I became the shopkeeper for my family’s roadside produce stand. My life, as most people would have defined it, was small: The South Carolina town that contained my family’s farm had a population of 162 people, and a good number of them were related to me. Most folks who stopped by were on their way to somewhere else—the freshwater lake for bass fishing, a girls’ weekend in Charlotte or Atlanta. These out-of-towners would marvel at
