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So What is "Mom 'n Pop Culture?"

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Written by Thom Ring

Everybody's in a mad race to tomorrow. People can't get their hands on new things fast enough. To them "new" always means "better," and anything old is easily dismissed. Plenty of old stuff has been rejected to the point of obsolescence for no reason other than its age. Never mind the possibility that the stuff actually atttained its age precisely because it kept working so well all that time.

This is worse that just a preoccupation with new stuff.  America's entire system for delivering the goods has endured a revolution. It used to be that eveything sold in your neighborhood was provided by your neighbors. Your neighbor owned the business, called the shots, baked the bread, ordered the merchandise, mailed the bills out, accepted the occasional return. You didn't mind if your neighbors found success. It proved the quality of their "business model." Besides, any dollar you spent with your neighbors, your neighbors spent with you - for the bread you baked or the merchandise you sold.

Today your neighbor passes that dollar up the ladder, out of town, out of state, perhaps even out of the country. And the bread can travel just as far as that dollar does.  The folks calling the shots for a business might be just as far away - even further removed form your town, your neighbors and you.

This has bugged me for a long time, the idea that people who end up with most of the money I spend are a world away, not only from where I live but from how I live. Consequently I've long strived to keep my dollars close to home. And the more I make an effort to spend my money as close to the heart of a business as I can get, the more I am rewarded for my effort. Why would I want to buy a coffee from some kid who can't be bothered even to look at me when I can go to the local coffee shop and have the owner wait on me, learning my name (or alternately "the medium cream-only") in a matter of a couple of days.

I wouldn't. I also wouldn't want to eat in a restaurant that never has seen an item of food unfrozen when the neighborhood diner grinds its own beef. I wouldn't want to pay three-digit prices to be 200 yards away from some no-talent brat lip-synching a mundane pop song when I can sit in an easy chair ten feet away from a women singing and playing a pretty fine song she wrote.

You might think such experiences are rare and getting rarer every day. Maybe, but they might not be as rare as you think. With my radar dialed in to such places and people, I find such experiences almost every day. So now, as a longtime reader of Roadside Magazine as well as Roadside Online, I want to share them with you.

Aren't I a nice guy? No, I have a selfish motive. I want to get this discussion moving in earnest (is that a town in New Hampshire?). I'm hoping that folks like you have some ideas of your own. Where's the place in your town that has the best breakfest? You can bet it won't come in a microwaved bagel. Who's the hardware vendor who knows how to fix everything and has the parts and tools to do it? You can bet he doesn't work at the giant "home improvement" warehouse store. What's the community theater in your county that does a pretty good job putting on some of the best plays ever written? You can bet nothing gets blown up in an Arthur Miller production.

I invite This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. regarding my own musings about the places I visit and the observations to which my visits lead me. There's a whole world out there - a small world of which many folks are unaware. Let's discover it together.