I put some music on the ancient CD player. It doesn’t take long before two women from out-of-town step in with pleasant expressions and the familiar mantra, “I love stores like this!”

“We had one in Pine Valley we used to go to after school.”

I think to myself, “I don’t know where Pine Valley is, but I know the feeling.” It’s the warm, loving trigger of a childhood memory.

We exchange greetings and I let them have their fun browsing and buying while I go on restocking shelves with jars of jam and bars of locally made soap. It’s like hanging the laundry on the clothesline — the mundane is life affirming — the ritual almost spiritual.

What really is this small job in a small town? Simply a place for Inn guests to buy postcards; a way to keep another Main street storefront from newspaper covered windows? Is the nostalgia on the shelves and on the minds of those who enter simply quaint? Is it no more significant than the replicas of old Colonial buildings at state fairs?

I can’t claim Williams & Sons is important or makes a contribution to society, but this is no replica or re-enactment. It lives and breathes for people. The truth is, it’s an enterprise that means an awful lot to an awful lot of folks. Seemingly insignificant compared to the Berkshire landmarks that surround it, yet, I’m reminded every day by patrons of the shops like this that didn’t survive the second half of the 20th century. Didn’t survive the mall craze, highway bypasses and super stores. My stewardship of this small enterprise feels global.

I don’t want to live in a world without elephants or monarch butterflies. I don’t believe others do either. So, my diligence with the rows of jam jars, my safe wrapping of those same jars for customers taking them home, serves more than the moment. This small shop, this Main Street, is a connection to a social ecosystem that just feels healthy.

The country store has changed through the years, keeping pace but never embracing all of what the material world sells. The millennials love our rare qualities, and the older folks feel comfortable living this way. Like Stockbridge itself, the balance is hard to define, needs regular calibration, but you can’t put a value on making the effort of careful stewardship. Can’t underestimate everyday life in a small shop in a small town.