Coit Ray store and later on Pete Avery garage would start a auto mechanic business next door; intersection of Hwy 98/Durham Rd and Hwy 50/Creedmoor Rd; Wake Forest NC

Coit was my great uncle. He and Aunt Helen lived in the house behind the store. The garage was run by Pete Avery, I believe.

If this was 1966, that was 8 years before Pete Avery rented the warehouse there on the left. There was a very dangerous grade crossing and stoplight there at the intersection (NC98 & US50). NC DOT took all this property to put in a clover leaf intersection in the late 70s.

This was my grandparents, Coit and Helen Ray, home and store.

I grew up in this house, my dad Coit Jr., was Coit and Helen's oldest son. Our family lived in this house from about 1965 to 1977. My mom’s name is Janice and by brothers name was Mark. Dad rented and ran this store from “Pa”, starting in ~1969 after Stanton Bailey ran it for a while. I learned to ride a bike in this yard, pulled many switches (for myself) from that Weeping Willow tree located just behind and to the left of the store. I threw thousands of balls against that chimney on the other side of the house learning to catch. Mark and I played in a kitty pool in the back yard, or got sprayed by the garden hose by mom as we ran around in our tighty whities…. substitute for a shower. I scraped and painted this house in ~1973 listening to an AM radio that Diane gave me for Christmas. Dad and I played catch in the front yard…I got hit in the head by the first knuckle ball I ever saw…thanks dad  . Our family played horseshoes in the front yard just beyond this photo upper right corner. I carried many 50 lb. bags of dog food to the house from the store, we had lots of dogs (goats, rabbits, guinea pigs, and an opossum). Dad use to have to push start his Opal Cadet (company car) on cold mornings with Mark and I in the car, running down highway 50 and jumping in after the light, so we could get to grandma’s house during the summer months. My dad, Pa and I tore down the store the summer in ~1977, I was 15. I remember how hot it was on that roof! Pa had a tractor and we would put a pope down through the cinder blocks and hook a chain to the top and I would pull down sections of the wall with the tractor. So many stories, such good times!