Rob S. Friedman
June 2024
The General Store
Generations of Hildreths
tended the general store
and post office, long before
Moses split the Bronx and paved
Long Island, and a runway
for Piper Cubs and Cessnas
demanded a tower, and
the artists ceded summers
to young Wall Street wives in Land
Rovers, speeding to lunch dates.
Once the village carpenter,
back from Nam, hung pigeon holes
on a wall, each with a small
keyed door and a brass number,
Mrs. Hildreth grew as wary
as curious about handing
a mailbox key to a new face
even though title had changed.
Familiarity was lost
in a haze of beforetime.
A Topping child holding a
parent’s hand, eyeing glass jars
of taffy and fudge. So with
the Bensons and the Comforts,
who had sold off, over time,
their acres of potatoes,
their tractors and plows, and watched
the sandy land bloom stick-built
bungalows, then grander homes
of impractical design.
Few of the keys, decades old,
are still handed down to son,
to grandchild, all of whom had
grown to know a Hildreth who
sorted bills and letters and
angled them into boxes
as the one-room schoolhouse rang
its opening bell, calling
to a new generation
of Halses, Piersons, Toppings,
whose after-school chore
was to greet Mrs. Hildreth
before using their mail key
and bring the envelopes home,
unlike the Wall Street wives,
who never see a Hildreth,
or hold a mail key. The house
staff will drop the children at
tennis camp or the stables.
Wives wait for their phones to charge.
Rob S. Friedman 