This is getting to be a very bad joke, if that’s what it’s supposed to be.  As you may have read in my previous article (Well,  It’s About Time), the Wilmot  Country Store (was) due to be mine, and I was to begin trading as such, on Jan 31st, which is now less than a week away.  That’s not gonna happen, folks.  In the wee hours of yesterday morning, it was fire-bombed and the Wilmot Country Store is no more.

It’s too soon to know what will happen from here, but I am hoping to still proceed with it.  The community here needs that shop, and a number of folks were counting on the jobs.  Depending on what the owners decide to do, I hope to be able start trading at a very basic level in temporary quarters while a large shed is erected.  Then we can trade a bit more comprehensively from the shed while the shop is being re-built.  That’s if I get the chance to do it.  But, as I said, it’s too soon to know.

The owners are still pretty shell-shocked and not ready to think about it.  They barely escaped the inferno, their son got out in the knick of time–and in the knick (naked) literally.  They’ve lost everything — clothes, furniture, personal items, memorabilia — the lot.  My heart goes out to them.  My own losses are only financial.

One of the saddest parts of the story is that it was apparently arson.  The losses would have been devastating in any case, but that it was such a deliberate and malicious act makes it all the more terrible.  We can only hope the perpetrator(s) will be caught and appropriately dealt with.  Burning at the stake seems appropriate…  (Only joking.  Sort of).

A Blooming shame…

Not a very cheery post, but I wanted to share with you what has happened so that you will not be surprised when my posts take a turn of a different sort.  I expect the aftermath — and the coming weeks — will be no less interesting, and fraught, than the opening of the shop would have been.  But different.  Certainly different.             MM