Be careful asking directions to where President Obama and his family will be spending their vacation in Chilmark, especially at Alley’s General Store. The Island’s favorite store is feeling the strain in the drama of a Presidential visit.

Assistant store manager Spencer Booker said this week, “The vibe is in the air.” Already he has been asked often where the First Family is staying. “I say, ‘Down the street,’” he laughs, quickly pointing off into the air.

Shirley Howell, 69, of West Tisbury, often spends mornings on the porch of Alley’s soaking up the rural town air. Island-born, she said she can recall sitting on the same porch when she was a child, waiting with her friends for a tourist who would ask for directions.

“If they asked where Menemsha was, I’d point that direction,” she said, pointing east.

Sitting next to her on the same bench now is Clifton Athearn, 86, of West Tisbury, a retired medical technologist. His Island family history is almost as old as the dirt, and his demeanor speaks plenty about the spirit of the town.

One time, Mr. Athearn said, he got confused trying to help a motorist in front of Alley’s find his way through town. The conversation ended pretty quickly, Mr. Athearn said, “when he showed me a map of Nantucket.

“That happened just a few years ago,” Mr. Athearn said. “He was on the wrong island.”

“They aren’t too bright,” sighed Ms. Howell, after hearing Mr. Athearn’s tale.

It is safe to say that no matter what happens in the next week or so, Alley’s General Store, dealers in just about everything, will be the front lines of just about everything.

Mr. Booker, 38, is going to try and keep the store on track. There are no Obama T-shirts, no souvenirs made somewhere else promoting the story, at least not yet.

Obama trading cards are selling well though. In a month and a half, Alley’s has sold 20 cases of Topps Trading Cards. Each case has 24 packs. Each pack has six cards. “We were selling Obama cards before there was an announcement that he was coming here for vacation,” Mr. Booker said.

John S. Alley, 67, postmaster of the substation, said Washington, D.C. is already in West Tisbury. This week the media have shown up at the store looking for stories, and Mr. Alley is fielding the questions, so long as the reporters help him sort the mail.

Cherilla Brown, who works at the store, can sense the rising crescendo in advance of the President’s arrival. “I wonder what it will be like,” she said, standing near the self-serve coffee center in the store.

A shopper can walk out of the store with a coffee, today’s New York Times, a box of fence post staples, a faucet, a bicycle horn and a freshly picked vegetable.

There are more doors at Alley’s General Store than in some cathedrals; there are at least 10 entryways. And all the windows on the eastern side of the store are open. Each one has a large electric fan pumping in air, a notch below the modern day air-conditioning found in stores down-Island.

The nooks and crannies of the place and its bare, squeaky wood floor are loaded with goods and produce. Even if nobody were standing inside, one could observe that the store is full.

Maya Sharp, behind the counter, said she has a great time working in the store, with all the hubbub. She likes watching as new customers come in for a small item but end up gazing up and down, left and right, at all that is on offer.

A fashionable Two’s Company garden party hat sits on a rack with other sun strawhats. Within reach there is a rack loaded with fishing rods. Within sight there are galvanized mailboxes.

In an age of digital bar coding and aisles with numbers, Alley’s General Store is an exception.

Yes, there is an ATM machine. Mr. Booker said he was told by the weekly serviceman that it is the busiest ATM machine on the Island. “I think they told me that,” he said.

The device spends a good deal of the week “out of order.” Mr. Booker believes that is because it is out of money, as it is this day.

Suzanne Hammond was in the store this morning shopping. She said all four of her grown children spent their high school years working in the store. From her eldest son Stephen, now 24, to the youngest Genevieve, 16, “This store was their second home,” she said.

Mrs. Hammond said she has fond memories of her kids sitting down at the dinner table and talking about what they learned or saw in the store earlier in the day. She recalls summers’ ends, when she and her family members brought their garden pumpkins to decorate the store porch. During summers, they brought in and sold gladiolus.

The boundaries of the store extend far out into the community, she said, and the wonder of the place isn’t confined to its walls. The goods at Alley’s General Store end up in a lot of backyards, front yards, kitchens, pantries and, of course, on the dinner table.

Mr. Athearn, still seated on the bench on the porch, as a child shared the porch with his siblings. A lot of big decisions have been made on the porch, he reckoned; history has been made there.

He said he recalls when there were no benches on the porch, when the store belonged to Charles Turner (it is now owned by the Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust).

“I remember when he used to come out and sit with his friends,” Mr. Athearn said.

At the far end of the porch this morning, Gil Dubray, of Nashua, N.H., and his friend Dawn Peret, of Mont Vernon, N.H., are sharing the swing seat. Rocking, ever so gently, the two are poring through the daily newspaper. Mr. Dubray said this is their first visit to the store. They are thinking about spending time at the beach. But of this particular moment, he said: “We are winging it.”