A World Without String

How can stores not sell string  anymore? I've been wanting to experiment with darning socks now for some time, having several with heel-holes that I do not want to toss. I do not want to sew the holes closed with thread and create a seam. I want to learn to darn the socks. But common stores (we have no Mart close by, and even the ones farther away have started phasing out their "craft" sections) don't stock STRING anymore. Finally found some cotton that may do (we'll see- it is an experiment) at a grocery store. So I guess people are supposed to throw anything they cannot fix with tape, glue, or cheap thread that snaps if you sew it tightly by throwing it all away. Sad, really. I could have gone to the cloth store several miles away, but I needed to fix lunch. Aargh. Could somebody please open a store in Midtown Memphis for those of us with a "homesteading" or homemaking orientation- not full of "scrapbooking" supplies and endless fake flowers and pottery, but full of useful things- bulk foods, string, work clothes, white T-shirts you can't see through, shoes meant for hard walking, etc.? Are they here? If so, where? I'd really like to know.