Cotton's on drinks!🍻
Wow i love scampi! And smashing pumpkin!