[MD] From the Forest to the Free Market

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

They paved over my dirt road last week. I knew it was coming but it still 
hurts to know that I will never again walk the grassy lane and watch the 
birds and butterflys playing in the swaying weeds and purple flowers. It 
doesn't go anywhere, the road. And it really didn't belong to me or the 
birds and butterflys. I live in a tiny town smack dab on top of the Mendota 
Hills and the old dirt road that used to be a farmer's access road is a mile 
away from my home. It made for a pleasant walk in summer and winter, spring 
and fall.

They're putting up wind towers to produce electricity and they require 
better access to bring in their heavy equipment. And that's cool, I guess. I 
would rather see wind towers than a nuclear power plant going up in my back 
yard. It is a sign of progress, I think. Still, progress doesn't care about 
the water bugs that magically appeared every time rain filled the ruts in 
the old dirt road. Progress doesn't care about the birds and butterflys. And 
progress sure doesn't care about me.

My friend used to own a sandwich shop. Al drove a truck all week - a big rig 
- and his wife and daughters ran the shop and then he would man the joint 
all weekend to give the family some time off. They made great sandwiches; 
the quality of the food they used cost them more than it would have if 
they'd just bought cheap but the end product was worth it in their eyes. My 
stomach agreed. Still, there was a Mcdonalds just down the street and a 
Burger King too. Yum. I'd drive past the teeming parking lots on my way to 
Big Al's for a good meal. There was never a wait at Big Al's because they 
never had any customers.

Now they work at walmart, Al and his wife and even his daughters. His old 
sandwich shop is an antique store. I have since moved away west from what 
used to be a small town and when I come back I can't help but notice the 
entire city seems to have been overrun by progress. All the stores I 
remember have closed, the shoe store, the grocery, the hardware store, the 
drugstore, the bookstore, and even the radio shack. Gone. Now there's 
antique markets and craft shops and winerys and boutiques and subways and 
pizza places and strip malls and signs and signs and signs. I see the former 
owners of the old stores from time to time. They're working at walmart too. 
They couldn't compete. They tried at first but soon it became apparent they 
were fighting a losing battle.

People want cheap. They don't care about quality. Oh they moan and groan 
about it, sure. But they wouldn't know quality if it jumped up and bit them 
on the nose. Quality for most people means paving over a dirt road so they 
don't have to drive a mile out of the way. Quality for most people means 
whatever is the cheapest and fills their desires the quickest. They gorge 
their bodies on fast food to the point of kiling themselves when good 
nutritious food is available for a pitance more. Or was available.

I don't like walmart but I shop there. Where else am I going to go? It has 
become the only game in town, or in the area for that matter. There's a 
little mom and pop place not far from me but the prices! And the quality is 
inferior since they sell so little most of their inventory sits on the 
shelves a long time. The only way way they stay in business is for the fact 
that the old man owns the place outright so there's no overhead to speak of. 
He can't sell; he's tried. So when the couple gets too old to run the place 
I imagine it will be shuttered. I stop in from time to time to do some 
tradin' (as the old man calls it) but ususally I purchase just an item or 
two.

I guess I shouldn't be complaining without offering any solutions and I 
don't know what to do. So I think I'm going to walmart to take the edge off 
by doing some early xmas shopping. And I'm gonna drive down a newly paved 
road that will save me a minute getting there.

Ho ho ho.

Dan


>From: "ARLO J BENSINGER JR" <ajb102 at psu.edu>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>Subject: Re: [MD] From the Forest to the Free Market
>Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 10:26:10 -0400
>
>With all due respect to Case...
>
>There is a place I wander to as well, a place that radiates the "free 
>market" as
>wondrous as the forest of SAs hauntings. It's a small brickstrown street
>nestled between two city arteries. Two layers of shops line its walkways, 
>and
>here I find a butcher shop, a cheese store, a coffee house, a chocolatier,
>while outside a group of local hucksters peddle their produce, picked this
>morning from nearby farms. A small bookstore sits nearby and the local 
>tavern,
>Zeno's displays proudly its place "located directly above the center of the
>earth".
>
>There is a warmth and friendliness among the shoppers and the shopkeepers.
>Having to compete with BoxMarts lining their perimeters, they've struggled 
>to
>appeal to what separates them, Quality in product and service and pay. 
>After a
>while sampling cheeses from all over the world, I am happy to pay what 
>amounts
>to pennies more per pound to Joe,  because I know that the money I pay 
>there
>stays in the community, helps a family actually exist above minimum wage, 
>and
>ends up reinvested in countless ways among the local folk. The same holds 
>true
>and the other shops, and by the hucksters not only do I know that I am 
>getting
>fresh, high-vitamin local wares, but I am working to preserve family farms 
>and
>green space. One local farmer advertised a HarvestFest at his farm this 
>past
>weekend to say "thanks" to those who buy his produce. All the cider you can
>drink, hayrides and a respect for farming and we left better people than 
>when
>we arrived.
>
>Back in town at the local bookshop, one of the workers, paying her way 
>through
>college (something a minimum wage BoxMart job would make nearly impossible)
>calls me over and grabs a used copy of a book on Pierce. "I heard you 
>talking
>about him last time you were in, thought you'd be interested so I set it
>aside". She was right. She asks about a certain professor, we talk and the 
>talk
>turns into an overview of semiotics. Soon a few others are invovled, and 
>I've
>learned of a lecture I had not heard about.
>
>In the tavern I run into one of the owners of the new chocolatier. I ask 
>how's
>business. Good, Halloween apparently has something to do with chocolate. He
>tells me how his wife (the actual maker of said chocolates) and he are
>renovating a home outside town. I find he is a cyclist, and although my two
>wheels have a motor, we talk about backroads out of town, small pubs and
>friendly stores. He buys me a drink, and I realize again that I am happy to 
>pay
>a little more for good chocolates made by someone invested in the 
>community.
>
>Yes, the free market is a wonderful thing. In one block I can get coffee 
>from
>hawaii, cheese from Denmark, luscious chocolates, corn picked just that 
>morning
>over the hill, a book on semiotics, a beer from Canadian Unibroue (Trois
>Pistoles), all from people who's enterprises enrich the community, rather 
>than
>bleed off its energies into the faraway pockets of a corporation that pays
>pittance and sells junk.
>
>With apologies to worshipers of BoxMart.
>
>
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