Feed Store

I often went with my parents to the local feed store in Interlaken, NY when I was a kid. My brother and I would wander away from the counter where Mom and Dad chewed the fat with the farmers while ordering their baling twine, calf feed and other supplies. We'd make our way to the back of the store where the feedbags were piled high. Without the need for strategy, we'd jump into action - hiding from each other and rolling around the "war bunker" we'd discovered. Soon, one of us would find the other and a massive shootout inevitably occurred. Somehow we both survived these firefights - though I think I always had just enough of a wound to limp a little on our way to the Coke machine, where we'd sometimes have enough change to buy a treat.

The war happening in Vietnam surely influenced how we played, though I think more often we were reenacting our Northern influenced version of the Civil War - calling upon our grandfather Ulysses Simpson Grant Hallett and the stories we'd heard about the underground railroad that dotted the Finger Lakes during the 1800's.

The town where I now live has a wonderful feed store (pictured here), though I have yet to hunker down between the feedbags and doubt that I will anytime soon. My brother lives too far away and I'm sure I'd be arrested if I tried this today.