Back Ta Willey’s | Life in the Kingdom

We live exactly six miles from what I believe to be the best country store east of the Mississippi. It’s called Willey’s, and it is right in the center of Greensboro, Vermont, a town of 750-ish residents on the eastern shore of Caspian Lake. Willey’s is housed in a rambling white clapboard building, with goods located on three floors (if one includes the basement, which I do, since I’m down there on at least a weekly basis, pawing through bins of plumbing apparatus). There’s a single gas pump on the building’s north side, and a bulletin board that runs almost the entire length of the front wall’s exterior.

Greensboro is one of those rural towns that have carved out a niche for themselves as destinations for affluent second-home owners. Credit goes in part to the lake, which is surrounded by tastefully remodeled “camps” that often run north of $500,000 and are, in most instances, far more commodious than the homes occupied by year-round residents.

But I imagine Willey’s doesn’t hurt, either. Were I in the position of choosing where to invest in a Vermont vacation home, being within a short hop of Willey’s certainly would be a factor in my decision. Amid the store’s fully stocked grocery, hardware, building supply, and household departments, one can procure a very nice bottle of wine, a pair of rubber barn boots, jumper cables, a box of 12-gauge shotgun shells (and the gun to load them into), a length of two-inch schedule 40 PVC pipe, a wedge of Jasper Hill Farm’s Bayley Hazen Blue (which is made barely two miles from the store), a can of cream of mushroom soup, and a toilet plunger.

It is a rare week that I do not find ample reason to visit Willey’s. And while some of these expeditions do fall under the heading of legitimate need, there are—if I’m being entirely honest—just as many that fall under the heading of “just enough need to be considered legitimate but in truth more an excuse to visit Willey’s.” I know I’m not the only one: Around here, the acronym BTW is understood to stand for “Back Ta Willey’s,” which is what happens when one returns home with a ½-inch copper elbow only to realize that the line one is cutting into is actually ¾-inch. (This is a hypothetical scenario, of course.)

I like visiting Willey’s because I like the drive: the first three miles on a winding gravel road that traces a fast-moving mountain stream; the second three on a secondary paved road that often compels me to brake for meandering chickens. And I like visiting Willey’s because I can never be sure who I’m going to run into, though it’ll probably be someone I know, which means Willey’s is the backdrop for a goodly percentage of my social life. Too, I like visiting Willey’s because I can trade heckles with Rob Hurst, who is quick of wit and chuckle, and whose family has owned Willey’s for 118 years. Once, Rob tried to up-sell me on a branded drill bit intended to bore pilot holes for concrete screws (it didn’t work—I bought the cheaper, nonbranded bit, which did just fine), and ever since then, I like to accuse him of padding his retirement account with each nut, bolt, and screw I carry home.

Which leads me to another thing I like about Willey’s: the prices. I’m not sure how they do it, because the store is too small to have the bulk purchasing power of its larger competitors. For instance, I recently bought a metal electrical junction box for less than half what the exact same box cost me at a local building supply store. Such drastic disparities are not the rule, but in my experience, a 10 to 15 percent discount relative to the competition is common here. And the gas at the single pump is always at least a dime cheaper than anywhere else.

The truth is I’d shop at Willey’s even if the prices weren’t so good, because it is my fervent belief that the world is a better place with stores like Willey’s in it. In my view, these stores offer much more than merchandise; they offer community and kindness and decency, along with a sense of camaraderie and connection to a particular place. It’s no original thinking on my part to wonder if, despite all the convenience it provides, online and big-box shopping sells us short on a whole lot of less tangible—but no less important—benefits.

For my own amusement as much as anything else, I thought to compile a month’s worth of my purchases at Willey’s. I have not edited this list in any way, shape, or form; what you see is what you get. I offer commentary relating to some purchases but not all, because many of the items are too mundane to deserve elaboration.

On October 3, 2017, I buy:

• One tank of gas for our Kia Soul, which is maybe the slowest, ugliest car on the road in 2018, but which I love for precisely that reason.

• Two Chessters frozen custard sandwiches, the empty wrappers of which will end up wadded under the front seats of the aforementioned vehicle. (PS: My older son was with me. I would never buy two for just myself. Never.)

• One schedule 40 90-degree elbow.

• One scrub brush, for cleaning the buckets I use to collect and transport waste milk from a friend’s dairy farm for our pigs.

At the register, I run into our neighbor Andy, who is on his way home from work (he’s a builder). He’s buying a single Otter Creek Backseat Berner, which is one of the beers I favor, and I briefly consider picking one up, too. But there’s something about the combination of beer and Chessters that feels too decadent, so I don’t. Andy and I discuss the weather, which has been dry and warm to the point of peculiarity. But truth is we’d probably discuss the weather no matter what.

On October 6, I buy:

• Four ½-inch 90-degree copper elbows to reroute the copper lines that feed the kitchen, because the previous day I’d cut a doorway between the kitchen and the pantry, and now the lines ran smack-dab across it. And if you’re wondering why I cut the doorway before I rerouted the lines, so am I.

Later, I go BTW and buy:

• One cylinder of MAP gas to replace the propane I used to sweat two of the copper elbows before it ran dry. This is actually a blessing in disguise, as switching to MAP gas for the remaining joints, in comparison to propane, is sort of like upgrading from a moped to a Ferrari.

• One ½-inch copper coupling. I don’t want to say why I buy this, because it would reveal what a lousy excuse of a plumber I am.

On October 10, I buy:

• One three-inch paintbrush for applying finish to a set of shelves that I’m building from the spalted maple logs I pulled out of the woods last autumn, and which David down at Lamoille Valley Lumber in Greensboro Bend was kind enough to saw into live-edge boards for me (since, nearly two years after moving it from our old home, our sawmill isn’t set up yet—a fact of life I’m trying to accept with more than my usual equanimity).

• One box of 1¾-inch trim screws for assembling said shelves.

• One package of Frito-Lay salted peanuts. A weakness, I admit.

• Four 15A duplex outlets.

I pass Dave at the hardware counter, but he’s deep into conversation (something about guns, from what I gather), so we just nod hello.

On October 13, I buy:

• One ½-inch-by-35/8-inch hitch pin for the left telescoping sway bar of the tractor’s three-point hitch. The previous pin went missing at some point over the past week or two and, now that I have purchased a replacement, is sure to be found any day.

• Two pints of heavy cream from Butterworks Farm in Westfield, Vermont, to make ice cream for my son Rye’s birthday. Although we are milking a cow, she is late in her lactation and producing barely a gallon a day, and we do not have enough milk to skim for cream.

• One six-pack of Six Point Brewery’s Resin IPA. Willey’s has an excellent selection of beer. Given my fondness for excellent beer, I’m not sure if this is good or bad. But on this occasion—with my younger boy turning 13 and the recognition that, for all my failings as a parent, I’ve at least gotten him this far—I feel more than justified.

On October 17, my wife, Penny, buys:

• A half-pound of Jasper Hill Farm’s Landaff cheese, most of which we will turn into grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches using the last of the tomatoes ripening on the window-sill above the kitchen sink.

• One pair of Lacrosse boots, size 7, to add to our collection, which now numbers an even half dozen. It is not uncommon to find all four of us wearing Lacrosse boots at the same time; our favorite model is the Burly, with its “Air Grip” sole, which boasts rows of rubber nubs that minimize unintentional butt-to-ground contact during the slippery months.

• One six-pack of San Pellegrino blood orange “sparkling beverage” (it’s basically soda for people who don’t want to think of themselves as soda drinkers) as a treat for Rye, who claims to be suffering from the “worst sore throat ever” but who may merely want a San Pellegrino and knows that he probably wouldn’t get one otherwise. 

On October 24, I buy:

• One package of Frito-Lay salted peanuts.

• One Chessters frozen custard sandwich. Hey, I was hungry.

On October 31, I buy:

• One trowel with ¼-inch serrations for spreading thin-set mortar on the bathroom floor in preparation for tiling.

• Six ¼-by-1½ stainless steel bolts and corresponding nuts to aid in the reassembly of an old cookstove that I bought for a song and am in the process of installing upstairs in the barn.

I slot myself into the register line behind our neighbor, Justine, who is purchasing half a dozen cans of spray foam insulation. Justine is restoring an old camp up the road from us; it’s exactly the sort of place that spray foam insulation was made for. Outside Willey’s, the day is cool and cloudy, normal for the end of October. Justine and I stand for a minute just inside the entrance to the store, holding our respective packages, talking about the weather anyway.