Dad lays down the law but Mother has to stretch the paycheck

In the late 30's my dad, a young Radical back then, proclaimed that we would never shop in the new Safeway store that plopped itself down in the middle of our neighborhood. 

As a Working Class Man, Dad instinctively knew that these chain stores would drive the local merchants out of business and suck up the local money, putting nothing back in its place. 

But even then we had that old problem.  Do we go without certain basic staples by trading at the more expensive local shops, or do we get the most out of our pathetic paycheck? 

My Dad laid down the law, but Mother was the one who had to get the most from every penny.  So when Dad marched off to the Shipyard to earn his pay, Mother bundled my two sisters and me into the little red wagon and chugged up the hill to that looming monster, the Safeway Store. 

Mother had to balance between her sympathy for the local merchants and her desire to see her children grow up. 

Well, Safeway has survived as have many small local merchants.  Now they are all threatened by new and bigger monsters.  Perhaps the solution is not to keep the Box Stores out, but to force them to participate in the communities where they build.  Support like full time employment, health insurance for their workers, paying their fair share of local taxes and costs of improvements.  In other words, being participating citizens in their communities. 

 

Curious Carl