BREAKFAST WITH A SIDE OF HOMESPUN CHARM

DANA JENSEN/The Day

Regulars chatting over their morning coffee is a common scene at the store.

Noank - Just as they do every Monday morning, Ben and Rosalie Rathbun amble into Carson's Store, plunk themselves in a tiny booth, and are greeted by Loretta Lane, coffee pot in hand.
"Hi," she says, "What do you need?"
"You know what I need," says Rosalie Rathbun, "so why the hell are you asking?"
The gales of laughter this remark occasions might mystify a casual visitor, but to the regulars at Carson's Store it's an ancient inside joke.
Carson's, after all, is a 102-year-old tradition, and Ben, 81, who grew up in the house next door, has long been a part of it. Rosalie, who married him at age 18, has been coming almost as long.
And just how old is Rosalie?
"Don't you dare ask me how old I am."
As for Loretta, she started working here 27 years ago, when she was just 18. You do the math.
"Loretta's a great hostess," Ben Rathbun says.
Actually, Loretta's been coming to Carson's since she was 3 years old.
"I'd steal my brothers' wheat pennies, line 'em up on the counter and get penny candy," she says. "And I'd always get caught. It never failed. They'd walk in the door ... I got a punch in the arm every time."
Carson's, to put it simply, is more like a big family packed into a small kitchen than a diner. It seats nine people at the counter and six in the booths, just enough to compose a compact uproarious crowd.
"Some mornings," Ben says, "you can't hear yourself think in here."
"Everybody knows everybody," Rosalie says. "You know 'em by sight. And it's wonderful. I love it."
"They're in here all year, every Monday morning and then some," says Krista Holdgate, who works alongside Loretta. "It really hasn't changed all that much."
From the outside, Carson's Store is an unprepossessing brown building in the heart of Noank with a big sign over the door advertising everything from "Conversation" and "Hospitality" to "Ice Cold ICE" and "Smokes." Shoot a black-and-white picture of the place, and one could be forgiven for thinking it was taken 100 years ago.
Inside, countless cups of coffee have worn the green Formica countertops white, but the chrome trim on the counter and the stools still gleams. As does the black and white checkerboard tile floor.
Signs for Moxie and Ted's Creamy Root Beer decorate the walls, along with childlike drawings - Snow White, Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland - done by the father of the current owner, David Blacker, some 30 years ago.
There are no menus at Carson's store, just the blackboard posted above the counter, listing its minimalist fare: Breakfast is the traditional bacon, eggs, toast, etc., and lunch is strictly sandwiches.
The ice cream consists of the holy triumvirate of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, along with the more exotic coffee, mint chocolate chip and something called "swamp," a flavor that Loretta says contains "everything but the kitchen sink."
There's still a row of candy jars behind the counter, but penny candy isn't a penny anymore. A jawbreaker's a dime, Double Bubble a nickel, and even a single Swedish fish will set you back 3 cents.
Across from the register is a set of dark wooden boxes, like old post office pigeon holes. Each box bears a name and - with few exceptions - a newspaper. This is where longtime customers pick up their papers each morning.
"Karen Shultzman, who actually owned the store, her grandfather, Joseph Burbine, built this," Loretta says. "And that's where we save the papers, and it works just perfectly today. No need to change it. Some people have passed on, but we keep their name up as long as we can. So there's no reason to take it down."
Sitting in the nearest booth, Laury Vaden and her husband, Tom, are visiting from New Jersey. Both say they always stop in to Carson's when they're in town, because Laury remembers Carson's from when she grew up on Beebe's Cove.
"I was always able to walk or ride my bike. This was the first bike ride," Laury says. "I was born in '55, so my memories are from the early '60s, and it was dark, there was everything then ... candy ... it was chock full of stuff.
"It's a special place," she says. "It's become a community meeting place ... like an older gentleman comes in, and they say, 'How are you doing today? Would you like a cup of coffee? How are you feeling?' And they take time and they ask him how he is. And that's so nice to see."
Sitting in the next booth over, Suzanne Rathbun, Ben and Rosalie's daughter-in-law, agrees.
"It's a family thing," she says. "Everybody cares about everybody. If somebody's in distress, somebody comes to their aid without asking. We look out for each other. It's a great community to grow up in and live in."
She's known the place since childhood too.
"I used to get three pieces of candy for a penny back then," she says. "That's how old I am."
The folks at Carson's keep a "memory book," a notebook open to anyone who wants to reminisce in writing. There are entries from people living all across the country.
Allison Murray of Masons Island remembers "stories of my father, Alexander Murray III, rowing his dinghy across from Deep Harbor ... to Carson's to buy milk, bread, etc., for his mother."
Lauren Murphy of Norfolk, Va., writes: "Carson's - the center of Noank's universe! As a kid ... penny candy in the little brown bags and ice cream on a hot summer day - gotta love it! I'm all grown up now and here on my birthday for breakfast."
And Lisa Marie Kackowski Terhaar of San Diego, Calif., remembers "the long walk to Carson's" when she was 9 years old. It was the first time her parents let her walk there by herself for a "shopping spree."
It was, she writes, "one of the best summers of my life."
Meanwhile, Ben Rathbun is insisting that he hasn't been coming here all that long. He was a fisherman in his youth, and most days he was out on the water long before the store opened.
"I'm not an old-timer," he says. "Fifty years fishing, we never went here because we were out at 4 o'clock in the morning."
"Yeah," says Rosalie, "but you live next door to the house you were born in, for chrissake. That makes you an old-timer."
k.robinson@theday.com