One after the next, Lane knows every other customer who comes in by name, too.
“I have met a lot of people over the years, that’s for sure,” she said.
Lane was born and raised in Crab Orchard and has lived in Lincoln County near Hustonville for the past 20 years. She has a daughter who is married to a professor at Union College in Barbourville.
She goes to church as much as she can and said she changed her membership to Danville Church of God, where her sister attends, because of all the church did for them when their mother died.
“When I had my bout with cancer three years ago, the church was there for me,” she said.
She already had customer-service training from her three years working at a market in Junction City for the Coffman family when she made the move to what was then called the Super-X.
“I cried my eyes out after I got home that first day, because I’d only had the one other job and this was so different,” she said. “I swore I’d never go back.”
She did.
The store was later called Revco for a short time and finally CVS.
The original building was only a year old when she first came to work, but she outlasted that structure. It was torn down when the new store opened two years ago.
The current location is shiny and bright and has not only medicines but everything from lawnchairs to lipstick.
Did they lose anything in the transition to the new? Like maybe some of the old store’s heart?
“I brought the heart with me,” Lane said.
Customers in and customers out, for decades have seen her stocking shelves and making change.
She is a big part of what keeps them coming back but what has kept her coming back?
Originally it was the doubled salary — from $1 an hour in Junction City to $2 — and benefits. She has enjoyed the steadiness of an income that, she says, didn’t make her rich but provided for all her needs.
“It is how we strive, here, for the personal touch that has kept me here for so long. There are two others working here who have been here for 31 years now each — that’s over 100 years of service between us!”
“I think I’ve been pretty blessed. I’ve never felt the need to go anywhere else,” she said.
Except maybe fishing, which she said she loves.
She may have more time to fish soon. Or not.
“It seems like I just turned around — and 43 years have passed.”
