600 Calhoun

She anchors this corner like she has since 1898. Once she was clean and straight… she was fresh and a tribute to the block of this bustling rural town. The country railway system made its way through Johnston, SC and the surrounding communities. With it came the materials and supplies that were once only accessible through horse and wagon. And with it came growth of the small town.

The storefront building faced the railway. It was the first large construction project in town. All of the storefront shops were tied together in one building. There is a common attic space that spans the entire block… and a common crawl space.  All of the timbers were cut locally from long leaf pine trees that were a century old at the time. The floor joist beams are a full and strong and after a century have become dense with ancient pine sap.

I ventured into the attic through a roughly cut access hole in the majestic twelve foot ceiling. I pulled myself past the wooden ceiling that was nailed to the heavy ceiling joists… it had darkened with time and the old hand brushed lacquer finish had pebbled to an orange peel texture… the ceiling boards were all that held the weather from the inside of the building. The high ceilings held the heat of the summer and swept it away with small porthole windows near the tops of the heavily plastered walls.

The attic held the secrets of time. A thin layer of black dust held onto every crevice of the space. It was a mix of ancient dust and the escaped black smoke of the wood stove that was in use for decades. The heavy hand driven nails pulled the raw timbers together and held them as they aged and cured in place. They stood as a testament to the workers and craftsmen that hammered her into shape.

The first occupant of 600 Calhoun supplied the community with grain and seed. The farmers of the surrounding areas would come through the double windowed front doors and were greeted with enthusiasm. Throughout the fifty plus years housing a feed and seed store, small cracks in the wooden plank floors left seed chaff scatted on the dry ground beneath. 

A teenager left for the Armed Services and returned to town a grown man. He had arms strong and wide… the townspeople dubbed him “Rock”. In the 1950’s Rock purchased the corner building. He worked busily on radio tubes that powered the world with sound through radios. He had a booming business. He held government contracts that kept him busy for many years. It was said that in the late evenings in the quiet nights, a steady flash of lights could be seen from deep within the store… reflecting from his electric tools onto the white walls and into the sleepy street.

Time and technology took its toll on his business so he leased the front of his building to a young lady who sold beads and flowers. She had colorful posters and incense. She taught macramé classes and sold little round sunglasses. It is said that when the modern music from her record player would change from one song to another, you could hear faint music playing from the back of the building… soft music from days gone by.

Electronic transistors rapidly took the place of vacuum and radio tubes. The contracts slowed and Rock felt the years upon him. He sold the building to a young couple with dreams of making it a restaurant. And they did. They sold hot coffee at the counter and had peach pie in the warmer. They sold the restaurant after several years and the front of the building was transformed into a bar.

It was a happy place. The glasses were new and clean. The smiles of the owners were there to greet you when you came through the front door. They played country music and made mixed drinks with shaved ice. People of town would come in to enjoy themselves… they were looking for a place to laugh and to forget the hard work of the day and of the week. But after some time the glasses weren’t as shiny as they once were… the walls were darkened with nicotine. Smiles were replaced with saddened stares and tired eyes. And time dragged on…

Our building felt the stress of time and the strain of layers of paint… the addition of walls of separation. Wires and switches were added, holes were drilled in her rafters for plumbing, layers of flooring stacked upon each other and cracking plaster had been ignored or covered over with paneling. Moisture took its toll on the floors and on the roof. She watched the owners and renters come and go… they added weight to her walls and weight to her soul. Her foundations were settling and the mortar in her brick joints were failing… she looked to her past… and she yearned for a future.

We walked through her front doors and could feel her history. Layers of time pulled at the weight of the hinges and the dust of years of neglect fell upon our eyes. And we smiled. And then we planned. We felt her acceptance. We pulled down the out of place walls and trim. We stripped the ceilings of tile from decades past. We patched her walls and lifted her foundations. We cleaned the attic and swept away the years. We hauled off truck loads of debris.

And we could feel her relief. Her doors moved free of rust. Laughter fills her spaces. Fresh paint smooths her walls now. Her new roof holds out the water from the skies. Insulation soothes her attic as never before. Fresh tile fills the kitchen floors and light fills her ceilings. Fresh, cool air circulates like never before and she breaths in full breaths. And she feels her purpose. And she will have a new family for generations…

                                                                   Shannon R Killman