Corner store

Are corner stores going extinct?  Slowly being pushed out by the super Wal-Marts and uber grocery stores (for crying out loud my Safeway carries Le Crueset)?   It seems to me that you just can't find smaller stores much any more.  Even liquor stores and bakeries (especially bakeries) seem to be a quaint relic from the past. 

When I was little my mother would hand me a dollar and have me run down to the little bakery around the corner to pick up four loaves of sandwich bread.  Yes I said four.  And just revealed that I am about 115 years old.

I would have to cut through the elementary school to get there.  I would always have to stop and play on the monkey bars first.  Maybe chat with Mr. Beeswax, the janitor (his real name was Mr. Billwax but everyone called him Mr. Beeswax) if he was there.   He was the janitor of the elementary school and watched four of us girls go through elementary school.  Nicki was in Jr. High when we moved here so he missed her formative years.  However, years after we had all grown and  the elementary school closed Nicki was walking into our grandparent's apartment complex when she heard someone ask "Are you one of the S(maiden name) girls?"  She said, yes indeed she was and he said "I thought so.  You walk just like the rest of them."

The little shopping center had a small grocery store, a bakery, an ice cream parlor, a barber shop and a bank.  A few other small shops that I can't quite remember.   Oh it had a donut shop/diner where you could get a burger and fries if you wanted.  Served in those little red plastic baskets lined with paper.  My younger sister Trish and I would love to go there for lunch and split an order of fries.  Once, when we a little short on cash, we packed our lunch and went in and sat at one of the tables and started to eat.  The owner came over and shooed us out when we explained we wouldn't be ordering anything.  It dumbfounded us that in order to eat there we had to actually buy the food from them.

The bakery later turned into a liquor store and remained a liquor store until a couple of years ago.  My dad used to buy his lottery tickets there.  He would always buy one ticket for every million dollars the jackpot was.  So if it was 15 million he would buy 15 tickets.  When he got sick I would go buy his tickets for him from the Chinese woman who owned the place.  She would always ask me how my father was doing and was quite relieved when he was able to get them himself again.

Once when I was in there I was standing in line behind a well dressed, young man who was probably in his mid-twenties. When he got to the head of the line she asked him how many he wanted and he said "two today, please." and she reached under the counter and handed him two cigarettes and he left.  When I got up to her she explained that he was trying to quit smoking and he would buy a pack and leave them with her and she would dole them out to him one or two at a time.

Do you think your Uber-Mart cashier would do that?