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The Walmart and Amazon of yesteryear were the general stores found in almost every small community, crammed with an amazing assortment of goods.

The sight of the contents of Altamont’s F. & W.S. Pitts store in the 1890s would have boggled the minds of Guilderland’s 18th-Century settlers who were forced to be relatively self-sufficient except for a few necessities, items like tea, salt, or tobacco. Some of the town’s early tavern keepers, Nicholas Mynderse for one, sold or bartered these necessities in addition to selling alcohol and putting up travelers.

With the combination of Guilderland’s increasing population in the 1790s and the 1804 opening of the Western Turnpike, stores began to appear. Serving the small community of Hamilton near the glassworks early in the 19th Century, Christopher Batterman’s was probably the first.

Years later, when the 1845 New York State Census was taken in Guilderland, four grocers and seven merchants were counted. In addition to the hamlet of Guilderland, stores were recorded in Guilderland Center, Dunnsville, and Knowersville at that time. Jacob Crounse is known to have kept a store in Knowersville at this period.

The post-Civil War decades marked the heyday of the general store in rural America. Both the 1886 Howell & Tenney History of Albany County and Amasa Parker’s 1897 Landmarks of Albany County listed Guilderland’s general stores and their proprietors.

Dunnsville, Fullers, Meadowdale, Guilderland Hamlet, and Guilderland Center each had one, and Altamont had more than one. However, McKownville wasn’t mentioned in either volume, nor did a store show up there on the 1866 Beers Map. Perhaps a small store existed, but no record of it remains or an Albany store was in easy distance.

Catchy ads

Carrying a wide variety of goods, general stores sought to meet customer needs while emphasizing low prices, or at least the Guilderland stores were fixated on bargains, perhaps because of the numerous competitors in town. The coming of The Enterprise in 1884 provided the opportunity for clever advertising with lots of product variety and assurance of low prices aimed at drawing customers from the competition.

One simply stated “FIRST CLASS COUNTRY STORE.”

Several ads placed at the time of the Spanish-American War in 1898 by Altamont’s F. & S.W. Pitts were very eye-catching, especially since the headings were in a dark large font. “GREAT BATTLE! Not at HAVANA, but at ALTAMONT! Our battle is on high prices and we are confident of victory.” o

Another proclaimed “WAR! War has begun and almost everything is advancing. We offer the following at the same low prices.” Attached was a lengthy list of goods and prices.

The Pitts assured customers, “In placing bargains before the public, remember, we look, first of all to quality and then aim to sell it at lowest Albany or Schenectady prices.”

J.F. Mynderse sought to attract attention with “NOTICE: HOW TO SAVE MONEY.” Another ad stated, “SAVED anywhere from 20 to 50 dollars a year by trading at the ALTAMONT CASH STORE.”

Smaller stores in Dunnsville, Fullers, or Meadowdale where there was no competition didn’t advertise and they certainly didn’t carry the extent of merchandise the larger stores in Altamont or Guilderland Center did.

A selection of items listed in F. & W.S. Pitts’ ads illustrate a sample of the variety offered by the general store merchant. Food choices not available from the farm or backyard garden included cans of potted ham, olives, cans of salmon, pepper, raisins, currants, coffee, tea, codfish, molasses, candies, Malaga grapes and nuts.

Because baking bread and other baked goods was the housewives’ weekly chore, flour was always an important item, as well as baking powder, salt, and yeast regularly listed.

Personal needs were met by patent medicines, soap, gloves, shoes, rubber goods, overshoes, shirts, pants, ladies’ wrappers, various kinds of yard goods for home sewing, notions, tobacco, and jack knives. Household items included pots and pans, brooms, oil cloth, paints and wallpaper.

Not all of the town’s general stores would necessarily have carried so many foods and dry goods, some of which were probably considered luxury items for many farm families or a family where a laborer provided the sole income. And the stores with farmers as the majority of their customers carried fewer consumer goods and a good deal of animal feed, fertilizer, and items needed by farmers such as hay bands.

In 1900, when F. & W.S. Pitts when out of business, at their MAMMOTH CLOSING OUT SALE they offered “many thousands of dollars’ worth of goods” including  “dry goods, groceries, boots and shoes, flour, feed, patent medicines, paint, oils, wooden ware, stoneware (crocks), pants, shorts, underwear, umbrellas, whips, crockery, glassware, etc.”

Nowadays, Thanksgiving and Christmas or Hanukkah holiday shopping represent a key part of a retailer’s profitability, but during the heyday of Guilderland’s general stores, the holidays pass by with no special advertising even though Albany retailers advertising in The Enterprise were appealing to the turn-of-the-century Christmas shopper.

Pettinger prevailed

Down the road in Guilderland Center was P. Pettinger, whose general store probably operated the longest of any in town under one proprietor, from 1884 to 1927. His customer base must have included many farmers, leading him to carry an extensive line of animal feeds and items useful on the farm in addition to the usual groceries and dry goods.

An innovative merchandiser, Pettinger offered to deliver orders by wagon. The early 20th-Century years brought listing of his phone number, Altamont 9-F-14, allowing customers with a phone to call in orders, which he soon was delivering in an autotruck.

After a few years, he added auto supplies such as tires, tube, spark plugs, oils, and grease to his inventory. A Socony (now Mobil) gas pump, probably one of the earliest in Guilderland, was installed in front of his store. Pumps also appeared in front of J. Snyder’s store in Altamont and Ward’s Store in the Guilderland hamlet.

Petinger, who for some reason dropped one “t” from the spelling of his name in mid-1904, also had an arrangement with R. Van Allen, proprietor of the Fullers General Store, to pay cash for baled hay and straw to be shipped out from the hay barn next to a West Shore Railroad siding in Fullers. This arrangement was included in his regular advertising.

Rural mail delivery, easy transport ended era

General stores were the casualty of change. In 1890, the 65 percent of the population who lived in the nation’s rural areas were forced to pick up their mail at a local post office, which was very frequently located in the community’s general store, making the townspeople stopping by to get their mail a sure source of potential customers.

Much against the objections of local shopkeepers nationwide, the United States Post Office’s rural free delivery began on an experimental basis in 1896, and by 1902 all farmers were having mail delivered to the mailboxes in front of their farms. Parcel post home delivery soon followed.

Sears, Roebuck & Company issued its first catalog in 1894 and soon was offering every product imaginable, including canned goods at low prices, delivered right to the mailbox. They were only one of many mail order firms.

Once cars and buses became common, it was very convenient to travel to Schenectady or Albany where the stores had a huge selection of consumer goods and supermarkets offered lower prices.

One by one, the old general stores closed down and the ones that survived became mom-and-pop grocery stores, which in turn faced competition from the growth of supermarket chains. By 1928, Altamont had an A & P followed by a Grand Union in 1932. However, the mom-and-pop stores usually offered credit, unlike the supermarkets.

Internet shopping is only the latest innovation in the history of merchandising in this country.

This column with its report on the Old Men of the Mountain starts out like many conversations — with the weather. To keep up that tradition, today’s column will be no different.

Tuesday, Nov. 16, many of the OMOTM approached the Your Way Café, in Schoharie, looking at the cliffs at the end of Route 443 where it meets Route 30. Many of the OFs who arrived at the café around the same time commented on how beautiful the sunrise was with sunlight on top and dark shadows on the bottom.

The sun came up red in the beginning and then quickly changed to orange-red, and then just orange as the light crept down the mountain. This scribe told a couple of OFs as they entered the Your Way, “If I ever painted it like it was at first light no one would believe it.” The OFs agreed.

Once inside, the OFs were offering their normal greetings as other OFs filed in. Some of the conversation was discussion of the man and family of Bill Barthelomew who recently passed away, and that segued to inquiries of OFs who were in the hospital, or had just left and were home.

The OFs were genuinely concerned on how they were doing and anxious for their return to the breakfasts.

How that turned into a discussion of how much those pesky little fruit flies were this year, I will never understand. However, it seems all the OMOTM had problems with these little pests this summer.

Some used apple cider and vinegar to trap the little buggers, while others had their own remedies — some worked and some didn’t. One OF said that hanging a banana skin by the end where it was cut from the tree calls the fruit fly.

They are fruit flies after all. But then — what now? You have them in a bunch. How do you actually get rid of them? That was not mentioned. Every now and then, spray them with fly spray the OFs guessed.

One OF mentioned he purchased a sticky trap (trade name Dynatrap) that comes with 3-by-4 cards that are sticky on one side. This OF said that thing really works

You plug it in, a blue light comes on, and the light attracts the flies and soon they are trapped on the sticky card. One thing the OF said was that the card catches more than fruit flies.

It grabs regular flies and the occasional moth. This trap is chemical-free, and effective. When the card is no longer catching the pests, chuck it out and put in a new one.

Schoharie’s Nashville

The OFs talked about the park outside of Schoharie up on the hill where in the forties and fifties, and maybe even later, the good ole country boys would go with their banjos, guitars, fiddles, harmonicas, moonshine, beer, and some light bulbs and on Saturday night Nashville was no equal.

It was good ole country music by the good ole country boys, and all that could boogie danced the night away. At times, a fight or two would break out, and no one really knew the reason.

When the participants settled the disagreement, they would be back on the dance pavilion’s dance floor, dancing with the same ones they were just fighting with. Occasionally someone (who knew how to call) would form up squares for dancing and away they went.

These squares may have gotten rowdy at times, but all in fun. The OFs did not know if this type of amusement still goes on or not.

Way to go

Now to something completely different and, again, how it got started this scribe does not know, but it seemed to have started with the new higher toilets. Age creeps into a lot of things and now the OFs know it’s creeping up because it affects how they go to the bathroom.

It used to be that older people had problems getting up and out of chairs including getting off the john.

Then someone invented a riser and attached it to the toilet so it would elevate that older person. Apparently the plumbing industry saw the need and started building the higher toilets, and the contractors started installing grab bars so the older people could help themselves get off the john.

The OFs said, now that they own these higher toilets at home, when using the older-style lower toilets still found in public restrooms, they feel like they are sitting in a hole and do have trouble getting up, and they actually look around for grab bars.

Then one OF said that sitting on these higher toilets is “not the way to go.” This OF said your knees are supposed to be up and your back straight so everything is lined up and then it is not necessary to strain, especially if you have heart trouble.

The OF said the best thing to do is use the high commode with a stool so your knees are high. When it is time to get up, kick the stool out of the way and stand up. This OF said he still uses grab bars high or low.

This dialog on age reminded me that age is a relative term. All my relations keep reminding me how old I am.

The discussion went from the height of the john, to snow tires in one fell swoop. It was just necessary to be there and these Old Men of the Mountain were there: Joe Rack, Roger Shafer, Otis Lawyer, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Miner Stevens, Bill Lichliter, Robie Osterman, Rich LaGrange, Marty Herzog, Jake Herzog, Paul Nelson, Henry Whipple, Lou Schenck, Jack Norray, Bob Donnelly, Dave Hodgetts, Herb Bahrmann, and me.

We are already into November and the older the Old Men of the Mountain get, the faster the time goes. For time itself, yet for things not exactly related to time, they seem to take forever.

It takes forever just to get things done and there doesn’t seem to be enough time. However, on Nov. 2, Election Day, the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh.

As always, the OMOTM discussed old cars, old trucks, and old tractors. That’s because of the ages of this group. It was obvious that one OF was tickled with what he had accomplished with his old Massey-Ferguson tractors.

To do this, he had to use 2021 technology. This OF proudly showed how he has gotten his old machine to run, along with sound effects. The OF passed around his phone, which had a photo of the machine running in his garage. The OFs were impressed as each in turn looked at the phone to see the display.

A simple phone does a lot more now than just making phone calls. Attaching the name “phone” to these devices does not sound right. Of course they can, and are, used to make calls but it seems most of the time the new phones get used for something else.

The OFs can remember when the phones had operators and you could ask the operator to get the person you were calling. In the town of Esperance, New York, the operator could see out to the street from a large window in the telephone office.

When calling the garage, you would say (this is an actual number) 19 the house, or say 19 the garage, and the operator would do it, or the operator might say (actual stated conversation), “Milton is not there; I just saw him go into the tea room. I’ll dial that for you.”

Also the OFs remember the phone number for the doctor was 1, the phone number for Mexico (a local tavern) was 2, and the phone number for the artificial inseminator was 3. It was much simpler then.

Lots of bear and deer

The OFs have mentioned recently that bears are on the prowl. Tuesday morning again, bear sightings were reported, but added to it was the amount of healthy looking deer roaming around, not only in the woods, but in some of the OFs’ yards and fields.

There does seem to be more than normal. The OF’s sightings are mostly rural and Encon will, of course, bring us up to date on this situation.

One OF mentioned bears may be only around here; the OFs have no idea about the other tiers of the state. Maybe in some other areas  the bears don’t appear and our region has them all.

Hollow Halloween

Halloween has come and gone, and there was no mention of it at the breakfast. Apparently not many (if any) of the OFs decorated for Halloween, or had any great influx of kids.

No one even mentioned decorations of others like they do at Christmas time. This scribe has seen a few cute decorations when he was out and about, some really clever.

Of course this scribe didn’t wander very far, Altamont and Voorheesville, and a little bit in Guilderland Center was about it. Fall decorations — that is another story.

Prices jump

The cost of living has been touched on at a couple of meetings, but just around the edges. However, at this meeting, it was discussed quite a bit.

To the OFs, it is getting out of hand in a hurry. One OF mentioned that prices are not just inching up but are jumping by leaps and bounds. Another OF thought it was supply and demand and likened to all those unloaded boats, and scarcity of truck drivers.

One OF mentioned he had to sell his plane because it was just too expensive to park it and maintain it, let alone supply the fuel to fly it.

Some of the OFs wondered who was paying the demurrage (a charge for detaining a ship, freight car, or truck) on the ships just parked offshore. Some thought it might just be like the railroad, or trailers left off to be loaded or unloaded. In those cases, it is the company that pays that fee, not the railroad.

It was thought that many hobbies of this type, like flying, boating, golf, even maybe fishing, will go by the wayside because it will become too expensive to maintain participation in them when on a fixed income. That will be a shame.

One OF mentioned how much harder he had to work now compared to just a couple of years ago as a truck driver, and that the pressure applied made the job not only physically more exhausting but unsafe.

Another OF who was just discharged from the hospital said that previously the care he received in the same hospital was good but that this time he compared it to being in hell. The OF attributed this to lack of help and overworked staff.

The OF mentioned some of the particulars as he saw them, but this scribe is not going to mention them because it may just be an OF grumbling because things were not like they were before, and he was just repeating what he was told by overworked employees.

The OFs keep asking, “Where has everybody gone?”

It seems just like a little while ago so many were unemployed it was making news as one OF put it. One other OF answered that it was just the news people, making news where there wasn’t any.

This OF said, if you wanted to work, there was work, and people looking for workers. That again the scribe does not know.

The scribe only knows what he reads in the paper like this media clip from The Miami Herald: Man married, sentenced on same day.

Then one OF capped it all up by saying he is so old he has been through all this before and there is no sense “bitchin’” about it; it tain’t gonna change, and it will all work out in the end.

The OF may be right, but in this case: Will the end be worth it? The older the OFs get, this can be said about many things.

The Old Men of the Mountain who made it to the Middleburgh Diner and showed up in their fancy cars and trucks and not their old tractors, with mismatched tires, only one fender, and no cowling (a removable metal covering that houses the engine) were: Paul Nelson, Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Marty Herzog, Bill Lichliter, George Washburn, Jake Herzog, Gerry Chartier, Russ Pokorny, Lou Schenck, Herb Bahrmann, Jack Norray, Paul Whitbeck, North Carolina guest Jay Williams, and me.