Fox Books is Coming

In the movie “You’ve Got Mail,” a charming, privately owned children’s bookstore (The Shop Around the Corner) is threatened when a mammoth bookstore (Fox Books) moves nearby.  Eventually the superstore’s massive inventory, low prices, and fancy cappuccino capture the hearts of local buyers.  Priceless customer relationships are severed forever when Fox Books steals so much business that the owner of The Shop Around the Corner is forced to close her doors.

Something similar is happening here, only not with bookstores.

We live in the boonies, surrounded by small towns.  Actually they’re not called towns here, but villages, which is much more quaint.  One village about 25 minutes from us seems somehow immune to change.  Its streetlights – black wrought-iron-looking ones with globes resembling those that housed candles in the really-old days – replicate those I remember in the 50’s and 60’s.  Storefronts on the downtown strip haven’t changed much since they were built in the 19th century.  A stone-constructed post office, with tall, steep steps (awe-inspiring if not handicapped accessible) rouses memories of a time when it was normal to respect and honor governmental agencies and officials.

I like this village, and often frequent its privately owned grocery, coffee shop, and gift store. Residents survive quite well here without being squished by commercialism.  After all, The City is only half-an-hour away via interstate if you need something more than the village provides.

However, next month a new Wal-Mart will open just barely within village limits.  It has been under construction all winter, and now appears to be preparing for opening day.  Last evening as we drove by on our way home from a grandson’s Performing Arts Summer Camp program, we noticed brash lights blaring across the bare parking lot.  The hard expansiveness felt cold, and those towering mega-lights seemed out-of-place.

Although I’ve never been a Wal-Mart fan, I’ll enjoy having one close in the same way the folks in the movie celebrated Fox Books.  The enormous inventory will be convenient. I’ve heard Wal-Mart is chumming up with Whole Foods somehow to offer more organic produce at reasonable prices.  That alone will lure me through the door.

Some people call this progress, and part of me agrees.  And yet I’m also grieving, in The Shop Around the Corner sense.  What will happen to the little gift store, and the loyal grocery that has supplied hungry locals for years?  The village will never be the same again.  A certain quality of life will be changed.  And there’s no going back.