Posted by Gospel on 07/19/06 22:46

Good article; thanks for posting it.

In my city, we used to have dozens of those record stores, too. There
were always at least 3 clerks so that you could ask for certain music
and one of them would know what wanted... talking, exchanging opinions
and maybe concert stories, etc. Nice way to spend a couple hours.

People think that "The Good Old Days" are 'back there'. They are, but
the last of the Good Old Days are almost over. Beginning about 1982,
the Gold Old Days stopped and now the connection between people in a
consumer relationship is dead. Gone. Done. My generation is that last
one that remembers or cares that you used to go to stores that were
actually owned by the people who worked there. My first credit card
came from a clothing shop on Main St. The people who checked at the
local IGA were teamsters and made good wages. I could go on for hours
but to what avail; to anyone younger than 30 I sound like I'm 90. But
actually, it happened overnight. I step outside now and all I see are
thousands of strangers in cars, me in mine.... all of us in a huge sea
of vehicles, total strangers to each other. And I'm living in what
might be considered a small town... except it's not a town. Everywhere
in the West now .. there's no center to anywhere. Storefronts. Costco.
Cars.

Oh well, who cares. Can't change it and someday we won't even have a
post office to go. They've already made vote-by-mail mandatory here.
And another thing. When did we start to think that just by being in a
crowd that it somehow conveyed "community"? 50,000 people go to a game
and they all have this big slappy-happy way about them being with each
other, but they're not. They are all complete strangers - never to be
seen again. We exchanged actual community for volume.

Oh well.

[Back to original message]