He's worked on a riverboat. He's been a truck driver and gas hauler.
And he motorcycled across the country with a group of friends.
Don Lyles has some good stories.
As the owner and proprietor of Lyles Package Store, the Sumter native left home after high school to work as a deckhand on a riverboat out of Cairo, Illinois. Lyles then worked long hours driving trucks and hauling gas for Young's Food Stores, but decided that wasn't for him, either.
"I quit on Thursday and started working at the store on Friday," he said, drawing a laugh from Aaron Poston, a good friend for a long time.
The store Lyles was referring to was Lyles Express, which he started with his late sister Pat.
"The whole place was falling down but we made it through," he said, "with a lot of blood, sweat and tears."
Fishing bait, cold beer, hot dogs – a lot of hot dogs, in fact – and gas made Lyles Express a stop for fishermen needing to fuel up before a day on the lake. That was 1991, and after about six years, a liquor store was added to the side – roughly 800 square feet of retail space that became Lyles Package Store.
A few years later, Lyles saw the need to expand and built a separate building, although he'd envisioned that location for a different purpose.
"I was going to open a fruit stand," he said. "And we had the floor covered in watermelons for two weeks around the Fourth of July."
Though that concept never took root, Lyles Package Store has kept going strong, built upon customer loyalty and a good rapport.
"These are good people," Lyles said. "The people have always been good to us around here."
Lyles Package Store is located at 3387 Paxville Highway, and is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Saturday.
(803) 473-7333
