This is useless information I think...BUT...someone a while ago wrote a VERY visual description of how they saw the Mudcat in their mind's eye...talking about entering a very comfortable welcoming house with different activities going on in each room...Irish music in one room, Blues in another, warm conversation in the kitchen...etc. and that the excitement here was the ability to choose which room to sit in.
Allan C. Your post described, incredibly accurately, our long gone General Store here...(A&P came) Neighbors could share their news and sit for a bit...the common bond we had there was respect for our community's history. The older people shared their stories of growing up and lessons learned to us "younger" people, but the conversations were by no means restricted to local history or current events. People were continually coming in and asking questions, maybe join us for a bit, sharing where they were from..and leaving. The chairs were set to one side of the pickle barrel, and a few feet away was a large brick of cheese...if customers guessed the correct weight of the cheese slices they cut, it was free. We gradually came to care very deeply if one of the "regulars" was sick, having a rough time or missing for any length of time. It was never an "exclusive" group but respect for the history and comraderie of the store was required in order to enjoy spending any length of time there and coming back again. Different individuals sat around the pickle barrel for over a hundred years, long before I participated, and would have continued long after I left. Thanks for the imagery/memory.