Vermont Town Seeks a Heart, and Soul (Also Milk and Eggs)

RIPTON, Vt. — If towns could write personal ads, this one would be taking pen in hand for the first time in 42 years — making a pitch for companionship, a pitch aimed at finding someone who might be willing to take a chance on something a little out of the Twittery Trumpy twitchy mainstream.

We’re a small place — 600 or so souls — on the spine of the Green Mountains in the center of the state, not far from Middlebury College. And we’re about to lose the heart and soul of our community, the husband and wife who have run our general store since 1976.

Dick and Sue Collitt are retiring, and we need someone to buy them out and take their place. Because if you don’t have a store, you can’t really have a town. True, we live in an age when stores seem like relics. So far this year, thousands of big retail outlets have closed, including Toys “R” Us, as Americans shop online instead. It’s entirely possible that there’s almost no one left who thinks being a shopkeeper is a useful, fulfilling life. But it is, at least here.

So here’s the pitch. Two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars gets you the most classic of country stores, not in a Colonial Williamsburg kind of way but in a slightly sagging kind of way — there’s a potbellied wood stove up against the deli counter, right next to the coffee pot. There’s penny candy against the wall (Atomic Fireballs!). And pretty much everything else: brake fluid, animal crackers, 3-in-One oil, leather boot laces. The latest issue of North American Whitetail (“the big buck authority”). Eggs from local hens; pickled beets and sweet relish that some of the neighbors have put up. Lasagna noodles, rock salt, kitty litter, meatloaf mix, clothespins, starch, cupcake papers.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/opinion/vermont-town-seeks-a-heart-and-soul-also-milk-and-eggs.html?