I love this idea. Catherine from “Everything is Under Control” brought it up last week, and I think it is the best. How simple is it to decide to spend $50 a month at three different local businesses.
There are stores I remember growing up that are no longer there. I remember a store called Marblestone’s that had the best clothes. They were so grown up and sophisticated looking; I always wanted to be old enough to wear their clothes. Once I was, they were out of business. There was also Paul’s Shoe Store. Paul’s smelled like leather and cigarette smoke. He could fix anything. He revived my favorite pair of boots more than once. There were three great drugstores: Rene’s, Morton’s and Pierce’s. Two of them had soda counters and all three would deliver. Only one is still in business, and it is hanging on by a thread. There were also some beautiful florist shops (that I cannot remember the name of) and eccentric junk/antique shops that I loved the look through when I was about 14. All of these places are gone. I can’t help but correlate this with the building of my small town’s first Wa1-Mart. I wonder if people had pledged to shop local shops 20 years ago how many of these places would still be here today?
I want my kids to know the lady at the bookstore, the man at the produce stand and the wonderful women at my local quilters shop. For them to know that things don’t have to come from large anonymous stores or the internet, they can come from people. People who are our neighbors. (Insert Mr. Rodger’s song, “The people that you meet in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood!”) Just because they are growing up in an suburban area, they don’t have to have anonymous suburban memories.
It may sound hokey, but I think this one small thing I can do.
