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Re: Inevitability
[Rod Dreher 03/10 11:12 AM]Very practical suggestions, Bruce. I especially like this one: 2. Whenever possible, become a regular. What works at your local bar (getting you in on occasion without paying a cover, getting to know what items on the menu are best, when the cook is having an off-night, etc.) also works at the store; and it's just a lot more pleasant to go someplace where you can have a talk with the bartender/clerk/piano player/owner. Part of what made Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, such a pleasant place to live was the fact that we knew all of the shopkeepers where we were regulars, and they knew us. The butchers, in fact, were so kind that after Julie absent-mindedly left her meat in the shop one day as she was struggling to get a stroller out the door, they called and offered to bring it by the apartment. When we’d go to the Arab market to buy hummus and tea, Noor, one of the shopkeepers, would always give the kids sweets, say, “God bless them,” and tell us about his family back in Morocco. I could bore you to death going down the list of good merchants we knew by name, and who had our loyalty not only because we liked their products and their service, but because they were in some sense our friends. Trading with them was a big part of what helped my wife and me to learn to love our neighborhood and its little platoon. It built loyalty, social bonds, and civic trust.
I should note that one local merchant, the owner of an independent coffee shop, tried to rally the neighborhood against the new Starbucks that was coming in. Down with corporate giantism! he’d shriek. He failed, and it was deeply satisfying to see him fail. Why’d his campaign bomb? Because he couldn’t stand kids. He hated to have kids in his shop, and he was such an obnoxious leftie that his café was filled with all kinds of p.c. rules, and posters. But mostly he failed because his shop was unfriendly to small children, and as anyone in that neighborhood knew, it’s moms with strollers who retreated from their apartments to coffee shops to socialize. The Starbucks, on the other hand, was as friendly and as welcoming as it possibly could have been to these moms and their kids. The un-neighborly jerk closed up shop, and Starbucks, a good neighbor, still thrives.
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