I’m preparing for the general boycott on Friday, as I suppose are many of you. I understand that it doesn’t necessarily mean all businesses. If you can, stay home and spend nothing, but if you absolutely must buy something necessary, the general wisdom is to support a Mom & Pop store that may be struggling with the competition from big box stores. I’m just asking you to take a minute to think this through.
I have nothing against Mom & Pop stores. My maternal grandparents owned a small diner in Bakersfield in the 1920s. My stepfather’s parents had a small paint and decorating shop in El Dorado, Kansas, that was in the family for three generations. Another generation of grandparents (and great-grandparents) owned Briggs Hardware, on the square in old Neosho, Missouri. It’s in a building now named of national importance as one of the founding businesses of the town. So I know the family store concept from the inside.
The cafe was in business until the 1950s, although my grandparents had divorced and Grandma moved back to Missouri, where she married into the Briggs family. The paint shop was in business until the 1980s, when my stepfather’s brother retired. The hardware store (Grandma’s second husband’s family) was sold to his brother’s father-in-law in the depression but was still run by his brother and wife, and is now part of the town’s history.
Okay, now I’m going to tell you another family store story. When I first moved to the farm (the one I left behind last September), I was doing work around the house and needed finishing nails. There was no hardware store in the little town three miles east, so I went to the only slightly larger town six miles west.
The elderly proprietor had dozed off in his chair at the back of the store, so I quietly went about looking for finishing nails. I didn’t find them (it turned out they didn’t carry them), but I did stop to look at three old snapshots he had stapled above some small tools. The town picnic, dated 1932. I loved the hats on the women. A town parade, dated 1926. A small parade, with both horses and autos. (I think it was 4th of July.)
And the third photo. It was identified as “Naturalization Ceremony” and was dated in that same time frame. I’d never heard that term, “Naturalization”, applied to a ceremony inducting men (presumably including the old man sleeping in the store) into the KKK. But yup, there it was, white robes, pointy hats (faces exposed, because why hide them?), that white flag with the cross. I presume it was red, although of course all the pictures were black and white.
Sure, the hardware store is gone, and supposedly so is the owner. But really? Would I spend money supporting this business? Would you?
The KKK photos are gone, but the small Kansas town’s sentiments aren’t better. The white robes are replaced by red hats, the Klan flags replaced by Trump flags, still flying alongside Old Glory, even though there’s never a state flag.
I’m not saying you have to interrogate every shop owner to determine their political views. But if you see a store openly pushing their bigotry, avoid it. My local yarn shop in Leavenworth was sold about 8 years ago, and the first time I was there after the sale, the Pop owner (a youngish married couple had bought the shop) was helping me look for a yarn suitable for a sweater for my son-in-law. When I mentioned that there were color considerations because he was dark complected, being Pakistani, I got a very ugly response about Muslims. And I left. I can order yarn online and skip the open bigotry.
So before you laud “Mom & Pop” as more deserving of our support, think. Sometimes it may be the right choice. Sometimes, we can do better.