I live on a busy road about five miles southeast of Ithaca. It is the major road that you will need to take if you are going from Ithaca to Boston, New York City, Philly, Jersey, D.C., Albany and other points east and south of Ithaca. Hundreds of cars drive past my house every hour, thousands a day I would guess. So there is a lot of traffic, but still very little in so far as local shopping is concerned. I'm on a bit of a shopping island out here. There's no grocery market or convenient store I can walk to. There's no local gas station or laundry or video store. The nearest business is a truck stop that sells diesel fuel and automotive supplies. In the 18 months I've lived here I've been there once. They are a half mile away.
The next closest retail business is the Brooktondale, New York post office. They are about 1.5 miles away. Just beyond the post office in what could be called "downtown" Brooktondale is the T-n-T mart. The T-n-T mart has been around what looks to be forever. They have a limited amount of stock and look like they haven't made too much of an investment in the building since about 1970. One friend of mine that used to live in the T-n-T walking area said, "You should definitely go check out the T-n-T. They are never open, the place needs dusting, its a total mess, but you have to go."
So today, after 18 months in the general neighborhood I found myself entering the T-n-T and what a world I discovered!
The T-n-T has been everything at one time in the past few years. As I ventured deeper into the store I passed a variety of snack foods and sundries. The stock was the basic small convenient store collection of overpriced condiments (they definitely aren't keeping afloat on volume sales) and that one ingredient that you always forgot to pick up at Wegman's (or Tops or P&C). Deeper into the store there were shelves filled with empty cardboard boxes, not orderly, more like just a storeroom that you needed to pass through to get to the wide selection of sodas, juices and beer. As I returned to the front of the store I noticed a key making machine that was dusty, but out there in the open. On my left was what looked to be a one-time deli counter with a glass display window (or was it an ice cream counter?). In the front of the store there were some cheeses, milk and other dairy items (as well as what looked like locally produced pepperoni sticks or sausage). The last refrigerator case had a selection of hand made knitted products.
Out front T-n-T has enough space to have been a gas station and a bus stop between the store and the road. This is downtown Brooktondale, the place I will return to when I need a candy fix, beer or taco seasoning.