Our local newspaper, from which my dad retired after decades
of hard work, has been sold again. This is the second time in my memory the Beacon Journal has changed hands, and it is making some uneasy. The workers wonder if they'll have their jobs next week and the readers wonder what changes will take place.Not that change is always bad, but the unknown is unsettling
since it has the potential to bring with it difficult challenges. We deal with thisusually with artful expression and humor. 
We're used to adversity around these parts, but that doesn't mean we welcome it....... we do survive if others remember us.
Just as others survive if we remember them. In fact, when we remember one another, we can actually thrive!
There are some stray cats between our local grocery and the meat market. Well, what used to be the meat market. Economic hardship forced the place to close a few months ago.
Yep, the Manchester Road Market, the best meat market in the area for better than six decades is now empty and for sale.
Well, the stray cats did OK when they had plenty of meat scraps to keep them alive. Also, the folks from the grocery store (employees and customers alike) provided make shift shelters and cat food with water. Since there's no more meat market, the grocery folks have stepped up their support. Meanwhile, there's not a rodent to be found anywhere around the place!
These cats, one could say, are thriving. And they reward us with their beauty and mousing ability. Theydepend on us to keep them healthy. No one is blaming the cats for their predicament, or calling for them to catch their own daggone food. They are hungry and need shelter. That's what is given them.
Now our grocery is for sale, or at least the building which houses it and the dollar store. Since the superstoreshave come into the area, many of our residents are doing all of their shopping at these big places and forget the community grocer.
The grocer who employs residents, buys local produce and pays taxes here. The grocer who sponsors our school events and the historical society fundraiser. The grocer who sells our local newspaper.
The grocer who depends on the community it has served for decades to keep the loop of prosperity intact. But the loop is broken, and now the Franklin Sparkle Market has fallen on hard times. I hope it will not be another Wall Mart casualty.
Think twice before you go into your super chain store to get your bargains. You may be contributing to your own community's demise.
And for cryin out loud, support one another. Change does not have to devastate, folks. Let's thrive!
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Comments: 25
Wouldn't it be great if through our government we all provided for each other like the grocery people look after those cats?
The thing that bothers me the most when I am saddened by the demise of a business that is the last of a generations-old service in a community is the reflection this has on the downward spiral in quality, creativity and longevity of the objects we surround ourselves with. Perhaps the answer is to just stop buying, stop acquiring, stifle "want" and replace it with a quiet confidence that NEED is a life-force while the desire to own is...well...what is it?
Good, thoughtful piece and a worthy message!
i love small stores. i love how everyone here knows lillie, and gives her a sucker. great article - thank you!
Jimmy Stewart is a little baffled at this fantasy and says "Wouldn't that get a little monotonous, just Akron, cold beer and 'poor, poor thing' for two weeks?" "Oh no," says Doctor Chumley with a delicious grin. "It would be wonderful!" and he asks if Harvey could do this for him, and Jimmy says, "Sure he could and he might. I've never heard Harvey say a word against Akron."
THAT'S what I think of when I think of Akron... as part of an old man's recipe for peace.
and you've written another wonderful article Cathy, I just seem to have gone off on a tangent...
Carolyn, I love the movie, Harvey! I think that grassy field is here beside my house! Not monotonous at all.
Everybody OK down under after that hurricane?
i also shop at a local, independent market (whole foods) which costs more but is worth it to support the place and keep our community unique w/out the homogization of Ameirca. I"m tired of Gaps everywhere and Starbucks etc etc -- every town begins to look the same...
how very boring that is....
thanks for this.
Actions? First, as you suggest, stop shopping in the mega-stores.
Second, perhaps look at how important a few cents difference is to you vs. your quality of life issues.
I no longer have little mom and pop stores to shop in, so most of my choices are the chains now. I miss my little hardware store, where the guy had geegaws and things I'd never heard of. I stopped there first. If he didn't have it (selection is always an issue for small businesses), I went to Home Depot SECOND. Since the guy at my little hardward store didn't have it, I didn't feel like I was taking money out of his pocket going to HD.
But, for the things he did have, it was worth the extra couple of cents to me to have this fellow look me in the eye and tell me when I was going about something wrong, and give me suggestions.
I feel some inspiration coming here...
Oh, it's not that they won't have anyhting to say to you as much as it's the fact that you'll probably never run into them again when you go back there, so you know and they know that there's not much point to making small talk.
I'm willing to bet that the final nail in the coffin of the Roman Empire was when nobody bothered to make small talk anymore because there was no point in doing it.