I think about how Mom-n-Dad know the names of all their customers and their kids. They know who’s dating, who’s getting married, who’s pregnant. They know who’s been shot, who’s been arrested, who’s gone to jail. They know all these things sometimes even before the families themselves. They are the keepers of all the news and gossip and drama that passes over the tree-ringed counter, and that makes them the only oral historians for a tiny world that might otherwise go unremembered.
