A simpler time still exists in Dacula

By Bill York

I have an affinity for small towns.

My hometown in Indiana was smallish, maybe a mile or two in either direction.

Outside the town were strip mines and cows. There were no streetlights.

There was a dinky little theater where a ticket was a dime and popcorn and a Coke another dime.

A piano player provided accompanying music. Attractions were the Werewolf of London, King Kong and the Mummies.

Walking back to the farm after seeing King Kong was sheer terror for a 9-year-old kid.

The kerosene lantern my grandfather let me use cast ominous shadows in the perimeter of the glow. I just knew the monster was after me.

I kept repeating in a loud voice that I was big and mean and was carrying my grandfather’s 12-gauge shotgun.

When I first came to Atlanta in the 1960s, I met a fellow who had a pond where I hoped to catch a world-record bass.

His farm was in Barrow County, and the closest way there was through Dacula on U.S. 29. It was a smallish town too, and I instantly felt good going that way.

The stores were made from fading wood and red bricks. The town reminded me of home.

I usually stopped at Pop’s Drive-in for a hamburger before going out fishing. Pop’s is gone now, but the memory remains.

I went to Dacula last month. I hadn’t been there for some years. I was instantly reminded of my hometown.

The old general store is now a machine repair shop. The place where wooden pallets were manufactured is closed. The plant where blue jeans were made has moved to Winder.

Dacula’s police department is gone. Gwinnett County does the police stuff. Across the railroad tracks were some time-wearied stores.

I went inside a hardware store just as a train thundered by. The building shook.

The store was opened in 1910 as a general merchandise store. In 1944 it became a hardware store. The man in the store was Joe Ford. There was a potbellied stove in back still used for heating.

I sat near the stove and thought about my grandfather, sitting by a potbellied stove in the hardware store back home with his jaw full of Red Man chewing tobacco.

Merchandise was disorganized. I asked him what would happen if somebody needed a thingamajig.

Joe said, “I know where it’s at.”

I liked the place, so I walked around just looking. I’d bet there were some items left from the grand opening in 1944.

I love old stores without glitz. Joe’s had no glitz, but I knew if I wanted a thingamajig Joe would know where it’s at.

I’m convinced if folks spent more time in front of a potbelly stove, whittlin’ and spittin’, they would need fewer psychoanalysts.

You gotta see the place. Tell Joe that Bill sent you.

Bill York of Stone Mountain is a novelist, freelance writer and retired furrier.