"Poppa Threadgoode wasn't rich, but it seemed to us at the time he was. He owned the only store in town. You could get anything you needed in there. You could buy a National washboard or shoestrings or get yourself a corset or a dill pickle right out of the barrel.
"Buddy used to work in the drugstore part. And I'd give all the tea in China for a strawberry ice cream soda like Buddy used to make. Everybody in Whistle Stop traded there. That's why we were so surprised when the store closed down in 'twenty-two.
"Cleo said the reason the store failed was because Poppa couldn't say no to anybody, white or colored. Whatever people wanted or needed, he just put in a sack and let them have it on credit. Cleo said Poppa's fortune had walked right out the door on him in paper bags. But then, none of the Threadgoodes could ever say no to anybody. Honey, they would give you the shirt off their backs, if you asked for it. And Cleo was no better. Cleo and I never did have a lot of fancy things, but the good Lord provided, and we had everything we ever needed. I believe poor people are good people, except the ones that are mean . . . and they'd be mean even if they were rich. Most of the people who are living out here at Rose Terrace are poor. Just have their Social
Security, and most of them are on Medicaid."
She turned to Evelyn. "Honey, that's one thing you be sure and you get on right away, is your Medicaid, you don't want to be caught without that.
"There's a few rich women out here. A couple of weeks ago, Mrs. Vesta Adcock, this little bird-breasted woman I know who's from Whistle Stop, came in, wearing her fox furs and her diamond dinner rings. She's one of the rich ones. But the rich ones don't seem happy to me. And I'll tell you something elsetheir children don't come to see them any more often than the rest.
"Norris and Francis, Mrs. Otis's son and daughter-in-law, come to see her every week, rain or shine. That's why I come back here in the lounge on Sundays, to give them a little privacy, so they can visit . . . but oh, it would just break your heart to see some of them waiting for their visitors. They get their hair all done up on Saturday, and on Sunday morning they get themselves all dressed and ready, and after all that, nobody comes to see them. I feel so bad, but what can you do? Having children is no guarantee that you'll get visitors . . . No, it isn't."
JULY 12, 1930
Whistle Stop Growing by Leaps and Bounds
Opal Threadgoode, Julian's wife, has rented the building two doors down from me at the post office, and is opening up a beauty shop of her own. She had been fixing people's hair in her kitchen, but Julian said for her to stop doing that because so many women were coming in and out the back door all day that it was causing their hens not to lay.
Opal said the prices would still be the same: shampoo and set for 50c, and a permanent for $1.50.
I, for one, am delighted at the new addition to our busy street. Just think, now you can mail a letter, have a meal, and get your hair done all on the same block. All we need now is a picture show to open up, then none of us would ever need to go over to Birmingham again. Mr. and Mrs. Roy Glass had the Glass family annual reunion in their backyard, and all the Glasses came from all over the state to be there, and Wilma said the cake tasted better than it looked.
By the way, my other half hooked his own finger the other day when he was fishing, so I've had him at home again, moaning and groaning.
. . . Dot Weems . . .
NOVEMBER 18, 1931
By now, the name of the cafe was written on the walls of hundreds of boxcars, from Seattle to Florida. Splinter Belly Jones said he had seen it as far away as Canada.
Things were especially bad that year, and at night the woods all around Whistle Stop twinkled from the fires at the hobo camps, and there wasn't a single man there that Idgie and Ruth had not fed at one time or another.
Cleo, Idgie's brother, was concerned about it. He had come over to the cafe to pick up his wife, Ninny, and their little boy, Albert. He was having a cup of coffee and eating peanuts.
"Idgie, I'm telling you, you don't need to feed everybody that shows up at your door. You've got a business to run here. Julian told me that he came by here the other day and there were seven of them in here eating. He says he thinks you'd let Ruth and the baby go without to feed those bums."
Idgie dismissed the thought. "Oh Cleo, what does Julian know? He'd starve to death himself if Opal didn't have the beauty shop. What are you listening to him for? He doesn't have the sense God gave a billy goat."
Cleo couldn't disagree with her on that point.
"Well, it's not only Julian, honey. I worry about you.
"I know."
"Well, I just want you to be smart and not be a fool and give away all your profits."
Idgie looked at him and smiled. "Now, Cleo, I know for a fact that half the people in this town have not paid you for five years. I don't see you throwing them out the door."