If a Wal-Mart SuperCenter and a Buc-ee’s married and reproduced, they’d have to buy Arkansas and Oklahoma, maybe part of Missouri, just to have room to raise the offspring.
These are not small stores. A store is Mr. Menefee’s Esso back home where you could get an RC and a candy bar while you filled up or while Mr. Menefee helped you fix a flat on your bicycle.
Our modern-day Wal-Marts and Buc-ees are more like mini republics.
Old memories of that idea were aroused this week when “mid-2026” was announced as the much-anticipated opening of the Buc-ee’s in Ruston, followed by the breaking news that Wal-Mart plans to remodel or “refresh” some Shreveport and Bossier City locations, and completed a refresh on the Airline Drive SuperCenter store in 2024.
The SuperCenter store on Airline? The one that opened 29 years ago This Month? I can’t say it seems like yesterday, being 29 years and all. But I remember that opening because … because I was there.
It is the first time I’d ever realized that, in theory, a person could be born, educated, married, work, and die at a SuperCenter and never leave the store. If they added on a cemetery, you’d never have to leave the property of the nation’s top retailer at all. Not enver ever never.
I mean, unless you wanted to go over to Buc-cee’s. Spend a decade or two there. Maybe work at Wal-Mart then spend your retirement years in Buc-ee’s.
I got to the sparkling new Wal-Mart SuperCenter on Airline that May morning in 1996 at 8:55 for the 9 o’clock grand opening. Had to park way out by the street, but I expected that. My fault for being so late.
I pulled into the lot behind an Olds and an Astrovan. Parked between a new Suburban and an old Reliant with no bumper and a brake light covered by red tape.
That’s so Wal-Mart; it beckons both the prince and the pauper.
I heard the end of the grand opening ceremonies. Mayors, managers, Haughton High Steppers, photographers, heads of state: they were all there. They came in peace, dressed to the nines, bearing proclamations of goodwill and best wishes for happy shopping.
The crowd applauded and swelled and breathed and, with a life of its own, moved hungrily toward the doors.
Caught in the happy mess, I felt cow-like. But crossing from pavement to welcome mat to tile, a holy-of-holies kind of feeling flooded over me and I wondered whether or not I should take my shoes off.
Wal-Mecca-Mart.
At 9:01, I bought a pack of gum and became the first person to use Checkout Stand Number 36. Friendly, courteous, efficient service. So proud.
My shopping done, I roamed.
And gazed.
Me and my Juicy Fruit had never seen anything like it.
Past the vision center and the bank and the barber shop, through the crafts and the power tools and the underrated fabric department, around by men’s fashions and down the toiletries aisle.
Sensory overload.
In the RV accessories department, I caught a shopping cart in the shin by an overeager shopper and sort of lost the will to roam. But I’d had a couple of good, solid hours under my belt by then, not nearly enough time to see the whole store but plenty of time to form some thoughts I’d never thought before, like …
Where will they install an elementary school in here? By the furnishings? Office aisle? There was already a burger place in there for all your nutritional wants and needs — unless you ever wanted maybe a vegetable.
Son: “Dad, can we eat at Wal-Mart again tonight?
Father: “Sure, son! We need a shower rod and some Quaker State anyway!”
Plus bathrooms, front AND back.
I know Sam has built a Wal-Mart in heaven by now. Since it’s heaven, every parking spot, somehow, is by the front door.
And there’s no line at Checkout Stand Number 36.
Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu
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