‘The best seat in the house is in the bread aisle’ Friday night jams bring fans from far and near to Monson General Store

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The Monson General Store is the kind of place conjured from childhood where a bit of everything is offered: supplies for making a Saturday night beef stew, a fan belt to fix the car, a chilled bottle of wine, ice-fishing flags, or a hoe for spring gardening.

But come 7 o’clock every Friday evening, into this most unusual setting the musicians start arriving and the front corner of the Monson General Store positively vibrates.

It’s Friday night jam time deep in the Maine woods, just a few feet from the Appalachian Trail.

“No matter where you are, no matter what you are doing, you know that Friday night means music in Monson,” says Holly Stelmok, 27, of Addison, grabbing her guitar and heading for the musicians’ circle.

She greets a 24-year-old guitar player and an 82-year-old fiddler. There’s a famous skier playing the accordion and a gospel singer with a banjo. Store owner Tim Anderson pulls up a chair and cradles his guitar. Others pick up a zither, a mandolin and two more fiddles.

The ice cream cooler gets buried in guitar cases, and last-minute tuning takes place in the dairy section.

The musicians form a circle close to the front door, sitting on whatever they can find: wooden folding chairs, a stool, a canvas lawn chair.

The audience is waiting, and the owner’s wife, Julie – who also happens to be the town manager – minds the till.

Chairs are tucked up and down the aisles of the country store. Some sit by the meat scale, while others lean against shelves containing Kleenex, batteries, playing cards and pickles.

“The best seat in the house is in the bread aisle,” says a visitor from Massachusetts. “My friend has a camp at Sebec Lake and he told me about this place,” says William Benoit of Winchendon. “This is amazing. This is real. It is absolutely enchanting.”

There is no spotlight; the players are illuminated by the glow from the video rental rack. “Rent 10 Get 11th Free” the sign beams down on the players. A barrel of pitchforks and a shelf of spark plugs become their backdrop.

“You never know who is going to show up or how many people you will have,” Anderson says. “It has reactivated a real sense of community here. There is no bar, no booze. Just pure entertainment. You wouldn’t believe some of the talent that comes in here off the trail in the summertime. It can be absolutely amazing.”

Musical passion doesn’t need a coliseum audience of 100,000, mega-amplifiers or a grand concert hall. It need not be practiced on a cathedral-size pipe organ or a priceless Stradivarius violin.

It can be just as sweet and accomplished when played from the heart in the aisles of a country store.

Mud season, winter snowdrifts, factory closings and worries take a back seat while the music takes center stage amidst the shelves of baked beans, Twinkies and canning jars at the century-old mercantile.

The idea for a Friday night jam session began two years ago when Anderson and a couple of buddies sat down to mourn the end of fishing season by playing guitars. Since then, “The Final Fishing Finale” has taken on a spirit and sense of community all its own.

Anderson says there is no organization to the event. “The only requirement is to have fun,” he says.

As more musicians arrive and as a dozen-plus squeeze into the small storefront, suddenly the line between the pickers and the grinners is blurred.

“May the circle be unbroken,” wavering voices sing, followed by “Heartaches by the Number” and “Go Tell Aunt Rhody.”

As this band of strangers adjusts to one another’s playing speeds and styles, they slip into a common rhythm.

And the music rolls.

It slides across the worn wooden floors and bounces off the tin ceilings. It slips down the aisles, enveloping the laundry detergent, the potato chips, the cat food. It circles around the Budweiser beer blimp hanging from the ceiling and slides by a 1944 wall calendar.

Toes tap.

Hands clap.

Just for a while, the audience forgets that it’s tucked in between the bananas and the hot dog buns. The musicians fail to notice the bottles of shampoo and boxes of tinfoil at their elbows.

This music isn’t perfection. It’s often not in key and it’s rarely three-part harmony.

But it is joy. Pure joy.

For those who gather each Friday in the aisles of the Monson General Store, the music can silence the howl of a winter wind and celebrate the arrival of summer. It can soften disappointments, raise up accomplishments and send everyone home with a smile.

Throughout the evening, customers drift in and out, picking up a dozen eggs, a weekend six-pack or a loaf of bread. But no one shopping for supplies seems surprised to find a 20-piece band ripping out a country tune by the cash register; all the locals know what to expect on Friday night.

The makeshift band stops playing for a minute and during the break the telephone rings. One musician jokes loudly, “It’s the governor calling. You’re going to have to tax this. We’re having too much fun.”

Laughter ripples through the group, a few more chords are strummed, and they are off and running again, this time “down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico,” followed by a tune about a hobo camp and some spirited yodeling.

Listening from a hole-in-the-wall kitchen across the store, June and Al White are serving up chili dogs, fried chicken, onion rings and hamburgers.

“The kitchen is open only Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights until mud season is over and the tourists start coming back,” says June White.

“If it wasn’t for the Friday night music, we wouldn’t make it through the winter,” she says, as patrons line up for supper. “You can’t beat this for entertainment.”

Dale Dickie of Brownville began playing at the Monson General Store two months ago. “It brings back memories, the old-time music. It also makes new friends,” he says.

Jim Brown, who first picked up a fiddle in 1934, enjoys “coming down and seeing the boys” on Friday nights.

When he lost his wife awhile back, friends were worried the 82-year-old Brown was fading away. But after persuading him to join the Friday night music circle, those same friends say they saw the pink come back into Brown’s cheeks.

“I look forward to it,” he admits.

The audience joins the band in softly singing “The Hobo Lullabye” and then picks up the tempo with “Bye and Bye.”

Despite the surroundings – the groceries and the sodas and the hardware – the setting is intimate. It feels like community, like family.

“This is the best thing ever,” Stelmok says, hugging her guitar.

LaVance Armstrong of Parkman – who is having such a good time that she forgets to sit down for three hours – agrees.

“This is my first night here,” she says. “I’m coming back, though. I know that!”

Dale Dickey of Brownville (left) and Lynn Bearce of Guilford tune up their guitars next to the dairy cooler before joining other musicians in a circle at the front of the Monson General Store recently.