TheBanyanTree: end of an era

[Laura]

On 11 Sep 2007 NancyIee at aol.com wrote:

> Then, she said, "better stock up.  We're closing out." "No profit in
> feed anymore." In an area where every new homeowner had an acre or two
> and filled it with  horses and chickens, there was no more need for an
> old-time feed store. They all get it delivered from some big place in
> town. No one wants to go to the dusty  old feed store, haul the
> fifty-pound bags home, and unload and stack  it in their barn
> themselves. I do it because I like to chat with the gal, see  the
> hound's new pups, and remember old farm days when the feed mill was the
>  center of society. Ifen you didn't see another person all day, you
> still saw the  folks at the feed store. "If ya need some help out at
> your place, call me," the gal behind the desk  said to me as I left. 

It is sad, isn't it - this isolated society we've developed.  There *is* no center of society any 
more.  It used to be church, but so many of us don't go, or we all go to different ones, so you 
don't really socialize there with neighbors.  We don't go to the feed store anymore.  I used to 
go years ago, but suburbia killed my feed store days because it's hard to keep horses and 
goats in a 1/4 acre yard.  And don't even THINK about a pig!

There aren't any local, family owned little drugstores with a soda fountain to hang out at and 
chat.  No village barn dance or equivalent every month, or pot luck socials where the whole 
neighborhood shows up, everybody with a dish of something.  Even the teens would come, 
armed with a bottle of soda or a bag of chips.

I guess the kids think the mall is a good substitute, but I hate the mall.  Too crowded with 
hundreds of people I don't know.

Maybe it's because I live in the big city.  Maybe I need to move 50 miles out of town to one 
of the little "one horse", or "one stoplight" towns to find that old time social structure.

Or perhaps I'll have to be happy with the new social structure - finding groups of like-minded 
people.  As members of one of the local homeschool groups, we do have opportunities for 
that kind of socialization, thank goodness.

But I'm with you, NancyLee, I still miss the good old feed store and the smell of hay and 
sweet feed, and the squeakin' of the hound dog's pups.

-- 
Laura
wolfljsh at gmail.com
My Blog - http://wolfsinger.wordpress.com