Welcome to The Shop. Arthur Benjamin Lohnes was proprietor of a small country store known locally as The Shop in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, from 1919 through 1957. AB, as he was called, provided a welcoming haven to people eager to indulge in the venerable art of loafing and storytelling. The yarns were spun by some of the most colourful characters of the first half of the twentieth century. With the blessing of their wives, menfolk met there regularly around the warmth of AB's pot-bellied stove, a cozy forum in which to relate experiences and share their concerns of the day. The practice was carried out almost to the point of ceremony. Starring actors in this pageant of patriarchs ranged from grizzled old blue water sea captains through ordinary seamen to shore fishermen, a preacher, store owner, and a part-time postmaster. The tales are spliced with a biographical narrative — glimpses of adventures and misadventures - of a gentle, kindly woman, once a child, to whom the book is dedicated. The tales recounted within the walls of AB's store take the reader back to a bygone era of daily poverty and everyday adventures in a coastal Nova Scotian community. Thanks to these storytellers, the past survives and comes alive for the modern reader.
