My dad was born in 1906, about three miles from this intersection, and farmed those mountain sides for 19 years before leaving for a better job in the cotton mills of South Carolina.

I do not remember too much what happened before the war, but after Dad came back in 1945, he returned to his home place every year when the mill closed for the Fourth of July week and took me with him. While he and Grandpa reminisced, I exerted my childhood exuberance running all over those mountains, stirring up mud in the spring water and getting into every poison oak vine I could find.

Sometime before leaving, Dad would saddled up to me and say with a wink, why don't we walk over to Ben Jennings' store and get us a cold drink."

I know now he did not want to make that long walk and he did not want a cold drink, but, rather, I think he wanted an excuse to give me a heritage. While we walked down that hot, dusty dirt road, he pointed out places and told me stories about them. I learned about his childhood in those mountains and of things like going to Ben Jennings' store to barter with eggs or a chicken for something he wanted or the family needed.

When we first got to the store, I waited impatiently while he was going through the obligatory "Howdies" before telling me to get two cold drinks. Quickly sliding the top back on that rusty Coke cooler with a bottle opener on the side and taking them to him, he always went over to Mr. Jennings saying,

"How much do I owe you."

While Dad and Mr. Jennings settled the debt, my curious eyes searched the place for strange things I didn't see in South Carolina stores. After smelling the ambiance of the old store and looking at horse bridles and feed, my eyes always seemed center on a sign on the wall behind Mr. Jennings' bronze colored cash register. What was once a colorful motto but now  only a faded piece of cardboard were the words, "IF WE PLEASE YOU, TELL YOUR NEIGHBOR. IF NOT, TELL US."

It has been almost 50 years since Dad and I returned to his home place and the store. Ben Jennings died, and someone named Horton bought the store. Dad retired from the cotton mill and died. I am, now, an aging man who has traveled many miles and visited many stores since those days in the late 1940's and early 50's. I don't know if that sign is still there, but I have seen the  same words in numerous stores around the world. Every time I do, my mind's eye wanders back to that country store deep in the hollers of Southwestern Virginia. I recall happy days sitting on the front porch of an unpainted country store drinking Coca-Cola with my Dad and seeing those surrounding mountains standing like sentinals.

The strongest recollection I have of that sign, though, is how Christ uses it in my daily Christian walk with Him. When I am in fellowship with Him, I want to tell everyone of His love and grace to me. When sin causes me to lose that fellowship, Jesus reminds me of how I am not pleasing to Him and reminds me what I must to restore the joy of His salvation.

No, things haven't changed much in Fairview in the past 50 years. The road still crosses the babbling brook and a few of the faithful like Carson Lawson still gather for services at  Beech Grove church every Sunday morning. Other than the new owner adding a gas pump to the dusty front yard, nothing much has changed at the store. The spring house at
Dad's home place still has cold water, but like the house, it is dilapidated and falling down.

Some things are slow to change, but some things never change. God's love for His children will never change, become dilapidated, or fall down. He will always want us to walk in His Spirit, telling the world of what a wonderful Savior He is.

--Lawrence Brotherton

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Created 17 April 2000