Chapter 9. The Hardware Store.

The hardware store in Marshall, North Carolina, has been there for almost one hundred years. It first opened in 1928. It’s authentically old school. Walk in the door and you are truly walking back in time. Wooden floor boards that have been shuffled upon for almost a century.

It is here I meet Kathy. An older woman with a sweet face that lights up in a kind smile. Welcoming. This is a family business. Her father’s before hers.

“What brings you here?” she asks. A friend had recommended that I come to the store to talk with a guy called A.J. about the US Elections, I explain, but, “I’d love to talk with you, if you are open to it.” She is a little hesitant, but then says she is fine with talking.

I ask her how she is feeling.

Her eyes, they widen and she says, “I believe in saving our country.”

I ask her what she means and she says that if we vote one way, “our country will never recover.” I tell her she is hard to read and it is then she tells me that ...

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