I’m old enough to recall the old community stores that catered to the needs of locals. You know, the places where the proprietor greeted you, sliced your baloney thick or thin, and handed your kids lollipops as you left. You ran into your neighbors there, wondered if the weather ever would get better, and laid a little nosy gossip on one and all that you convinced yourself was neighborhood news.
That kind of place for me was the Pleasant Valley Store & Trailside Mall. I write this little tribute as a columnist and a longtime, although only occasional customer, not a regular like many hundreds of others. Always when coming from the Midwest to stay with local friends or visiting Chena Hot Springs and its campgrounds, I stopped at Pleasant Valley and considered it a throwback to those community stores of old.
Technically. It was a convenience store, and its gas pumps and cooler shelves of cold six packs weren’t so different from every other stop-and-shop. However, longtime owners Alex and Becky Alexander made the store come alive with their gung-ho fervor and down-home hospitality.
Of course, residents of Two Rivers knew the couple and their store far, far better than infrequent visitors like me could know it.
In 19 years since they bought a shuttered, failed store from a local woman and spruced it up and expanded it, the Pleasant Valley Store and post office became the heart and soul of the area. “We bought it and built it up from nothing and over the years it continued to grow,” Becky said by phone.
Most years there was a near-end-of-winter bash called a fun-ale. The couple hosted Easter egg hunts and mini two-dog sled races for kids. Every musher in the area called the store their second home, and community meetings were held regularly. Always in the aisles you heard the buzz of good-natured trash talk and some bragging rights exercised by competing Yukon Quest mushers. “This was a place where you found the firefighters, mushers, and all the school children,” Becky said.
Two years ago, the unthinkable became the probable when co-owner Dennis “Alex” Alexander died from pulmonary and cardiac causes that he long had battled. A military veteran, a mid-distance musher and an outdoor adventurer, he knew all the area trails and the best fishing spots, and if he liked you, he might share some tips that did you some good.
Wife Becky, now widowed, kept the place going after he died, but eventually, acknowledge that even eras have a natural end.
“Snow removal among other things was a little too much,” she said.
She offered the whole she-bang for sale with liquor license, gas pumps, and the whole proverbial lock, stock, and barrel. One real estate ad listed a selling price of $800,000 but the final agreement was confidential.
Friday was Becky’s last day as store owner. Becky was out on errands as my wife Gosia snapped a few store photos and talked to the clerks. The clerks said they were staying to work at the store, but Kayla Mattacchione, an assistant of Bernie’s, already posted a job ad for an additional clerk. (Neither Mattacchione nor Karl had returned a message left Thursday at press time Friday).
“I am not sure yet exactly what I’ll do in retirement,” Becky said, although she suspects she’ll keep active with this and that project. “I know I’ll miss those Easter egg hunts. I look now and then at old photos of the kids, and now they’re grown and in college. Some have or will have kids of their own.”
“Just say I said, ‘Thank you to everyone, and thank you for your friendship.’”
Correction: An error in the print edition stated the advertised asking price of the property as $800 instead of $800K. This article was updated Sept. 3.
Contact managing editor and Golden Heart Tales columnist Hank Nuwer at Hanknuwer@newsminer.com.
