I know what you’re thinking. In the middle of a pandemic what on earth am I sitting here blogging about a general store? And usually I’d agree with you…. but these were special circumstances. I was already in Maine, with a passenger in tow, and we were all set and ready to spend a few days responsibly hiking. The only problem was that before we even got to that point his shoes gave out on him and here I was trying to come up with where to buy shoes in the middle of nowhere. You might think, “Just Google a shoe store” but this is Maine… the closest actual shoe store was 40 minutes away. So instead I went to a few general stores which are everywhere. For those of you unaware of what a general store is just think of an old Woolworths. The sort of thing pioneers shopped at long before Wal-Mart existed. And in doing this I remembered the biggest and most amusing of these stores was also about 40 minutes away so why not?
It’s name, Hussy’s, is already reason to raise an eye brow or two but this place is actually a bit famous. They have quite the gimmick you see – as they sell “beer, guns, and wedding dresses.” Everything you need for a shotgun wedding! And I can testify women absolutely do buy wedding gowns here. It’s somewhat of a local tradition. Obviously, if they had all these things they must have some shoes…
I’ve been to Hussy’s before but I never got the chance to take photos or blog it. This time I made sure to take a photo of the sign out front. My travel companion for the day loved this place. It had “character.” He’s a city mouse and used to large chains and an endless strip mall of soulless corporations. Coming here – to this quirky roadside attraction – was apparently quite the experience. There was just so much to see! The usual collection of country chic brac-a-bracs, a whole section dedicated to old timey toys, lots of soda, beer, and dry goods. And of course when we wandered upstairs things got even more odd. I stopped by a display of rabbit furs. Nearby there were fox heads, various pelts, and genuine coonskin hats. On the walls there were moose heads and taxidermied coyotes and then we ran into the guns… I was tranfixed for a second because they were oddly beautiful. It was a whole display of old classic revolvers, the sort of thing you think might be dug out of old attics or randomly out of the ground.
“They look so old.” I scratched my head.
“They do.”
But then around the corner was a huge counter full of more modern arms. A little bit of everything. The man there asked if there was anything he could do for us and I tried not to laugh. I’m not a gun person but I have seen it all before however this was the first time my companion had ever been to a gun shop and the variety threw him off, I think.
“You even have knives!” Oh yes, so many pretty knives. And tools. And camping gear. And yes, wedding dresses. I was intent on finding a bottle of Moxie to feed my unfortunate guinea pig. I mean you can’t go to Maine and not try Moxie… that’d be blasphemous.
“It’s like cola right?”
“Hahahahaha!”
Sadly, I didn’t find any Moxie… or else there’d be an attached video of the tasting. Sigh. We also didn’t find any shoes that were up to snuff so we left empty handed. It was a nice little detour but the place made me nervous as no one was wearing masks… not customers, not even staff, so when I left I basically bathed in hand sanitizer when I got back to the car. Off to an actual shoe store!
