FOUNTAIN CITY — Ronnie Hensley, a retired letter carrier, gives directions by businesses that have closed. He walked the same route for decades and learned every corner by what stood on it, and he figures street signs are for people from out of town. When someone asks him how to get somewhere, he starts from a store that is gone.
Hensley gives his directions from a folding chair beside his carport, and he is sure they are enough. He will hold a visitor’s paper plate while he explains a turn.
“You go down to where the fellow fixed sweepers. He had that dog in there,” Hensley said. “Then you turn right at the Kroger, the one that’s a different Kroger now. Park along the side.”
His neighbor Linda Mercer followed those directions to a church supper and got there with the rolls sweating in the bread bag. She says she found the place all right. Mercer has since started giving directions back to him the same way.
“I told Ronnie we’d meet where the beauty shop used to be. My aunt had her hair done there,” Mercer said. “Anyway, he found us fine.”
Other visitors have picked it up too, and they now arrive at his carport with news about the old businesses. Hensley usually asks whether the sweeper man’s side door is still there.