Country Stores In North Carolina, photography by Tony Craig

The General Store. Once, it was the center of small-town America a place where old men gathered to gripe about baseball scores, and young mothers came seeking advice for Sunday dinner. Children spent summers inside purchasing penny candy. Regulars sat on front porches through the afternoon remembering their own younger years with a quiet wistfulness.

General Stores define the word neighbor. Customers who passed through their doors became part of a community. For a moment, the word grew very small, and in that tiny place, there was no such thing as a stranger.

Country Stores in North Carolina is Tony Craig's love letter to these havens that seem to sell yesterday from their shelves. For eight years, he traveled the counties of North Carolina photographing old general stores and interviewing their owners. His odyssey took him everywhere from Min-O-Pon in Stanly County to Priddy's Store near Danbury. Everywhere he visited, he found a bargain in one gentle truth: Sometimes you can go home again.