Cracker Barrel decides not to erase an important part of American history with a rural purge

Cracker Barrel's rural purge failed

The Cracker Barrel original logo dispute raises an important issue. The importance of rural America in the midst of cancel culture. The store was named for the tradition of the large barrel filled with soda crackers in old country stores, where men gathered for conversation and games like checkers.

In the early 1970s, the "Rural Purge" removed popular television series like Green Acres, The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Hee Haw, and others that depicted the easy-going county life. Sam Drucker's store on Pettycoat Junction depicted the men in the area playing checkers and eating pickles from the barrel.

Cracker Barrel fans expressed their displeasure with the new logo, and the original one was returned. While some may think the image of the man in the chair is "country" and outdated, it reminds me and others of our childhood.

For someone reading this article, the man in the image reminds them of their father, grandfather, uncle, brother, or neighbor. The outcry from the public was heard, and the rural purge failed.

Uncle Hershel was real for many

I grew up in Botetourt County, where at Dooley's store on 460 East in Blue Ridge, Virginia, three or four "Uncle Hershel's" sat in chairs around a table just shooting the breeze. They usually wore overhauls just like Junior Samples on the CBS television show Hee Haw.

Two blocks away, across the four-lane highway, these same men and a few others would sit on a long bench in front of Ms. Georgia's store. I think of them today as I watch episodes of Green Acres where Fred Ziffel, Mr. Haney, and others ate from the pickle barrel and stood around in Sam Drucker's General Store.

Rural life was complicated

In the Twilight Zone episode Hocus Pocus and Mr. Frisbie the action begins in a store with a pot-bellied stove and several men sitting around and talking. One individual told me that KKK meetings to harm African Americans may have taken place in such settings.

If true, it was not the case in every situation, at least not to my knowledge in my neck of the woods. In Montvale, Virginia, about 20 minutes down 460 East, there was a different story.

In the 1970s, a White co-worker who lived in the area in a location called Goose Creek told me that Klan meetings took place behind the giant gas containers off Route 460. She said Black people should be careful driving through the area at night.

No Black people who lived in the location ever told stories of being harassed, but I share this to acknowledge that everything was not squeaky clean in country living. Whatever the men in the two stores discussed in private, they were always polite and spoke when I encountered them.

Speaking out brings change

This is a part of America, and Cracker Barrel customers demanded that it not be erased. In this situation, speaking out brought changes. While some may laugh and use crude wording to describe men who sat around in stores, this was the only life that some of them ever knew.

For everyone who agreed the logo needed changing, they should rethink their attitude. The new CEO , Julie Feiss Masino had said sales were down and some things needed to change, but the logo was not one of them.

This was a case of trying to solve a problem when the choice made did not address what was really going on. The company tried to fix what was not broken, and it did not work.

Americans are losing jobs, and prices on consumer goods continue to increase. US citizens are cutting back on everything in an attempt to survive. Cracker Barrel's declining sales are collateral damage. The only thing to fix it is for prices to decrease and for Americans to have more discretionary funds.