signs of the times

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Our local plaza, within walking distance of the house, used to be a lively assortment of small businesses. When we moved to Earlysville 11 years ago there was a moderately sized food market, a pizza restaurant, a lawyer's office, all generating a fair amount of traffic. Through the go-go Shrubbery years the market changed hands and was given some updates, a furniture business sprouted across the street run by an energetic young couple, and traffic was substantial enough for the landlord to banish yard sales from the adjacent parking lot to accommodate parking for the corner businesses. Fast forward to 2010: there isn't a single business presence in any of the space.

Of course no one is blameless. There was a fair amount of intrigue surrounding the coming and goings of the furniture store proprietors, as in divorce, rumors of embezzlement, etc. Nor should one ignore the outside influences brought to bear: a large supermarket chain opened a massive new store only about five minutes away. Were people willing to forgo the better choice and pricing in order to support the smaller more local market? It didn't seem so, myself included.

Curiously enough, the much smaller country stores scattered around the area appear to still be doing fine, specializing as they do in pickled eggs, chaw, beer, and the white necessities (toilet paper, white bread, eggs, milk) always required prior to a snow storm. As seems to be the case in so much of commercial enterprise these days, there is little or no middle ground. We have Mega Marts in every town, or one location bodegas.