Creepy Joe's Kuntree Store with Hor

William Least Heat-Moon’s Roads to Quoz, An American Mosey, is a story full of intricate language and figurative speech that’ll likely raise many questions. The extract provided is a chronologically and linearly structured narrative that is written in first-person to describe Joe’s Country Store, and its features. In doing so, William Least Heat-Moon provides readers with a welcoming setting.

William Least Heat-Moon begins by introducing Joe’s Country Store. He describes it as having the look of “an old village-grocery,” implying that it was a family-run business. This can be further inferred when reading through the rest of the sentence, as William continues by saying that it was an “institution seriously diminishing across America,” showing that family-run businesses are becoming less and less over the years. In the store, William tells of the now four females who have “assembled hoagies and rolled out homemade pizza dough” in the store. He first brings up Bert, then Betty or “their granddaughter.” This implies that Bert and Betty are grandparents.

The first two paragraphs are where William Least Heat-Moon truly exemplifies the intricacies of his language. We learn that at Joe’s Country Store, sandwiches are often made and William prefers the “sandwich of several names.” In this paragraph, William discusses his typical order at the store. In the previous paragraph, William compares a homemade sandwich to that of a franchise, essentially comparing Joe’s to a Subway. He states that a franchised sandwich is to a “well-filled grinder” from a store as “shaken milk is to a milkshake.” In saying this, William is essentially saying that there is no comparison between a Joe’s sandwich and that of a franchise.

It is important to note that the first two paragraphs of Roads to Quoz are written in the past tense, whereas the following paragraph is written in the present tense and introduces a new character. The first two paragraphs consist of phrases such as “we went” and “it had,” whereas the following paragraph consists of quotes from the conversation. William Least Heat-Moon orders his intricate sandwich, and exchanges commentary with Patricia, who is making the sandwich. This commentary turns into a conversation that eventually details the “recent irruption the Susquehanna made through Lanesboro,” the town that Joe’s Country Store is located in. This ‘irruption’ is part of a larger metaphor in William’s writing.

Further conversation is seen in the third paragraph. In it, William is handed a pamphlet that highlights historical areas of the village. Patricia offers him pictures, which causes him to expect the “customary personal archive a visitor may find in hinterland America.” William’s choice to use the noun ‘hinterland’ gives the audience an even further perception of the rural area that he is in. Hinterland is often used to describe an area that is unknown or not mapped yet, however in this case it is being used to describe the rural town of Little Lanesboro.

In regards to the metaphor surrounding the river Susquehanna, William Least Heat-Moon makes this apparent in the final paragraph of the excerpt. Following the offer of photos, Patricia sends her daughter, Sarah, home to fetch her laptop. When she returns, she opens the laptop and shows William a video of Old Man Susquehanna “coming into town and, with neither invitation nor a wiping of his feet, slipping into parlours to leave behind mud and stink.” This can be related directly to the river Susquehanna that irrupted through Lanesboro. It can be said that Old Man Susquehanna similarly irrupted through Lanesboro and left mud and stink behind.

Throughout his narrative, William Least Heat-Moon uses informal language that welcomes the audience to the text. His description of Joe’s Country Store and its features help to create a welcoming atmosphere in the store. The standard “meat and cheese counter” contribute further to the environment that is created by the store.