What if we lose our only grocery store?

Jack Benny at the grocery store (YouTube image)

Pitchers in baseball have always gotten a pass for carrying a little more weight than non-pitchers. Player/author Jim Bouton, writing back in 1970, found a way of describing his Houston Astros teammate Fred Gladding with a little levity: "He doesn't even look like a pitcher, he looks like a grocer who's been eating a good share of his profits."
In 1970 we were all a little more weight-conscious than today.
In Morris we have the grand Willie's Super Valu which, when it was first built, looked to me like a casino. It was so much more fancy than the previous place. Previously the store was in the space occupied by the Stock medical clinic, whatever its exact name is now. Does Morris really need two medical clinics? Rhetorical question.
As a child I observed the competition between Willie's Red Owl and Juergensen's Super Valu. Juergensen's was in the building that was Aaron Carlson Woodwork for a long time. Now it's Town and Country storage. In the '60s it was the Juergensen's store that had "partial carry," a term taught to me by the late beloved Glen Helberg. "Partial carry" meant the customers drove up to the front of the store where the sacks were placed in the vehicle.
Juergensen's had a quite nice snack counter where the ice cream cones seemed just as good as at the Dairy Queen. And the Dairy Queen was along East 7th Street which was an active artery for a long time. It was once the main entrance to Morris from the east. Plus it ran right past the school. The school was up through grade 12 as late as 1968. The building is gone. It's important to preserve the memories.
 
The cheese stands alone?
One can view the Willie's (casino) store as a monopoly today, or pretty close to it. I'd say it's a monopoly for all practical purposes, so congratulations Paul. However, this raises a concerning specter. What if we lost Willie's?
Can't happen? Well, we have sure lost other things. We read in the Star Tribune recently about Farmington losing its only grocery store. That article was presented in the context of this type of thing happening not infrequently. Before reading about Farmington, I came across an article on MSN about the surprise closures and how communities were having to react. The article gave as a case study Baldwin, Florida. The town's only grocery store closed in 2018. Residents were going to be inconvenienced with travel. Or worse yet like with so many senior citizens, isolated and with hardly any options. That would be unacceptable.

My own photo of Willie's Super Valu

So, what happens when the vaunted "private sector" just cannot come through? Conservatives and Republicans always tell us that the private sector and markets solve everything. So often those people just dispense sheep dip. And when the government does come to the rescue, those people are in denial. They will not say "socialism" even if that's what it is. There is plenty of socialism going on and it's practical in order to supplement private initiative. But the right wingers talk as if government help is anathema to America!
The mayor of Baldwin proposed that the town open its own grocery store. Supermarket businesses demand a profit margin that has to be fed. People need food. How to reconcile? The MSN article tells us that both urban and rural communities across the U.S. have adopted resident-owned co-ops or non-profits. In Baldwin there is a different choice, and this is for the "Baldwin Market" where employees are on the municipal payroll! The butcher, the cashiers, everyone.
Part of the fascination here is that there is no profit aim! The aim is to simply cover expenses, to keep the store going. The article cited St. Paul, Kansas, as another place that has implemented a city-run grocery store, since 2013. Communities feel a need for a bona fide and convenient grocery store, in order to be deemed an attractive place to live. But established grocery store chains are pressed in many places to get a profit up to their standard.
We can look at the newspaper here in Morris as a model for understanding the dynamics: It has changed hands, going from a regional corporate interest to a more local-flavored one, amidst talk that the bigger outfit was going to close the doors. I suppose we're all grateful the paper can be rescued. A price that gets paid though, according to my sources, is that the new outfit is not generous with employee benefits like health insurance. Many small businesses, even legal offices where I have a source, lose valued employees because those employees seek government employment where benefits are of course super.
One solution is for the government to get more involved like with a truly national health care system that takes pressure off the business people. Oh but that's "socialism" as the GOPers preach about.
 
Don't slam door on government
I have argued that government needs to get more involved helping the City of Morris with its new water treatment plant, in the sense of providing subsidies to help people make the transition from old water softeners. I floated this idea previously with the observation that we're in bright red Trump-supporting country where of course subsidies are odious. Are they really? Do the farmers gnash their teeth accepting subsidies?
No, I think most local people would love to see vouchers or something like that to help our new water treatment plant work. Senior citizens who love Donald Trump are happy to accept their Medicare.
The Baldwin FL mayor talks about the essential nature of food access. You'd think of course the private sector can handle this. Well I guess not. The private sector couldn't keep our local Shopko store open. So, it closed because people are gravitating to the discount or dollar stores? This is the factor cited in the closing of Elbow Lake's main street hardware store.
The discount stores have been a great resource for income-deprived people to keep reasonably happy with a decent lifestyle. But a shock may be coming: the "trade war" is going to result in a lot of the super cheap items becoming not so cheap anymore. The Baldwin mayor says "food access becomes almost like a utility that you have to have for a town to exist."
Communal ownership? Heavens, the word is a close relative of communism! And such operations seem to be sprouting in the more rural, Trump-oriented parts of the USA! I'm amused.
Baldwin is viable enough to support eleven churches. The IGA store there shut down in 2018. Would Baldwin become a "food desert?" Could Morris MN become a food desert? It's a scary but not unrealistic question.
 

Paul Martin

Ditch the ad circulars
I have given Paul Martin the suggestion that his store could quit sending out the weekly print ad circular. I just cannot see where that is essential. People either trust the store to have reasonable everyday prices or they don't. I have always felt that ads just tempt you to buy certain things you otherwise wouldn't, to buy greater quantity, or to buy a less-desired brand. So forget it and just buy what you need. You'll have plenty of opportunities to waste money anyway.
I used to load boxes of the Willie's ad circulars onto the Sun Tribune van. Do you know how much all those weighed?
Aren't you all intrigued by the idea of shopping at a store that seeks no profit and probably offers more of just the basic things. I have always wondered why you have to walk down an aisle with seemingly a hundred kinds of breakfast cereal. How about just four or five basic kinds? You'll find something there you'll like. You can extend this thinking throughout the store.
I'm writing these thoughts because we cannot rule out the kind of challenge that Baldwin, Farmington and other small communities have faced. We simply must be prepared. If Shopko could close, anything could happen. How did we get down to just one grocery store anyway? How far can this consolidation go? Can our local "casino" stay viable? Or even desirable?
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com