A short piece by Shelby Stephenson on RAF in the February 2009 issue of Our State prompted this nice letter to the editor of Fountain After Dark from L.C. Pierce:
When I saw the picture of the R. A. Fountain Store in Our State magazine, it brought back some good memories. My first permanent job was with a wholesale grocery company in Rocky Mount, the Thomas & Howard Corp. I was 18 years old at the time. Over time, J. A. Wells and I became shipping clerks responsible for overseeing the loading of trucks that went out on deliveries each day. Therefore, we pretty much stayed in the warehouse all week.
However, the warehouse was open on Saturday until 12:00 noon, mainly to accommodate small businesses and restaurants that would come in, but we did have a few short deliveries that went out on this day. This was the day that J. A. and I got to get out of the warehouse and drive a truck making these Saturday morning deliveries. My run was to Macclesfield and Fountain, and J. A.’s run took him to Farmville. My last stop was at R. A. Fountain’s. There I would wait for J. A. to come back through from Farmville, which was around 10:30 A.M., and we would take a Pepsi and nab break at R. A. Fountain’s before heading back to Rocky Mount. This was always our Saturday morning routine without exception. ‘Geez,’ this was almost 50 years ago.
–L. C. Pierce
