Missing The Neighborhood Grocery
For a good portion of my childhood, we lived just a block from the Oakhurst Superette, our neighborhood grocery. Lexie Woods, or "Mr. Lexie" as we knew him then, was proprietor.
Whenever Mother dispatched us to Mr. Lexie's store, the conversation usually unfolded predictably.
"Well, James Mac, what can we do for you today?"
"Mother needs a pound of bologna."
"Come on back to the meat counter, and we'll take care of that."
After dropping the long, brown cylinder of meat into the slicing machine, Mr. Lexie would tweak the control until perfect slices plopped out the bottom, one by one, onto waxy butcher paper for weighing. "There you go--exactly one pound." Though he'd drop on a couple more slices for good measure, he charged only for the pound.
Knowing both our names and our needs, Mr. Lexie and his store served as an extension of our household. "Do you want me to put this on Mrs. Mac's bill today?" "Yes, if you don't mind." He never minded.
I eventually left home for college and didn't run errands for Mother anymore. And Mr. Lexie left the store to serve as postmaster. But the repeated crossings of our paths more than 40 years ago shaped part of the past that's delivered me to where I am today.
"Mr. Andy" Shaw's drug store was no different, for he served us in ways that extended beyond filling prescriptions. When a project demanded dry ice or potassium nitrate or some obscure chemical, he pointed me to sources.
Though he told me so, I suspect Mr. Andy went years without raising the price of my dad's prescriptions. He would have absorbed inevitable cost increases himself, perhaps as a way of paying back his former high school teacher. And when I took my small son into the drug store about 15 years ago, Mr. Andy thrilled him with the gift of a little knife.
Today, I drive to the supermarket, buy groceries and check myself out without ever speaking to a person. Most of our prescriptions, filled over the Internet, come by mail. We arrive at the same destination, but the old path afforded a clearer view of the Bible's Golden Rule: "Treat others the same way you want them to treat you."
Perhaps changes are inevitable, natural consequences of a culture steadily drifting toward individual isolation. But the backwash of this movement buries opportunities to demonstrate how life ought to be lived. For what better example of generosity could I have than a couple of extra slices of bologna dropped onto the stack? Or who better to show gratitude than one who bore cost increases and never mentioned them?
Our thirst for efficiency and personal convenience has carved out a hunk of America's soul. And the hollow that's left can never be filled by shrink-wrapped packages of exactly eight slices.
Copyright 2003 James McAlister
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