How Sweet It Is!

Floyd Country Store ~ the Candy Bins

The Floyd Country Store, in its renovated reincarnation, draws young and old–for the music, for the food and soda fountain, and for the penny candy you once loved and can’t find anywhere else–at least in such volume and with this lovely, nostalgic “presentation”.

And one virtual gumdrop to the person who first identifies the entertainment personality often associated with the title of this post. Warning: you will indicate personal vintage by knowing the answer!

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Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  1. Marvin Gaye! I just bought an anniversary card for Linda that played that when you opened it! So I just kicked my personal vintage in the booty!

  2. Marvin Gaye? When were you born, Larry? Everyone of proper mellow vintage knows that particular phrase was made famouse by Jackie Gleason (in the 1950’s). Everything after that, including the movie from the late 60’s merely pays homage to “The Great One”.

  3. One thing leading to another, I searched for the theme music for Gleason’s show–and found that the Honeymooners Intrumental was called “You’re my Greatest Love” and was NOT the haunting refrain that opened the show, proper.

    That was a horn instrumental written by Gleason (though he could not read music) called Melancholy Serenade. You can hear a little of it but scrolling down this page:

    http://mp3shake.com/en/download-item/227200.html

  4. What a great shot of the candy in the Floyd Country Store! It is sad that my first thought was about easy it would be for folks to shoplift it. But hopefully things like that don’t happen in idyllic Floyd, VA.

    I don’t know if you read Dean Koontz, he has a website where his dog Trixie has her own blog, it is very cute – stuff like her Thanksgiving memories – turkey good, yams bad, yams taste like bad cat.

    Anyway, trixie is gone now and as I was reading about her I thought of you and your dog.

    Read about trixie here: http://www.deankoontz.com/trixie/archive/thanksgiving-memories.php

    Have a great day! Don’t eat too much candy.

  5. Fred, your picture would make a great postcard for the store to sell. When we were there in August, it was much too crowded to take a picture like this. In fact, I hardly remember those bins! Yes, my answer was Jackie Gleason; someone my kids have probably never heard of!

  6. i was thinking james taylor, as in his song, ‘how sweet it is, to be loved by you’… i guess i’m not vintage…. 🙂

    yes, that was my son’s favorite part of the floyd country store when we went!