I made my living selling to mom and pop stores for over fifty years in East Tennessee.Some so small they made change from a cigar box.Of the hundreds of stores I sold to the one that stands out in my mind was J D Estep Grocery in Cumberland Gap Tennessee.Mr.Estep was the most pleasant man I ever met. I believe he was the mayor, the water commissioner and anything else that he was asked to do.Most all are gone now, all that's left is just the wonderful memories.

Thanks for taking us back to a slower pace of time before Walmart and big chain stores

It’s so sad that these days are in the past. The innocence and simple life are long gone. Thank you Donnie for bringing us these videos so we can relieve these days. I think you videos should be on public television with you as the host!

This one made me tear up a bit! My hubby and I call it "classic America"! Makes my heart ache for it. 🥰😭

Thank you again Donnie you brought back memories and made my day a little brighter. I remember the old country store around the curve near my fathers house. Old pot belly stove in the back with a spit bucket beside it and few old chairs for the old men to sit and talk. The store had the usual hoop-cheese glass on the counter where you could get a sizable slice and some crackers for 25 cents. Then there was the old box type coke freezer with glass bottles that you had to open with a cap opener built into the front. He also had a Pepsi one as well. There was a section in the store with fishing supplies as he had seven ponds that for a dollar a day, you could fish all of them. Cricket box was at the back of the store and you heard constant but peaceful chirping all the while. There was the usual giant pickle jar and pickled pigs-feet jar on the counter and behind the service counter on the wall you could get anything from spark plugs to combs all hanging off pegs on the wood stud wall with built-in shelves that had everything from motor oil to chewing tobacco. Then there were basic can goods in small isles in the middle of the store. There wasn't any bottled water back then if we got thirsty we pulled out the garden hose or dipped our hat in the spring behind dad's house. I use to walk around the ponds and the area roads picking up bottles to turn into the store to get enough money to buy candy, snacks, drinks. My favorite was called a "Chocolate Soldier" with a pack of Vienna sausages and pack of "nabs". If I didn't have money for crickets or worms It was no problem, I could lift any old piece of wood and find worms and crickets and there was a couple of trees that sometimes you could pull huge catawba worms from and the fish would love them. We'd catch a mess of fish then take it home and dad would fillet them and cook them and we'd eat like kings those nights. The outside of the old store had a gravel parking lot littered with thousands of old bottle caps. Some from the 40's, 50's and up. There was an old bowl type gas pump on a concrete footing when I was coming up but it like the store are gone now. Some years ago, the owner died and his daughter died a few later of cancer and they let the place sit for 12 years. Someone broke in and stole the old Coke machines, signage, etc. so it went up for auction and what was left sold with the owners home place on the hill above the store. What's left of it is a pile of wood and tin overgrown by trees and shrubs now. Dad's moved away long ago from the place and is in his 80s and I in my 50s. I ride by the old place every now and then and almost cry when I see it like this but then I reflect back on the good times I had there. I can still see me and my friends sitting on the old steps feeding the ducks and watching the hunters and outdoors men come in telling tales of a big buck they saw or a monster bass they caught down at the river only a few miles away. Lord how I miss those days. When I saw this video it brought so much back to me. Thanks again Donnie.

Mr. Donnie, you hit a home run with this one! Amen on collecting pop bottles to get a quarter or fifty cents and buy a bottle of pop out of the big galvanized tub covered in ice. The uniform of the day was a white t-shirt and blue jeans. I truly miss those days Donnie. Thanks for bringing it back to life. Take care my friend!

Yep, I’m a baby boomer that remembers!

I live in north Alabama. There was one in a little community named Hulaco. It operated until around 10 years ago. It was leveled to put in a Dollar General...... There was around a hundred years of history in that old place. I remember going in all the time as a kid. They had literally anything people in the area needed, including the kitchen sink. (they sold hardware too) It was one of the only places around to buy Liberty overalls. There were no Tractor Supply stores then. Thanks for igniting old memories!

Lord, those days are long gone, but what fun they were! Moon pies and RCs...the flavors of childhood. Flour and meal in barrels, they sold them in a poke sack...Frying pans and Dutch ovens, nestled like strange birds in a nest...good times. Thanks for bringing them back, Donnie. God bless you!🙏💖

There was an old store out by where i was raised like this. The old man lived in the back of it. He had an old cash register that was really just a money drawer that would bling when opened. The counter was an old desk and it had a huge paper that covered the top of it. He would figure up what you owed on that paper with a pencil so it was always wrote all over it. He sold good all beef bologna by the pound and the best cheese to, way better then you find in any box store. He also bootlegged moonshine and colored label liquor also, at the time it was a dry county. Fella kept a double barrel shotgun leaned up against the wall back behind the counter and nobody ever messed with him. I knew a lot of that family and played with some of his great grandkids. After he died some of them tried to update it and ran it for a while. They also got robbed for the 1st time ever and one of the girls was caught selling liquor. They just didn't have what he did i reckon to run it all. They fought over it all the time after a while and it ended up being dozed down, burnt and the rest hauled away. Such a bare looking spot now. The highway was turned into a 4 lane and they took part of it and out of towners have moved in and built up houses all around. My daughter can't believe how it was when i grew up and the things i tell her. It was the good ol' days for sure.

I remember being in grade school and walking with my friends to what was actually called the “The Country Store”. Mind you I was born in ‘88 and this place was ancient by the time i was in the 3rd grade. The wooden building was leaning, the floor boards crack echoed through the little building with every step. In the center you could get a cold cut sandwich or ice cream. Penny candy jars with paper bags, old men arguing about what was in the news paper that day.

I really enjoyed that Mr. Donnie. We had a old one room store out on the ridge named "Harless Grocery". Fine people, they knew everybody had a hard living and would swap out stuff or run a tab for people to help them out. Old wooden floor and a glass meat case that had bologna , hoop cheese, pickle loaf and processed ham and a few other things. The would make you a sandwich and cut the meat thick or thin....how ever you liked it. In the back they kept a little hardware stuff like nails, fencing staples and mouse traps and such. Old timers sitting around playing checkers and throwing (swapping) pocket knives. I can still smell the odor of that old store today. Great childhood memories. I'm from West Virginia and we called it pop too. Thanks for the memories once again.

Love this video because it brings back great memories. The Piedmont General Store was actually Frank Snodderly’s Store when I was growing up in Piedmont. We would walk there from Piedmont Elementary School and get the best bologna sandwiches ever made along with a candy bar and a coke w/peanuts. Thanks for posting this.

Lord, memories so thick I have to brush them away from my face. These stores were the life blood in my neck of the woods. We all knew each other, helped oneanother, looked after the kids, and when times were rough you could run a tab till things turned around for you. Yep, the old way of life is becoming a distant memory.

My grandparents ran an old country store till the early 90’s. Thanks for the video and memories Donnie!

This brings back memories, collecting pop bottles so we could have a little walking around money, if we didn't spend it after cashing them in. I remember my parents at the grocery store buying a carton of drinks and mixing them up, you can't do that now.

Donnie, I grew up before plastic replaced glass. before pencil pushing inspectors made it hard on store owners, before people waked up each morning in search of anything that would offend them so they could complain, before Walmart put mom-n-pop stores out of business, before it was against the law for kids to ride in the back of a pickup, and before cell phones were invented. I yearn for days again. Thank you, sir, for this video!!

Another great video, thanks so much Donnie. Brings back great memories.

We had a little store like that in the town I went school in. We didn't go often because we lived out of town, but you could buy anything in there. The people that owned it were pretty old. They lived in the back of the building. Somehow, I always thought that was a good idea because you had no drive to work.

We still have 2 old stores here, and were blessed to have em. Cause when you walk in you think you went back to 1950 , really. It's still the same stuff hanging and sitting around. Same family still owns them