[cajungirl]

Your comment that the Rockwell vision of American “never was” is just not true. We all, those of us of a certain age, remember little local stores that we loved. We had a neighborhood grocery where they wrote down in a notebook what we spent and we paid them once a month. There was a local drugstore with a soda fountaiin where we knew everyone and spent every day getting a soda in summer. We had a local hardware store run by a man we knew all our lives, a local filling station run by a friend of the family. Everything in a small town or small city was run by locals and it was good.

I am not quarreling with WalMart,,they serve a good purpose. But the olden days were better in a way. Nodoors locked, no crazy thugs, people were decent and honest.

[Sweet Hour of Prayer]

Yes, but we invited the masses and now we celebrate diversity. Mom and Pop stores can’t keep up with the amount of people moving in. It’s all about supply and demand. The only people I know spewing unkind words about Walmart are the wealthy... who don’t shop there in the first place.

[Marysecretary]

You are SOOOOO right. I lived in a college town and it had several mom and pop grocery stores, a shoe store, two or three men’s shops, a great soda fountain where we all hung out, two drugstores, barber shops, department store. Now there’s nothing but eateries and things that attract students. Grrrr. Not my town anymore and WalMart doesn’t even live here.

[M-cubed]

Your comment that the Rockwell vision of American “never was” is just not true. We all, those of us of a certain age, remember little local stores that we loved. We had a neighborhood grocery where they wrote down in a notebook what we spent and we paid them once a month.<<

What you are talking about was “The cutting edge of Capitalism” DURING THAT ERA....The notebook was the credit card of today...etc. ( if u think back...most of the owners of those “Mom and Pop business’s that succeeded,were considered wealthy...many of them in there later yrs becoming bank directors etc....at least in my little town anyway)

[speekinout]

I’m also old enough to remember “the good old days”. Yes, we did have locally owned grocery stores. But we didn’t have fresh produce for much of the year - I remember late winter when we just hoped that we could find onions and potatoes that weren’t terribly sprouted. We wouldn’t have thought of having fresh fruit.
The drugstore always had enough syrup and flavorings to make us good fountain drinks (I miss those), but the hardware store, the dress store, and the gas station never had everything we needed.
I really prefer these days when we can get anything we want when we want. And at cheap prices.