Wisdom From The Pickleville Store

By Jim Stone, Pickleville Proprietor

Jim Stone 

Big smiles make us all love and live longer. One big smile I will never forget.  I have a tiny ma and pa store in Bear Lake.  The big stores are way busier than my store so I spend a lot of time outside working on keeping things clean and working in my gardens.  I take so much pride in this little old store.  My gardens are important to me as I live on their bounty all winter long with all the bounty from wild game that I hunt and harvest in the fall and winter, giving me fresh veggies and wild meat.  My trips to the grocery market are far and few between.

Anyways, there is a lady who brings her grandkids over to get them treats.  She is a treasure of a woman. I think she had over thirty grandkids and a handful of great grandkids. They all have a two dollar limit for what they can buy.  Some of them that understand what their limit is and get pretty dang close to it, most of them don’t.  They get a bunch of things they want and put it on the counter.  Money for some businesses is everything to them.  I’ve never had true money so I don’t really care about it what matters to me are the good things the kid’s grandma is doing for them.

Well about half the kids were off their two dollar mark.  Some were double two dollars some were triple or more it didn’t matter to me I just fudged the cash register and said that will be two dollars. Some of them wanted change but their grandma and me just winked at each other both aware of what was going on.

I grow strawberries and raspberries in my garden; I leaned over the counter and asked all the lady’s grandkids if they wanted to pick them fresh from the garden.  Not one of them ever had done that before. Big smiles were thicker than all the strawberries and raspberries.

 

Her grandkids wear simply blown away, kinda like flying.  They yelled “I found one, oh and I found one! Is it ok to pick?” I said “yes, every one pick two big handfuls then we will go mix vanilla ice cream with your berries and have a fresh Bear Lake shake.”

Well, we made shakes, we had so much fun.  So off they went. Their grandma tried to pay me -  the money I could have used, but I could do without it for my heart felt strong and in the right place.

Their grandma had been coming in the little store for about five years.  This year I was out front working in my gardens and saw her pushing a wheelchair up the bike path across the road. I watched her, she was so happy just flying away from her grand girls and pushing her grandson in a wheelchair.

All the way across the street she kinda shouted,  “thanks for letting my granddaughters pick your berries and make shakes, they were so happy they all went to bed with big smiles."

I said, “please bring your grandson over I would like to see his big smile.”  I had about fifty customers in the little store, it was all I could do just helping customers.  The boy was in a wheelchair.  I don’t know what kind of health problems he was faced with but I knew it wasn’t good and not fair.   I greeted them both at the front door and she greeted me like many times before with her granddaughter's big smiles all around.  

Her grandson could barely move his hands, kinda up and down like a bird’s wings but his face just lit up like the first time you turn the lights on a Christmas tree, everything about him was shimmering without any movement except his smile.

It was magnificent great big huge smile. His smile and a small up and down movement from his hands made me think he was happy and flying high just to do his best to express himself.

I’ve never experienced this before but something came over me, it was way bigger than I have ever felt.  I had just made the young boys acquaintance, but my higher power told me this was the first time but also the last time I would see his smile.

I had a whole line of customers waiting to hurry on their way.  I didn’t care.  I’m a small store but when I saw that young boy’s smile and his hands trying to express himself I knew he wanted to fly away.  He wasn’t gonna be here much longer.

I yelled out “sorry, all you customers are gonna have to wait a minute.”

I ran upstairs.   I had a kid’s book that I thought his grandma could read to him and I also had a remote helicopter that would fly up.

I gave him these few simple things.  His face was priceless, biggest smiles I’ve ever seen in my life my heart was ready to burst it was so full of simple love for big smiles.

A couple of weeks went by, I was so busy I didn’t notice much.  The young boy's grandma came in deep in thought.  I already knew that her grandson was gone; I could feel it before it happened.

She told me that she had read my little book to him and he smiled and flapped his hands up and down, but when he saw the helicopter fly he had bigger smiles, more handshakes and more movement in his body than she had ever seen.  Kinda like he was happy and wanting to leave and fly away.  

He is gone now in a better place. It’s crazy, I knew he was in a better place.  He loved the helicopter and he just flew away with big smiles.

I got a little broken up with this story so I wrote a little story kind of a poem that doesn’t rhyme.

Simply fly away.

Simply fly away to a better place,

Where I am healthy and happy, free from all my pain.

Waiting to run and play with my family, friends and dogs.

I’ve always wanted to run like the strong wind with my dogs.

I just know now I will have that chance.

I’m here now and they all will be here soon.

We will all reunite and run so fast we will just simply fly away,

While all in true laughter, big smiles, friendship, love and no more pain.

I’m going to be patient.

I heard a kind man say one time;

I thought he was talking about fishing,

How the rainbow trout were a fish but how they would just fly out over the water way up and above

You just have to be patient to catch one he said.

So I will be patient and wait.

We will all be together again.

And just simply fly away.