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  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Community support and big-box stores
  • Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 11:17:44 -0600


I would be interested in a little feedback. I'm sure
that along with our preference for self sufficiency
most of us are concerned with our local communities.
Or is that just my ideal?

It is a common ideal to cherish and support one's community. Seems to me that the closer one lives to a small town the more involved one is in community affairs and the greater the affection. One of my essays is titled Country Neighbors are More Important than City Neighbors.

Our nearest town is Gainesville, Missouri, population 632, fourteen miles distant via state-maintained blacktop, the trip often made without seeing another car. It is the county seat, the courthouse sits in the middle of the square surrounded by maple trees, a memorial gazebo and a small log cabin that once sat on our neighbor's property by the spring that sustains our stream year-round. Besides the courthouse, the backbone of the town is the bank which has prospered over four generations of the Harlin family. Most of us are on first-name basis with the president and we are addressed by name when we show up. The first president made me a loan on this place thirty years ago based on my phone call as a stranger. He sent me a one-page form to fill out so he would have something in the file to comply with banking rules.

I shop at the hardware store and the auto parts store because they are closest, they have good inventory, they are locally owned and because they are friendly. As is common, the hardware store has a much larger inventory than the nearest WalMart, which is another half-hour down the road. I tell people that we must support the hardware store even though their prices are a bit high.

The same case exists with the building supply place, although I have less sympathy there because it is not locally owned. (The original lumber yard fronted on the square. I bought roofing shingles there shortly after I bought this place in 1976. I gave them my California check. They looked at it and commented on my name but did not ask for identification. No, that's not why they closed.) Home Depot and Lowes are only a half-hour further, have far larger inventories and better prices. We use all three based on need and the size of the purchase.

Chris likes nice restaurants and was delighted that the bank president and his wife bought and rebuilt the old family home and turned it into the best restaurant in the county. The bank president's wife runs the place, is the hostess, and her brother is the chef. Chris also likes good wine and the selection at the Gainesville Antler Package Store sucks, so she buys in West Plains, Missouri, about an hour distant, where also is the WalMart Supercenter.

WalMart requires separate comment. Many of us have an easily understood love-hate relationship as do I. In our case it destroyed a few small businesses. One fair question is whether those small businesses were being run well. Sam Walton started in a small town and worked very hard and very smart, a superb American success story. Power corrupts and I find it amazing that the company still seems to possess some admirable community values, or is that simply good business? Yes, I think so. I must admit to liking the modern general store design. One-stop shopping. I don't like their paucity of hardware based on hard-nosed business choices. I do like that I am seeing organic items on the shelves. They have a superb business model and they are here to stay. They are dependable. They provide lots of jobs, though of modest wages. Like it or don't, WalMart is a clear sign of the future. From here on out specialty stores will be run smarter and will appeal to small niches of shoppers.





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