MomAndPop Store

"Good morning!"

The nice stock clerk that i say hello to each week when i go to the MomAndPop Store for milk and tortillas and the best tomatoes and other produce in the area greeted me with his usual smile, and i greeted him back.

Then he stopped me and said, "By the way, since you shop here every week, I thought you should know, we're moving!"

Moving? i asked.

"Yeah, the whole store is moving."

So, they aren't closing, and you won't lose your jobs, you will just be working in a new building? i continued.

"Yeah, everything's cool, we just gotta be outta here by July 31.  That's our last day here.  Then another store will be moving in"

Thanks for letting me know, and you know i'll follow you guys to your new location, i grinned.

"Heh, heh, I thought you would!" he responded with a huge grin.

This shouldn't have come as a surprise to me.  Just over 50 years ago, when Mom and Pop started the MomAndPop Store, it was on property they owned.  When they opened their second location, same thing.  Then they opened the third store, but couldn't buy the building.

For over 40 years, they have rented from Mr. Slum Lord.  The man would tell them that his people had come out and looked at the roof, and there was no leak, and the next day it would rain and part of the roof would fall in.  That kind of Mr. Slum Lord.  Someone who didn't care to keep up the property, just get more rent out of it.

About 6 months or so ago, there was talk of Mr. Slum Lord selling the property.  This had been discussed over and over for years, and every sale had fallen through based on the fact that one of the stores in the strip mall style buildings is a dry cleaner, and when they opened years ago there was less environmental regulation, and so the ground near that part of the building always tested as requiring remediation work that potential buyers wouldn't do.

This potential buyer would do it, apparently, and the sale went through.  The new owners have promised renovations, but have told Mom and Pop's kids, who still run the stores, that the rent will go up much more than they are willing to pay.

The end result was on the front page of the paper yesterday, thus the employee meeting the day before that to make the announcement of the move.  They will reopen on August 1 in their new place, just a few miles up the road.  Not as convenient for me, but i will get by there weekly anyway, as it's near the shelter.

The building will be renovated, and a different grocery, much more upscale, will be opening around Thanksgiving.   No, i'm not impressed.  Upscale usually equally pricier than i am willing to pay.

As for the other tenants of the other stores, including Dr. Bea, my veterinarian, i haven't heard.

All i know is, it will be worth stopping at MomAndPop Store's new location once a week while i'm at the shelter anyway, and if the new landlord repairs the parking lot here it will be a blessing, even if i'm only there for the vet or dollar store.  Mr. Slum Lord let it get so bad that i've even been bruised when the shopping cart went into a pot hole and bucked back and hit my let.



Today is

Abolition Day -- Martinique

Bear Waking Day -- Norway (traditionally said to be the day the bears awaken from their hibernation, at least according to many sites)

Buy a Musical Instrument Day -- even just a kazoo, and have some fun making music; maybe if this one spreads around the world and enough of us do it, it will foster some harmony in our lives

Harvey Milk Day -- The Harvey Milk Foundation

Hay Festival of Literature -- Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales (largest annual festival of literature in a beautiful market town in the Black Mountains of the Welsh marches; through June 1)

Independence Day -- Montenegro

International Day for Biological Diversity -- UN

Kodiak Crab Festival -- Kodiak, AK, US (there's more than bears up here, you know! through Monday)

Memory Days -- Grayson, KY, US ("East and West Carter Working Together" is this year's theme, with a parade, art show, music, Firefighter's Dinner and more; through Sunday)

Mudbug Madness -- Shreveport, LA (festival of crawfish and Cajun heritage, arts, entertainment, and more; through Sunday)

National Maritime Day -- US (commemorating the first transoceanic voyage under steam power)

National Sovereignty Day -- Haiti

National Vanilla Pudding Day

St. Julia's Day (Patron of torture victims; Corsica, Portugal; Livorno, Italy)

St. Rita of Cascia's Day/La Abodada de Impossibles (Patron of desperate causes, difficult marriages, forgotten causes, illness, lost causes, parenthood, sick people, sterile people, victims of physical spousal abuse, widows, wounded people; against abuse, infertility, loneliness, sickness, sterility, wounds, unhappy marriages; Cascia, Italy; Dalayap, Philippines; Igbaras, Philippines)

Toad-Pinching Day -- Fairy Calendar (Pixies)

Toothpaste Tube Day -- the tube was invented on this day in 1892 by dentist Washington Wentworth Sheffield, who wanted to replace the unhygenic practice of dipping the brush into a jar of dental cream

Unity Day / National Day -- Republic of Yemen

World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest -- Peoria, IL, US (competition and festival of ragtime, honky-tonk and old-time music; through Monday)

World Goth Day -- get in touch with your own inner Goth


Birthdays Today:

Apollo Anton Ohno, 1982
Ginnifer Goodwin, 1978
A.J. Langer,1974
Naomi Campbell, 1970
Morrissey, 1959
George Best, 1946
Paul Winfield, 1941
Michael Sarrazin, 1940
Frank Converse, 1938
Richard Benjamin, 1938
Susan Strasberg, 1938
Garry Wills, 1934
Peter Nero, 1934
Charles Aznavour, 1924
Judith Crist, 1922
Sun Ra, 1914
Sir Laurence Olivier, 1907
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859
Mary Cassatt, 1844
Richard Wagner, 1813


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood"(TV), 1967
"Paulus / St. Paul"(Oratorio, Mendelsshon Op. 36), 1836


Today in History:

The Macedonian army of Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of the Granicus, BC334
The Hashshashin (Assassins) attempt to murder Saladin near Aleppo, 1176
Pope Gregory XI issues five papal bulls to denounce the doctrines of English theologian John Wycliffe, 1377
Richard, Duke of York, defeats and captures King Henry VI of England, 1455
A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason, 1807
On the second and last day of the Battle of Aspern-Essling (near Vienna), Napoleon is repelled by an enemy army for the first time, 1809
The SS Savannah leaves port at Savannah, Georgia, United States, on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean; the ship arrived at Liverpool, England on June 20, 1819
HMS Beagle  departs on its first voyage, 1826
The transporting of British convicts to the New South Wales colony is abolished, 1840
Farmers Lester Howe and Henry Wetsel discover Howe Caverns, 1842
The Blackwall Tunnel under the River Thames is officially opened, 1897
The Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine", 1906
Lassen Peak erupts with a powerful force, and is the only mountain other than Mount St. Helens to erupt in the continental US during the 20th century, 1915
The most powerful earthquake ever documented, the Great Chilean Quake, measures 9.5 and strikes southern Chile, 1960
The nuclear-powered submarine the USS Scorpion sinks with 99 men aboard 400 miles southwest of the Azores, 1968
Ceylon adopts a new constitution, thus becoming a Republic, changes its name to Sri Lanka, and joins the Commonwealth of Nations, 1972
Namco releases the highly influential arcade game Pac-Man, 1980
Microsoft  releases the Windows 3.0 operating system, 1990
Johnny Carson retires from The Tonight Show after 30 years, 1992
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia join the United Nations, 1992
A jury in Birmingham, Alabama, convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murders of four girls in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, 2002
Sarah West, a British naval officer Commander is appointed commander of HMS Portland, the Royal Navy frigate; she is the first female officer to take command of a major British warship, 2012