Someone told me once that small may not be good but big is always bad. I don't know who originally said it but I’ve never forgotten it.
You all may deserve these soulless barns of commerce like Wal-Mart but I don’t. I have not abandoned Millers Grocery Store in order to save 10 cents on four rolls of paper towels. The best small grocery store in the world, they even carry organic and gluten free products now. I was faithful to Manchester Pharmacy, local, independent, where if prescriptions were a little higher, it was worth it. I could sit at the counter while waiting for pills, and for the price of medication and lunch, I could get a dose of mothering thrown in for free. It made my pills work better. Emma would talk to you while she made your grilled cheese, tomato and mustard sandwich just the way you liked it. I’m talking real milkshakes too. CVS took out the counter so there would be more room to sell cheap plastic stuff. Then they moved too. The building is now unoccupied.
.
Red with exertion and frustration I used to trail into the local hardware store, dragging my weed whacker behind me, and announce that the **^!*##! thing wouldn’t start again and they would address the issue. With that long and pitying look I loved so well, Pat would hoist it into the back room, slap on a 59 cent part, start it, show me how to start it and add $.59 to my bill. Gone, rolled over by Wal-Mart. Oh, how I miss you Manchester Supply! There’s a Curves there now, if you’re interested.
The alcoholics in town used to be able to monitor their addiction gracefully with a stop at the drugstore for a ‘miniature’ several times a day. Now they have to go into the liquor store on the corner to do that and there’s just no dissembling possible. Don’t get me wrong. I love the local liquor store too. The East Indians who run it are on top of things and always keep a few bottles of Freixenet Extra Dry cold for me. But when Doc had liquor at the Manchester Pharmacy even members of the Worship Team at the Assembly of God could buy alcohol in town. They can't
take a chance being seen in the local liquor store. I’m sure some of them are using a lot more gas these days.
The Manchester Auto Parts still sells full serve gas although now there’s a Sheetz as well. So you have a choice. You can pull next to the pumps at MAP, get full serve, tell the attendant to put it on your bill and sail off again, paying, as of today, $3.85.99 per gallon, or you can go to Sheetz, pump your own smelly gas, deal with the machines that are incomprehensible, truck yourself inside through
rain, snow or hot melting asphalt, and pay 2 cents more per gallon for the privilege.
You all may deserve these soulless barns of commerce like Wal-Mart but I don’t. I have not abandoned Millers Grocery Store in order to save 10 cents on four rolls of paper towels. The best small grocery store in the world, they even carry organic and gluten free products now. I was faithful to Manchester Pharmacy, local, independent, where if prescriptions were a little higher, it was worth it. I could sit at the counter while waiting for pills, and for the price of medication and lunch, I could get a dose of mothering thrown in for free. It made my pills work better. Emma would talk to you while she made your grilled cheese, tomato and mustard sandwich just the way you liked it. I’m talking real milkshakes too. CVS took out the counter so there would be more room to sell cheap plastic stuff. Then they moved too. The building is now unoccupied.
.
Red with exertion and frustration I used to trail into the local hardware store, dragging my weed whacker behind me, and announce that the **^!*##! thing wouldn’t start again and they would address the issue. With that long and pitying look I loved so well, Pat would hoist it into the back room, slap on a 59 cent part, start it, show me how to start it and add $.59 to my bill. Gone, rolled over by Wal-Mart. Oh, how I miss you Manchester Supply! There’s a Curves there now, if you’re interested.
The alcoholics in town used to be able to monitor their addiction gracefully with a stop at the drugstore for a ‘miniature’ several times a day. Now they have to go into the liquor store on the corner to do that and there’s just no dissembling possible. Don’t get me wrong. I love the local liquor store too. The East Indians who run it are on top of things and always keep a few bottles of Freixenet Extra Dry cold for me. But when Doc had liquor at the Manchester Pharmacy even members of the Worship Team at the Assembly of God could buy alcohol in town. They can't
take a chance being seen in the local liquor store. I’m sure some of them are using a lot more gas these days.The Manchester Auto Parts still sells full serve gas although now there’s a Sheetz as well. So you have a choice. You can pull next to the pumps at MAP, get full serve, tell the attendant to put it on your bill and sail off again, paying, as of today, $3.85.99 per gallon, or you can go to Sheetz, pump your own smelly gas, deal with the machines that are incomprehensible, truck yourself inside through
rain, snow or hot melting asphalt, and pay 2 cents more per gallon for the privilege. Of course those of us who love MAP realize that Doug takes Saturday night and Sunday off and they get their gas on Friday. If you’re cruising through town on Sunday and want gas, it’s Sheetz for you. Maybe while you’re inside you’ll feel like standing in line to slide your finger over the greasy public touch screen and order a sandwich. You can eat it in the car if you're still hungry after that.
I heard last week that Kopps Lumber has just closed. Why, God? Why do bad things happen to great small businesses? I was sick. They were just 3 miles away down a country road from me and they delivered for free. They had been there forever. Where will those talented cabinet makers go to find work? Where will I go when I need a board cut in an odd shape that won't fit in the back of my Legacy? Where will I get a new board made for my dining room table? Nowhere good. Nowhere close. Nowhere I want to shop
You would think when more people move into an area it would follow that soon there would be more places to shop and more variety to choose from. But instead, what a larger population does is make prey for big business. When they move in, the commercial soul of the area dies.
The only good change we've had lately is the opening of a small Mexican Food Shop, Tienda La Jarochita. Not middle class, tarted up 'quaint' but true quaint, as you can see. I am delighted to be able to buy South American food from South Americans. This
lovely seniorita behind the counter was happy to help me. 
I had my most recent meltdown in Wal-Mart on Friday. It was my daughter’s birthday and I was compiling a book of photos of her life for her. I spent over an hour at a machine waiting to make copies and then making copies. When I went to pay, the clerk confiscated all but about a half dozen of them. Fear of lawsuits over copyright laws, I deduced . You can’t get a copy of your kid’s 1st grade school picture even when your kid is 39 years old. Big stores, big lawsuits, big fears and the quest for ‘big’ savings have given us a life of walking where we don’t want to walk, dealing with people who do not want to deal with us and vistas that have been obstructed by ugliness. Why can't we have the self-control to ignore them to death as they do us?
Shop on-line if you’re strapped for cash. Do without the junk. Support real businesses where real people are earning their living, not corporations. Big is not your friend. Big is not even really cheap when you consider what constant anonymity does to your psyche, what obfuscation of issues and waiting in lines does to your guts, what buying from people who have absolutely no interest in your consumer satisfaction does to your quality of life. Big is bad.
In Manchester, we still have the Vac and Sew repair shop. They fix vacuum cleaners and
sewing machines. Can you believe it? We still have Gino’s barber shop. He has a real barber pole. You can find a jeweler and clockmaker. We still have beautiful Manchester Bank (now BBT) where the personnel have been there a long time and will cheerfully help you figure out your bank balance if you are mathematically challenged. We still have the Dutch Corner Restaurant. Come back Family Pharmacy. Come back Manchester Supply. Come back Kopps. The four-way clock on top of the 
firehouse has just been repaired. But time for sane living is running out. 
Shop on-line if you’re strapped for cash. Do without the junk. Support real businesses where real people are earning their living, not corporations. Big is not your friend. Big is not even really cheap when you consider what constant anonymity does to your psyche, what obfuscation of issues and waiting in lines does to your guts, what buying from people who have absolutely no interest in your consumer satisfaction does to your quality of life. Big is bad.
In Manchester, we still have the Vac and Sew repair shop. They fix vacuum cleaners and
sewing machines. Can you believe it? We still have Gino’s barber shop. He has a real barber pole. You can find a jeweler and clockmaker. We still have beautiful Manchester Bank (now BBT) where the personnel have been there a long time and will cheerfully help you figure out your bank balance if you are mathematically challenged. We still have the Dutch Corner Restaurant. Come back Family Pharmacy. Come back Manchester Supply. Come back Kopps. The four-way clock on top of the 
firehouse has just been repaired. But time for sane living is running out. 
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