Value Shopping

I always try to maintain a “reasonable weight.” I do this in part so that I can always manage to fit into a few of my old favorites. One of these is an old winter-weight wool sport coat. It’s a knobby thing I bought back in the early 90’s here in town. The one label reads, “Made in USA.” The other reads “Storrer’s Menswear, Owosso, Michigan.” Vintage in all the right ways.

Storrer’s was a long-lived men’s clothing store that existed here in my hometown from 1891 until sometime in the early 1990’s. A hundred-plus years. When I first moved here there were several of these small town retailers in business; family owned and several generations old. Jewelers, a camera shop, two office supply/stationers, two family owned drug stores, a terrific little bookstore.

The little grocery store just 3 blocks east of my house closed this past weekend. It had only been around since the family bought it in 1974. It had been there for years before that as Eiseler’s—and before that as Byerly’s Grocery since the 1920’s. In its present form as Bannan’s it was the quintessential grocery store of the early 60’s before the advent of the supermarket: Meat-- always custom cut--, dairy, (seasonal) produce, canned goods. No greeting cards, no pharmacy. Beer and cheap wine, yes –  but no booze. Box-boys and checkers-- no self-scanning. No scanning of any kind, for that matter. Just cash registers.

These home town businesses die-off because they can’t compete. They can’t offer the variety and they can’t compete economically. Where they still exist we pass them by on our way to a super shopping big box grocery/everything store where, it’s said, we’ll find “better value” for our dollar.

I understand bigger. I understand more. And I never get value confused with cheaper. Years from now we will continue to wax poetic about the good old days, when we could shop at small retailers, when summer produce was a treat you waited 7 or 8 months to enjoy each year, when the stores you frequented employed the parents of your kids' classmates, went to your church, knew you by name. I can't imagine we will ever wax poetic about the loss of Best Buy, or Wal Mart, or Office Max. And their day is coming: Ever heard of Amazon 1-Click? It won't be too long and we will be a nation of nameless, faceless, windowless warehouses. How special.