Dave Harper

Professor Harper
February 12
th
, 2014
Community Narrative
Cochenhours Country Store in Choptank, MD: An August Evening
Mom! Dad! Can we ride our bikes to Choptank and go to Cochenhours store?
Can we? Can we? my seven-year-old voice eagerly intoned, sounding high-pitched and
pleading in the balmy August air. Well, I dont see why
not my dad laughed, already swinging one leg over the bike
seat as he casually granted me one more big adventure
before sunset. Suddenly, the afternoon seemed to extend
itself to stretch out before me with the promise of dirt
roads, the old wooden bridge, Mr. and Mrs. Cochenhours
one-room country store, and best of all, a fresh five-stick pack
of my favorite chewing gum: Juicy Fruit.
Growing up on a remote farm in Caroline County, Maryland, my nearest neighbor was
more than a mile away. Of course that doesnt include Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop, who lived on
the farm with us and were a major part of our community and my childhood, but they were
family, not neighbors exactly. Mom, Dad, and I rode our bikes past their house as our journey
began my three-year-old brother, Timmy, was in a bike seat behind mom. The three-mile trip
would be a dusty one, and the trick was not to ride your bike through the deepest sand on the
edges of the road for me, that always resulted in a skinned knee.
Sure, late-summer droughts meant we needed rain, and the
day would soon be over, and second grade was about to bring an
end to summer, but this adventure was just beginning, and the
heat radiating from every direction just seemed like the comforting
warm blanket of childhood, unconditional love the kind of
simplicity that goes hand-in-hand with nostalgia and its cousin,
forgetfulness. I had mom, dad, Timmy, my red bike, and I was happy. We were on a mission
together. Our destination was unremarkable a one-room general store, no bigger than a
good-sized back patio, and just as good for friendly conversation. On the corner of Maryland
Avenue and Choptank Main Street, Mr. and Mrs. Cochenour ran the only business in the old
riverside town. Named for a local Indian tribe, Choptank was settled in the 1600s, and on this
summer day in 1985, was still very much a waterman village its small marina home to Russell
Dukes boat (I knew him because I went to school with his daughter, Christy) and several others.
The Cochenours store was integrated into their small home, less than one-hundred
yards from the river, and in-season, they opened at four in the morning to feed hot breakfast
sandwiches and strong coffee to the watermen who were on their way out to work. When
these genuine eastern shoremen returned in the early afternoon, they could pick up a fresh
pack of cigarettes, maybe a beer, or a few odds and ends for the house no need to drive four
miles to Preston, or fifteen to the full-sized grocery in Easton. Considering the hours, I should
have been amazed that the store would still be open at eight at night, but I was mostly
anticipating the sugar rush that would recharge my tired legs and the cold Coca-Cola that would
instantly dry the sweat from my forehead.
Hello! Mr. Cochenour rasped warmly, as we walked in, sleigh bells clinking against the
chipped white paint on the old wooden door. How are you this evening? my mom replied as
she carried Tim in on her hip, starting up a conversation while I stretched and pulled to peer at
the candies lined up behind the counter. My parents asked about Mrs. Cochenour, and their
pleasant conversation faded into the background as my mind was occupied by the major
decision in front of me. Time once again seemed to stretch out as I pondered my options,
already content to be in Choptank, spending a slow summer evening in the middle of
nowhere.
Maybe the funny thing about this memory is that it isnt entirely true, or accurate. I am
sure that it has been stained and broken by years of forgetting and then romanticized and
reassembled in an iron-wrought structure like a church window. We couldnt have made more
than ten or fifteen trips like that during my whole childhood, and was I really able to peddle my
bike? I do know that the dirt roads, the small town, the one-room store, and the good people,
the people I love they are all true. Them and the juicy fruit.
The store is gone now, though, as are Mr. and
Mrs. Cochenour and many of the people who defined
that small town and my fleeting childhood. I hope
my wife and I are able to find ways to make time
stretch for our children, Ethan and Halle, and to offer
them a similar selection of sweets.