Wihinape

"Cosmic" Jim's Natural Food and Herb Store, Wihinape, Lakota for "The Sunrise," occupies the historic Fox Building in "downtown" Friendsville, Maryland -- population 600 and counting. In 1990, a Natural Food and Herb Store, run by a guy named "Cosmic" Jim, seemed out of place for Friendsville, a town in which the inhabitants, with few exceptions, traced their origins to the white European settler, John Friend. In the early 1760s, John Friend and his brothers, muskets in hand, walked across the mountains beyond the Cumberland Gap, and trekked through the pristine wilderness of the western territory to find a sacred valley, teeming with wild life, along the wide banks of the Youghiogheny River -- Shawnee for "river that flows in contrary direction." For 10,000 years, Native tribes had inhabited the sacred region known to them as the "Hunters Bowl." In 1763, the Shawnee agreed to let John Friend and his wife, Karrennhappuck, build a cabin on the banks of the "Yok" in exchange for an iron pot and assorted goods.

In the late 1800s, Frederick G. Fox opened his hardware store on Walnut Street. Churning through town, the C&O train shook the walls of his building as it passed behind the store, chugging north to Confluence, Pennslvania and, then, to Pittsburgh and beyond, loaded with coal, lumber, and locally grown livestock. Approximately one hundred years later, Cosmic" Jim and his father purchased the building and Jim opened his business.

Jim likes to invite friends and strangers to sit on his front porch to "smoke and joke." He loves a good story and people from far and wide have plenty to tell. When the urge to talk becomes too strong to ignore, anyone from Friendsville curious about spiritual subject matters or local happenings, heads to the Wihinape. If their timing favors a meeting, they find Jim behind the counter, or on the front porch watching the world pass by. At first sight, people might not know what to make of Jim. He isn't shiny and new, not a slick poster boy for Gold's Gym. At times, Jim's thin body hunches forward as if he wants to inspect things up close. His chiseled face reminds me of the West, the praire, the Medicine Man, and on a good day his brown eyes flash with light. Jim and his store are like the hub of a wheel. People tend to spin around its center, and as the world turns, they tell their stories. Finding-Friendsville is collection of stories about ordinary people seeking their roots, sifting through their lives, finding their own sense of Friendsville.