You’ve all heard by now that corporate America is coming to town. And, no doubt, you’ve got feelings about this progressive phenomenon.
Not only have the SAC Shell convenience shops come under new ownership (Reliance Oil), but now it’s the Everett Foodliner with its partnered Exxon station as well as the Saxton Foodliner. In our household, we are some of the holdouts who still called our Everett Foodliner, “the IGA.”
The family-owned IGA has been around for generations and we’re used to it; we’re used to them. We appreciate that the Appleby family is aging like the rest of us and they should steer their personal future how they see fit, but we want their stores to miraculously stay the same, aging as they may be.
People are grieving the loss of the familiar, around town. I’m probably not the only one who has committed my feelings of loss and change to my dream life.
Yep, I had a dream about the IGA picking up and leaving town while Giant comes in and changes it all. It was about us running over a relative driving a motorcycle, hit-and-run style, and angry crowds filling the dark streets of Everett, but we all know it was about the IGA changing right under our noses. How dare they?
Just after the news hit the waves, it was turkey dinner day at the deli and guess what, they sold out before the end of the day. It doesn’t take a psychic to predict that the famous countywide doughnut case will also see empty days in the very near future.
As if you could hoard doughnuts, beautiful IGA subs, and their turkey dinners, these and other IGA favorites will grow scarce. Pile a winter storm on and look out for a few empty shelves soon.
One can sense the panic at the changes we anticipate. We see ourselves wandering around the entire store looking for where they put the jarred, minced garlic, or the flour tortillas, or oh my Lord, where are my favorite store brand pickles?!?
We fear the self-checkout and doing our own bagging and carry-out. It’s the home-town feel that we’re already grieving. We want to see familiar faces at the checkout, we want to feel valued, even cherished by the employees, like we value them.
These employees know us and we know them. They’re like the relative we hit and ran from in my dream. We fear that they and what they stand for are melting, melting, melting like the witch in the Wizard of Oz, into corporate nothingness and efficiency.
We fear we will no longer be special to our grocery family. We will be just another customer with cash or credit and they don’t care that we really liked those store-brand pickles.
Oh well, we have no choice but to move on. We have to turn on that same ole dime that we’ve turned on so many times over the years.
When we moved back from parts far and wide, to Bedford County over thirty years ago, the road widening on Route 30 between Everett and Bedford had just occurred and the Bedford Square Plaza, home of Walmart, was built. That was the beginning of our initiation to a changing Bedford County.
Now, after all this time it’s hard to imagine that highway any differently. It’s now the usual and we wouldn’t have it any other way. How about driving 70 miles per hour on I99? That was unheard of way back when.
I married into a family who had been military and my father-in-law stood tall representing the unofficial military slogan, “adapt and overcome.” Military leaders thought back in the early twentieth century, that there was no excuse for failing on a mission, because if you “improvise, adapt, and overcome,” you can accomplish pretty much anything you attempt, in some form or fashion.
I have come to believe that adaptation to change is one key to a fulfilling life. Change happens and we can grieve the old and the familiar having gone away, but just for a moment. Then, we have to be about the business of adapting to the new.
Some of us have grown to be okay with it, if not prefer the self-checkout. It’s usually quicker, if you don’t want to wait in line, and you have control over how your stuff is bagged. And, if your day is over-peopley and you want to run in and run out, voile the self-checkout.
Yes, we loved shopping at the IGA, but we have to let it go. I’ll bet you that Giant will have some things that we will like, maybe some of our favorite cashiers, maybe even their own brand of terrific pickles, wider aisles, something pleasantly surprising, if we give them a chance.
Let’s say we try forward-thinking about the changes to our beloved IGA. Instead of reacting to its loss, and being indignant at the sale of the store, perhaps we could try positively adapting our thinking to what might be, the opportunities that might come along with the changes. I’m guessing that’s what the Appleby’s would want for their community.
We’ll miss what you were to us IGA, since 1964. But we will adapt and overcome and in time, with a little help from our friends, we’ll be strutting up and down those new aisles picking up items with aplomb as if they were always located just there.
We’ve overcome the challenge of change before and we’ll be called upon to do it again. If the baby boom generation can do it, and we’ve done it countless times in our lives, anyone can do it. Let’s go shoppers!