You can get anything you want . . . . I mean it's convenient. Area farmers use the place for its variety of hardware. One man buys bottled water, crackers, a can of beans and franks and two bolts. Home-grown institutions, they provide a distinct flavor of a given little corner of the world.
Kids walk or ride bikes to the stores and remember the places after they've grown up and moved away.
Like Mr. Hodgson's place, the Sumerduck store offers the usual groceries and deli sandwiches. But, it also has a nice display of pocket knives in a glass counter, school supplies, T-shirts, paint brushes. The store even rents videos. The owners of Goldvein Merchandise, on Route 17 in southern Fauquier, have taped dozens of family photos over the counter. But McDonald's introduces standardization at the wrong level, for it usurps the smaller spaces of immediate and daily use, the places that cry out for local distinction and its attendant sense of community . . . .