Country Stores of North Carolina by Tony Craig, Thomas A. Repp (Editor)

Synopsis

The General Store. Once, it was the center of small-town America a place where old men gathered to gripe about baseball scores, and young mothers came seeking advice for Sunday dinner. Children spent summers inside purchasing penny candy. Regulars sat on front porches through the afternoon remembering their own younger years with a quiet wistfulness.

General Stores define the word neighbor. Customers who passed through their doors became part of a community. For a moment, the word grew very small, and in that tiny place, there was no such thing as a stranger.

Country Stores in North Carolina is Tony Craig's love letter to these havens that seem to sell yesterday from their shelves. For eight years, he traveled the counties of North Carolina photographing old general stores and interviewing their owners. His odyssey took him everywhere from Min-O-Pon in Stanly County to Priddy's Store near Danbury. Everywhere he visited, he found a bargain in one gentle truth: Sometimes you can go home again.

Biography

Tony Craig left North Carolina in 1987 to pursue a career in animation. He has worked as a producer and director on programs for the Warner Brothers Studios, Hanna-Barbera, and the Walt Disney Company.

Tony grew to miss his home state so much, that he often returned to the American South to photograph the landscape's vanishing icons. In addition to writing Country Stores in North Carolina, Tony creates watercolor paintings from his photographs. More of his work can be seen at tonycraig.net.