January 4, 2026

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

Probably, the potbelly stove was designed with community stores in mind so that on Saturday mornings in particular, gents, also in particular, would chew the fat as well as chew tobacco. Such small-town gatherings contributed to routine, which is a cornerstone of life.

Surely there are small community stores still about though few with a stove, and I hope the gents are still jaw-boning because that is life reinforcement. Once a week resets the week gone by. Maybe women are finally there too, if they so choose, though they long have mastered their own klatches.

In later decades, as community stores have given way to convenience ones, usually connected to gas stations, the loss of the potbelly stove is apparent. It’s in and out in anonymity, coffee or lottery tickets or the occasional loaf of bread or cigarettes grabbed under glaring fluorescent lights. There is no stage set for banter.

There are smaller, non-chain stores near me in the New York area owned by locals who become acquaintances since you pick up a coffee, a newspaper or whatever each day like clockwork. You learn the proprietor’s name; he knows yours. You run into other regulars getting their regular, java or otherwise, and save for the loss of the potbelly stove and the wooden grates the gents sat on in the old community stores, there is still routine.

It makes your morning. You are human; you meet humanity. Reinforcement.

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

-30-