Dispatches from the American now

One man’s dream: threatened by grief, saved by community

By Neal Karlen (1.27.2012)

RALEIGH, N.C. — Today, political morticians of most every genus are finishing their dissections of this week’s State of the Union Address. Yes, the conventional wisdom now conventionally goes, Obama occasionally played political chess. Yet more seriously, he seemed to have confronted the quandary of whether or not the American Dream of owning a home, sending one’s kids to college, and retiring in dignity had evolved into a pipe dream, reserved for Americans who come to the table with pockets already bulging with chips.

One of the President’s closest observers is Taylor Cash, 56, owner of “Taylor’s,” a British Petroleum gas station located in a residential neighborhood just off the interstate in Raleigh, N.C. Last year, a broken heart last year almost destroyed his own version of that American dream – in his case, building and maintaining a thriving family business.  Grief came closer to killing that business than all the variations (and his own impotence) over the price of gas. (FYI, he says, “Every night at 6 p.m. I get a call from BP Oil telling me what the price of gasoline will be tomorrow.”)

His place isn’t just a filling station, but a community center where sometimes a dozen regulars gather of a morning to swap tales, share opinions and swill coffee. “We have CEO’s from Raleigh stopping in, and landscapers who spend their days blowing leaves,” Cash says. “But they’re all quite vocal. You really can get the pulse of what’s going on just by listening.” 

He opened the station 32 years ago with his newlywed wife, Gail, and together they weathered the ups and downs of the economy ever since. “There were cycles of hard times when we didn’t know if we’d make it,” he says. “Our best year ever was 2010.”

Yet come 2011, the wife who’d stood by his side every second the station was open died unexpectedly, and suddenly nothing made sense for Cash. The foundation of his America seemed unable to deal with individual catastrophe; he was in a free fall. The business almost went under until, in the old-fashioned way, he was joined by family, namely his son Ben, who took his own grief and poured it into making the station work again.

Like most successful business owners, this father-and-son team learned to adapt to the changing needs of their customers, and soon were renting videos, selling fine wine that went for up to $100 a bottle and peddling organic coffee.

“We re-did things to survive,” says Cash. “Part of this new economy is knowing how necessary it is to adapt to survive, to see what’s new and act.”

Yet more than fancy coffee was the sense of community that enveloped Cash. “My son Ben stepped up and took over, and my customers stepped up and supported us,” Cash says. “In America, everyone is so spread out now that I don’t know how people survive without the kind of support network so many of us grew up with.”

He feels community growing all about him. “I think we’re getting away from shopping at Sam’s, Costco and Walmart, and realizing that especially in small towns there’s more to it than simply saving a few cents. By shopping local and supporting the shopkeeper, I think people hungering for community are realizing that they are helping to keep that community together. People look at all they’ve lost—in home values, in the huge deficits they have personally and in our government, and they want that sense of a village that works.”

All, however, is not Mayberry and apple pie with cheese. Regulars who gather every morning, at his station, Cash says, are mostly conservative. “Their view is that things are okay in some ways, but are unhappy with the economy and taxes, and fear more than ever that their income will be taken over by the government.” More directly relevant to Cash’s life, they are furious that the massive Alaska pipeline project has stalled.

Yet he returns over and again to the notion that it takes a village. “I get the sense,” he says, “that people are yearning to return to the old feeling that you can keep it together through community.”

Images courtesy of Tyler Cash.