Star of the Day
from a collection of short stories "My Life at the Marshfield Hills General Store"
by Sherry Campbell Bechtold
Years from now, the little
General Store in the center of our village will still be there. Some well intended soul will be
stocking the candy corner and making recommendations on what wine to buy. Every morning, a Charlie will arrive
early and buy a lottery ticket, a cup of coffee and maybe a muffin. Preoccupied young men will leave their
cars running while they dash in and pay for a newspaper. Kids will get off the school bus and
pile into the store with way too much energy. Lively white haired widows will look for greeting
cards. Young moms will bring in
their toddlers to buy a pop.
Occasionally, maybe on a
holiday weekend, folks will stop in and the owner won’t recognize them. They don’t live in the neighborhood,
but they ‘used to’. They will walk
around, smile and say “wow, I haven’t been here since I was a kid. I used to buy candy here – right in
this corner, just like this”.
They’ll ask the owner how long he or she has owned the store, and then
they’ll talk about the way it was – years ago.
“There was this woman who
used to own the store. Her name
was Sherry. She was nice,
and she didn’t seem to mind all us kids.
I remember she made me ‘do the math’ whenever I bought something. She would say “if you can’t add it up,
you can’t buy it”. I guess it
really bugged her that kids in those days couldn’t add in their heads! And, if you took out money from your
pocket – or your shoe – and it was all crumpled up, she’d hand it back to you
and make you flatten it out, nice and smooth, and hand it back to her. She was funny that way. But, you know, the thing I remember
most about her was her dog…..”
Her dog. That lovely pale Golden Retriever,
appropriately named Star.
She was there when Sherry was there. If you saw Star, lying on the front porch or across the
front door (so everyone coming in had to step over her), you knew Sherry was
behind the counter. They were a
team. Star’s job was to be
wonderful….the object of love and adoration. She was there for every toddler who wanted to bury his face
in her abundant fur. She was there
to offer solace to every tired guy at the end of a long day at work. She was there to remind everyone who
was drawn into her sphere of influence that unconditional love isn’t just a
phrase and that oh, well, I guess life can’t be all that bad.
There truly was something special about this dog. Before becoming a permanent fixture at
the store, Star was a visiting dog at a local nursing home. Weaving her magic web, she cast a spell
of comfort and warmth among the lonely residents, occasionally performing a
tiny miracle like inspiring a mute stroke victim to speak his first words in
months. “What a beautiful dog!”
he said, stroking her silky ears.
“Star of the Day, who will it
be?”, Ray Amorosi sang to her whenever he walked through the door to find her
holding court. She was
always the Star of the Day.
It was late fall in 2008,
just before Sherry sold the store.
Star was diagnosed with brain tumors and began to fail. Less than a year, the vet said. Unsteady and sometimes more than a
little wobbly, Star came to the store every day with Sherry. She would hear the keys as Sherry
picked them up from the kitchen counter, and she’d wake up from her nap, slowly
getting to her feet, goin to the door prepared to walk across the street – like
very other day. Once at the store,
she assumed her place – blocking traffic – and went back to sleep, stirring
only for a familiar touch.
When, on one November
afternoon, there was a sign on the front door of the store “closed
temporarily”, there were some who intuitively knew what had happened. Beloved Star had died, at home, lying
in the sun, with Sherry holding her and stroking her face.
It’s probably best that, a
very short time after, Sherry turned over the store to new owners. Being there without Star was just too
painful. Though, she was not the
only one who was heartbroken – even grown men broke down in tears when they
came in expecting to see the ever present Star. It would never be the same without her. It was the end of an era.
“I guess everyone thinks
that their childhood was special and that nothing could ever be like that
again. But, you know, I think that
being a kid here, at that time, coming to the store every day. Sherry scolding me for not knowing how
to add up my money – because she really cared; you know? And that dog. Everyone loved her dog. And everyone loved her loving her dog. It was pretty special.”
