The turns in the road became sharper as the hills began to slope higher and higher as I passed through Louisa, Mineral, and Goochland, Virginia one fall afternoon a few years ago.

The sun was bouncing off the surrounding mountains a little after one o’clock as I pulled down a winding road into a small, gravel parking lot, which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.

The man with the toothless smile waved as he pulled up next to the small country store that reminded me of the Rabbit Hash General Store in Kentucky. I swung the screen door open, the vintage, metal “Butternut Bread” sign peering out between the two boards holding the door together.

Next to the door was an orange and blue Bayer aspirin sign that read, “Safe for aches and pains, and doesn’t depress the heart.”

As I walked into the store, almost everyone turned, even the blind woman sitting beside the counter with her service dog. Those that could see stared at me.

I had seen a Hires Root Beer sign on the wall, so I that’s what I ordered when the woman behind the counter asked, “May I help you?” in the smoothest southern drawl I had heard since Andy Griffith advertised Ritz Crackers.

“I’ll have a Hires Root Beer, please,” I replied. The nice lady smiled.

The men were sitting in a circle around two large barrels playing cards. The large wooden baskets brimmed with of all kinds of candy on the hardwood floor. Next to the candy was a Hostess display with Twinkies and orange cupcakes. The men were laughing and talking.

The screen door opened and a large man walked inside wearing a dark suit and red tie. Everyone seemed to know him. The country folk smiled and asked him to sit down in the middle of the circle they had formed.

The well-dressed man sat there for the longest time without saying a word. It was obvious he was studying the other men and listening to the chatter.

Finally, he stood up, cleared his throat and began to speak. To my surprise his topic of conversation was politics, particularly the upcoming governor’s race in Virginia.

The room became quiet. He spoke for about 20 minutes, and held the attention of every man in the room, as well as, the store clerk and the blind woman and her dog.

After saying goodbye to everyone, he headed out the door and jumped into his Ford pick-up truck heading north to Charlottesville.

Feeling it was time to leave, I said goodbye to those in the store and headed to my car. As I opened my car door, I saw a man climbing into his truck. “Excuse me sir. Who was that man?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s Ronnie Burdette. He works for one of the candidates for governor,” he said.

“That is a surprise. He didn’t look like a politician,” I replied.

“I met Ronnie one day in October of last year,” the man said.

He went on to tell me that Harry Byrd, the originator of the old political Byrd Machine, hired men like Ronnie, called runners, who were usually close political allies to travel the Commonwealth during the campaign.

According to this man, George Wallace, the late Governor of Alabama, later used the same technique.

“Some guy wrote a book about it called Of Goats and Governors,” he said.

“Byrd knew people liked to vote for the winner. They don’t want to waste their vote. The runner would stop at every country store in north Virginia posing as a businessman, or a feed salesman. He would engage the men at the country store in gossip about the weather, the crops, and would finally get around to the governor’s race,” the man said.

He went on to tell me that all the locals would look at the stranger who was traveling the state and say, “What do you hear about the governor’s race?” He would say, “Well I’ve been all over southern Virginia and Allen is going to carry it heavy.”

The runner would do the same thing when he went south, saying “Allen is going to get all the votes in north Virginia.”

The man’s explanation made me feel good. There was something innocent and well-mannered about the old-fashioned politics. He never raised his voice. He just had a calm conversation about politics with some people of the mountains, who enjoyed the exchange as they sat in a place set back in time.

Last summer, Brenda, Jack and I returned to the General Store and spent about an hour eating and soaking up the surroundings. .

“What kind of place is this, Grandpa?” Jack asked. “I like it!” he said matter-of-factly.

“It is a small slice of America, Jack. You should visit places like this as often as you can,” I replied.

“I love America, Grandpa,” Jack said.

“So do I, Jack. So do I.”

Pat Haley is a Clinton County Commissioner.