Karen,
Your post rekindled old memories for me. I know what you mean, and realize how painful all of it must have been for your family, after all those years of hard work.
Slowly, big business is killing the Mom & Pop operations, and with it, the dreams of millions, and the closeness of community, and family, that once was the corner stone of our society.
If you look at WalMart and it's growth, they leave behind a legacy of downtown areas in smaller towns empty. The Mom & Pop operations die, unable to meet the prices of a conglomerate. Although most people do care, they end up buying from WalMart anyway, because economically, for their family, it makes sense.
Along with the death of the small downtowns goes jobs. People who were employed no longer have jobs, and they certainly don't employ as many in a WalMart as the large number of small businesses did.
It made me remember something that happened a long time ago.
There was this butcher shop in the neighborhood where we lived back in the 60s. My wife and I always bought our meats from the old Italian gentleman who owned it. It was a twice a week ritual for my wife, as well as others who lived around there. One woman in particular, who was also a friend of ours, was a steady customer. That is, until the week after her husband was layed off from his job.
Her being about eight months pregnant, and unable to work, meant that they were going to have to try to make ends meet on his unemployment compensation, until he was either called back to work, or found another job.
My wife stopped into the shop one day, and the old man asked my wife where her friend was. He hadn't seen her in nearly two weeks, and she was like clock work, showing up on Mondays and Thursdays.
My wife told him how her husband had lost his job. He asked her if they had a freezer, she said they did. When she got home, she told me about the conversation. That was on Monday.
The following Friday night, the people came over to our house for dinner. During the meal, she told us how they'd just had some great luck.
It seems that the butcher shop we all went to had accidentally cut up too much meat on Thursday night, and the butcher called them. Since he wouldn't sell frozen meat, he wondered if they'd have a problem with it. Would they take it off his hands. Then he told them they could pay him in two or three months, whatever was convenient for them.
My wife just smiled, and glanced over at me. Yes, they were lucky. Lucky enough to shop at a butcher shop where an old Italian gentleman, who'd sing Italian songs all day had set up shop.
The last time I thought about this great old man, and his butcher shop, was about nine or ten years ago, when my wife went back to that old neighborhood to take what will probably be our last look at it.
The butcher is gone, but the the building isn't. It's a tanning salon now. Things change, and not always for the better.
Personally, I'll boycott Starbucks in Spain. Let's hope enough people do so that the business that ends up closed is Starbucks, not the Mom & Pop coffee shop down the street. They deserve to live forever.
Thanks Karen. You gave us something very valuable with your post.
Wolf
[ 03-05-2002: Message edited by: Wolf ]
.jaja..ANYway, as they say, different strokes for different folks 
:p
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