One more loss

4/2/2025

The letter began well enough: “Dear friend.” Who doesn’t want to be a friend?

But then it quickly went south: “Back Country will be closing its doors for good in the next few month.”

Oof!

Aging is a little like playing that game where you take away blocks all stacked on top of each other. As each block is taken away, the structure sways but then hopefully holds. Knees, hips, ears, eyes all go by the wayside as you stand there swaying while the air blows through the gaps. But you wake up each morning finding yourself surprisingly still upright and wondering where you can get a cinnamon roll. See, you won.  

And the best part of all this taking away is that, as an old person, you are no longer in the race — intentionally or not. (It took me awhile to come to terms with that proposition.) As a result, you can do anything you want. You want to stay up all night? Stay up. You want to talk with a German accent? Talk with a German accent. You want to jump in the downtown fountain? Jump away.

But when it comes to clothes, my wife has drawn the line, which explains why I am in Back Country in Beaverdale. 

“That shirt is just a little too short on you, Joe.”

Well, of course it is. My body is a shape not found in the natural world.

“How does this other shirt look?” Jay Cox-Kozel speaks to me with a straight face, as if my opinion is trustworthy.

It’s not.

Let’s face it, my fashion sense leans toward pajama bottoms and raggedy T-shirts. Although, sometimes I’ve even chosen the pure bizarre. I wore two-tone leather saddle shoes to my wedding 44 years ago with a toe box shaped like the shoes worn by Mombo the Clown on “The Dr. Max Show.” I thought I was quite stylish. 

Obviously, my wife had to do an intervention. She suggested (demanded?) that I let others pick out my clothes.

Enter the wonderful Jay Cox-Kozel, who owns Back Country in Beaverdale. Always kind, never demeaning, smart and — to my delight — deadpan funny, he became my personal dresser without those words ever being uttered between the two of us.

“Jay, I need adult pants that feel like pajama bottoms. What can you do?” 

And Jay would find me pants that felt like pajama bottoms but, and this was key for my wife, without looking like someone should send me to bed and sing me a lullaby.

“Jay, I don’t want to dress like a 20-something, but I need a shirt that is stylish and feels as comfortable as a torn T-shirt.”

And Jay would find me such a shirt and never once laugh at my preference for clothes that felt like something I could use to wipe the oil off a dipstick.

Life was good… but then it wasn’t.

“Back Country will be closing,” the letter said. 

“I don’t remember the stages of grief, but for the time being, there has been enough work to do that I haven’t yet dealt with the reality of it.”

Jay has melancholy eyes on the best of days. The closing of his store has turned his eyes into those of a very sad bloodhound.

“It’s not guilt, but it is humbling, as it increasingly dawns on me that I’ve been the steward of this institution, the anchor of a community, and I have to pull that out of people’s lives. There’s a responsibility that comes with that.”

Compassionate and self-reflective, Jay’s next calling should be as a very dapper monk who dresses in layers, of course.   

“Really good friends, supporters and customers have come in. I attempt, and probably fail, at expressing gratitude to them. Everybody has been immensely supportive. There is a little disbelief because the store has been an institution for so long and, also, there is a lot of sympathy.”

What was the best and what was the worst thing about running this store?

“The best thing about the store is the people. The family that started the business, of course, and all the colleagues along the way. And my longtime business partner, Austin. Our customers as well. I really truly consider many my friends.”

What do you think will happen to those friends?

“You develop all these relationships with people you admire and respect and enjoy, but so many exist primarily in the store. They are transactional relationships. I give you product, and you give me money. I try to say I really value them as humans, and the amount of respect and interest I have in them exists outside of those transactional relationships. I yearn to communicate that in a convincing way.”

See what I mean? A reflective, dapper monk… in spades.  

And the worst?

“The worst thing about the store… I’m awful at selling things. I don’t like taking people’s money. Not a good thing if you’re in retail.”

So, there you have it. My personal dresser is moving on. The store I love is shutting down. Another loss for an old man and for the community. So, from now on, if you see a guy in pajama bottoms and a raggedy T-shirt wandering around a donut display, smile understandingly at him. That would be me. ♦

Joe Weeg spent 31 years bumping around this town as a prosecutor for the Polk County Attorney’s Office. Now retired, he writes about the frequently overlooked people, places and events in Des Moines on his blog: www.joesneighborhood.com.