The Retail Diaries, Part 5
By Patricia Racine
November 2025
When my parents told me back in 1996 that they bought Katie’s Country Store in East Otis I asked them where Otis was. I had never been here even though I grew up in the next town. I commuted to Gateway and worked in Westfield, and we always went east on Route 23. If we had to go west, we went through Chester and Becket; Otis was all new to me. And now there are some things that I have experienced for the first time even though I have lived here for 18 years, like the transfer station. I had never been to it before. It’s a great place to catch up on the town gossip.
Over the years both my parents and I have made some great friends that to this day we see regularly. We vacation with these friends and celebrate holidays with them. Once we helped one very close friend with transportation to and from the hospital, even meeting the ambulance with him. For me, most of my close friends are pretty much only here in the summer, particularly on Big Pond. I have been incredibly fortunate to count among those friends a couple that also own their own small business. They were a godsend to me because it is near impossible to vent to just anyone about the ups and downs in business ownership. Trusting people in such a small town is tough, and you can only get burned by “friends” so many times before you start to internalize everything. And that’s not healthy. So to Lance and Cindy, thank you so much for listening and advising me.
I have also met and befriended some very interesting people over the years in the store. I really enjoyed getting together with people older than me because they always have the best stories. I’ve spent many evenings over on Big Island listening to the adventures of a former CNN foreign correspondent. I’ve been invited to take in the culture of the Berkshires with a couple that is well versed in such matters. I’ve been invited to holiday dinners with friends when my family was away and I had to work. I’ve hiked all over the Berkshires with lots of different former customers and spent countless afternoons sitting on porches listening to stories about Otis back in the old days. Those stories make me nostalgic for a town I once never knew.
The friends that I made are the greatest gifts I received from the store. They are the ones who were genuinely happy for me to start this new chapter. It’s a common conception for a small town shop owner to be everyone’s “friend.” But in reality, we have to be very careful with our friendships, else we easily get taken advantage of. I guess I’m lucky because I formed a great group of friends over the years from all walks of life and have learned so much from these wonderful people.
