'Back in the day,' I know you younger readers get tired of that phrase but trust me, one day it will make more sense to you than your phrase of choice today, 'It is what it it is.' As I was suggesting...when I was a lad growing up in East St. Louis, it seemed every corner had either a Church, tavern or grocery store, which meant every neighborhood had a preacher/Priest, a few drunks and a butcher.
Our family was into the grocery store business. Mammy Bennett operated a grocery store for a number of years. When she retired, her daughter, my Aunt Irene and Uncle Bud operated the store. Uncle Bud was a butcher...he also spent a lot of time at Leo Klimas' Tavern. My dad's Uncle Hade was also a butcher at Hood's Grocery Store on Peoria Avenue, Springfield, Illinois. Those little neighborhood stores carried most needed food staples and fresh meats, which the butcher would custom cut.
We all know what happened over time. The larger conglomerates ran the little store out of the neighborhood with bulk buying and lower prices. Today more Americans are attracted to even lower prices at Dollar General Stores and Dollar Tree Stores. These 'dollar' Stores have everything from clothing to cereal to can goods to greeting cards and even 'drug-testing' kits.
They just don't have anybody's Uncle working as the butcher. Sure like it when Uncle Bud would give us boys a hunk of liver for crawdad fishing in the Washington Park creek.
It seems to me that most neighborhood 'corners' today are occupied by either CVS or Walgreen's Drug Stores...Perhaps Americans are eating more 'processed meat,' which leads to them eating more 'pills.'
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