Today's marketplace moves at the speed of light. It offers both speed and convenience, allowing us to free up a little more precious time throughout the day. While much can be said for the modern way of doing business, it also comes with a price attached. The cost of today's speed and convenience is the loss of yesterday's personal service and interactions.
Unlike the generations of our children and grandchildren, as Baby Boomers we have been lucky enough to experience the benefits of both times. This is a double-edged sword, however, because we also felt the loss of something valuable from our childhoods when the old ways of doing business ceased to exist. Back when we were kids, the closest thing to superstores was the department store. Unlike today's department stores, however, many of the department stores of the past were independent and locally owned. This was even truer of your hometown's grocery store, bank, and gas station. Of course, some cities had multiple stores that sold the same things - groceries or gas, for example - but each one was owned as a separate "mom and pop" store.
One of the rare exceptions to the individually owned department store during our childhood was Woolworth's. There was one in almost every town, and many of us ate at their lunch counter as kids. Remember when lunch cost you less than a dollar? You were able to buy lots of other things with a dollar, too. In the late 1950s, it was the price of a movie ticket, four gallons of gas, or five loaves of bread. Then again, the average yearly salary was only about five thousand dollars. Regardless, it boils down to this: the prices of our childhood no longer exist, but the time period they belong to will always be priceless.
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