ENFIELD CENTER — The first time a customer came into Proctor’s General Store, proprietor James “Jimmy” Proctor would learn their name. The second time, he’d call them by it.

“The third time you went in, he’d greet you like you were friends,” said Keith Ford, Proctor’s longtime friend. “He would make you want to come back.”

In his 40 years of running the store, Proctor went beyond the typical tasks of tracking merchandise, managing employees and making sandwiches.

From his perch behind the register or deli counter, he could gauge the pulse of the community centered around Route 4A in southeast Enfield. He knew which Enfield Center teenagers were looking for a job — and often hired them. He knew which residents needed an extra hand — and was often the one who helped them.

“He was the heartbeat of the local area,” Ford, of Enfield, said.

Proctor, who died of a pulmonary embolism at age 72 on Jan. 5, grew up in Enfield Center in the apartment above the store, which his mother purchased after serving as a nurse in World War II. After a few years bouncing around as a motorcycle mechanic, Proctor took over the store from his parents in 1976 in his mid-20s.

Some of Proctor’s happiest moments were spent on two wheels. In the mid-1980s, he built a dirt track behind the store so he could practice cyclocross, which is a mix of mountain biking, road cycling and obstacle course racing.

“It gives me an incentive to keep training during those cold months in the fall when you can’t road race anymore,” Proctor, then 33, said in a March 1986 Valley News article. “At my age, I need every little edge I can get.”

Proctor loved the thrill of riding. In his younger years, he’d race motorcycles with spiked tires on Mascoma Lake and George Pond in the winter. Later on he focused primarily on road racing, and it was during a triathlon that Proctor met his future wife in the late 1980s. Jan Proctor, who described herself as a novice at the time, was biking up Shaker Hill Road when Proctor came up by her on another bike.

“He looks at me, he goes: ‘You look marvelous,’ ” Jan Proctor recalled. “I’m like: ‘Who was that guy?’ ”

The two got to know each other through cycling clubs and a few years later they started dating. They were married for 33 years at the time of his death.

“He knew how lucky he was, and he would tell his closest friends that he was fortunate to have Jan for a wife,” Ford said.

Ford met Proctor in the early 1990s. Ford was interested in getting into bicycle racing and approached Proctor when he was raking leaves outside Union Church in Enfield Center. The two started riding and racing together, often with Jan. They did regular training races at the Claremont and Loudon speedways. Proctor became Ford’s mentor and would give him feedback when he felt it was warranted.

“It was not coming across as condescending or even as coaching,” Ford said. “When he said something and you put it into practice, it almost always turned out to be a real positive.”

Over the years, he and Jan took trips around the world. They went on motorcycle trips to Colorado and Texas. There were trips in Alaska, along the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos, Argentina and Italy. They rode their tandem bike from Portland, Ore., to San Francisco. One of the couple’s highlights was carrying the Olympic Torch around Spofford Lake in Chesterfield, N.H., in 1996.

“We had a lot of adventures,” Jan said.

Still, the general store grounded Proctor in Enfield Center.

“His father always said, ‘You won’t get rich running the store, but you can take a good living from it,’ which I thought was a good way of putting it,” Jan Proctor said.

There were some lean years, and Jan’s job as a music teacher in Springfield, Vt., helped provide some stability. One year they had to replace the septic system and leach field.

“He called it the field of dreams, because that’s where all the money for the things we were hoping to do (went),” Jan said.

Customers knew what to expect when they went into the store.

There would be the staples, including a selection of fresh and canned goods. He was known to stock craft beer from smaller breweries and fresh chocolate chip cookies. Proctor always chatted with people while he made their sandwiches, something a customer recently told Jan they appreciated.

“You knew you were seen,” she said. “You knew you were appreciated.”

Proctor could engage anyone and everyone in conversation. Heeding advice from his father, Proctor avoided all talk of politics and religion. Customers often asked him for advice, especially if they had a mechanical issue.

“I used to joke he was the rent-a-husband during the day,” Jan said. Sometimes, women would call the store during the day because something happened with their house and Proctor was nearby to check. “I don’t know how many times I’d be at the store and I’d see him crawl under some lady’s car because there was something weird. ‘I can take a look.’ That’s just how he was.”

That was something Amber Stone remembered most about her time working at Proctor’s. She was one of those kids, as Jan said, who would say, “ ‘When I get big, I’m going to work for Jimmy.’ ”

Stone started working at Proctor’s when she was 15 and did continued to do so on and off for 20 years. A few times, she also lived in an apartment above the store.

“He was the father of the town,” Stone said. “He took everyone under his wing.”

Proctor taught her how to interact with customers, that everyone who entered the store was worthy of respect. He taught her about attention to detail, discipline and how to work as part of a team.

“He wouldn’t necessarily sugarcoat anything,” Stone said. “He would tell you what he wanted, and that’s what you were going to do.”

Proctor led by example. He didn’t lecture or micromanage; he trusted his young employees to carry out the responsibilities he assigned to them.

“I think he saw the value in a young person, the value of working in a job like that has for a young person,” said Jon Dame, who started working for Proctor as a young teenager and continued to do so on and off for decades. “Kids sought him out as a place they wanted to be.”

Dame also looked forward to the time he would spend with Proctor outside the store.

“Whenever he had a project he would grab me: ‘Let’s go build a bridge. Let’s go mow a lawn. Let’s go open up someone’s camp,’ ” he said. “Anytime we had an opportunity to not be in the store, we would take it.”

Proctor introduced Dame to motorcycles, cycling and mountain biking. He taught him how to fix motorcycles, and the two would spend hours together working on them in Proctor’s garage. Proctor got him into fitness when he was a teenager, and they’d regularly go to the gym together.

“He’s probably the most influential person I had in my life,” Dame, of Lebanon, said, adding that the early introduction to the gym helped lead him to a career as a personal trainer. “There’s so much that I kind of owe to him in those early days. I don’t think there’s much Jimmy didn’t teach me.”

The two continued to work on motorcycles in Proctor’s garage, particularly in the winter. At the time of Proctor’s death, he and Dame were preparing to start working on restoring a 1978 Honda CB 750. Dame plans to continue that work.

“Part of my therapy is still showing up and working on bikes,” Dame said.

Though Proctor sold the store in 2017 to Bill and Emily Henry, he never fully left. He would often go visit to help the new owners. When the Henrys sold the store to Bow, N.H.-based ARP 6 LLC in 2023, Proctor would continue to visit and assist the employees there.

“He’d be like, ‘I just have to do one thing,’ ” Jan Proctor said. “And then he’d be back here two hours later: ‘I ran into so-and-so, so-and-so and so-and-so.’ ”

It was a way for him to continue to take care of the community he loved so much. After his death, Jan Proctor and Ford heard stories from people about his generosity.

There was the man selling firewood who Proctor asked to deliver four cords of wood to someone in need and then send the bill to Proctor. There was the furnace repairman who told of times over the years where Proctor would ask him to fix someone’s furnace, then charge Proctor instead. There were the neighbors he delivered groceries to and the driveways he made sure were plowed.

“If someone needed help, he just helped,” Ford said. “I don’t think he ever thought there was anything special about it.”

A celebration of life will be held for Proctor from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Feb. 22, at the Enfield Community Building (308 Route 4). Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.