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| What kind of future for our restaurants? |
Easter weekend for me had no special meaning. For nearly my whole life it did, as my family would get together with our Glenwood relatives. We had the Scandinavian tradition of offering coffee as soon as we gathered together. My parents and my uncle and aunt reminisced a lot. As they got up in years this talk would get depressing for a younger generation person like me. That's because so many of their contemporaries were fighting the effects or ravages of age. I'd hear about people dying, becoming mentally crippled of being put in nursing homes.
My aunt Vi was in a nursing home for a fairly short time after my uncle died. Then she too passed away. One day my family visited her, and Dad recognized another resident from very long ago. The resident became very excited in a surprised sort of way and then regurgitated.
You can only spin so much happiness from what you observe in a nursing home. God created us so our breakdowns can be quite major with age. And this we notice more and more as medical science extends our lifespans. We end up with chronic conditions. Costs accelerate. People need relief in some way from the financial pressures of it all. Eventually the political process will see that something is done.
The quiet and uneventful nature of my life hovered around me as I experienced Easter weekend. I took a long walk on both Saturday and Sunday, partly in the country and partly through town. On Sunday especially the atmosphere was dead in a haunting sort of way. And yet people were behind all the shuttered doors. I can just imagine the exasperation coming out in their conversations. How might this exasperation start to be vented through the political process?
In one sense I am lucky: by not being part of a family, I am relieved of the pressure other family members might impose on me, pressures relating to financial stability and security. People have been idled, businesses forced to close their doors. I was absolutely astounded that my accountant/tax office had its doors closed right smack-dab in tax season. Any customer is going to want to go back and forth with those people, an occasional question to be answered, right? I was denied that, forced instead to work through a ridiculous "drop box" system. I had to rap on the door and get someone's attention to simply make clear how I had submitted some material. It felt stupid. Someone should have been seated by the door, at least.
Our restaurants' plight
Jim Morrison expressed a frustration I have felt greatly: restaurants being shut down. Increasingly I think the restaurant owners are just being screwed. Oh, but isn't the forced closure a matter of public health and safety? You can make an argument "yes," obviously. So maybe it's prudent but how do you square this with other categories of businesses that are left to operate more or less as normal?
On Saturday of Easter weekend, I was struck by the sight of the Town and Country parking lot being nearly full. DeToy's informed me that Town and Country is considered "essential." What? So people can get some gardening supplies for spring? The usual junk you see in the flyers that arrive in your mailbox? That's "essential?" Meanwhile restaurants like DeToy's are being oppressed, probably destroyed in many cases. A sense of unfairness builds. This is why industry groups have lobbyists.
Much of the time if you go into Willie's these days, you'd hardly suspect anything was up - seems normal except for a couple face masks you might see. It would seem the checkout clerks are literally risking their lives. But the doors have to be closed at the accounting businesses during tax season? If it's an essential step, fine, but why are there exceptions? Because people "need" certain things. Like lawn and gardening supplies at Town and Country? "Need" is a laughably fungible term.
Poor DeToy's. Poor customers of Detoy's for whom the visits there serve a social purpose. Don't underestimate the value of that. I am alone in my life and restaurants serve a nice purpose. They are getting clubbed while people still roam the aisles at Town and Country and Willie's. There is a basic unfairness about it all.
I am concerned about our future because of the extremely drastic actions taken by government and the Federal Reserve, actions that - believe me - could lead to hyper-inflation. Yes, and the specter of that could literally destroy this country.
Our government "bailouts" have filled the trough for the "one percent." We neglected this issue after the 2008 "financial crisis" which was not even an act of God, for crying out loud. Let people fail. Failure is an essential, a defining part of capitalism. Also, any capitalistic system has a downturn or recession, roughly every seven years. The problem now is that our political leaders led by Trump pull all possible strings to try to avoid that, in Trump's case mainly because if he loses re-election, he'll be vulnerable to our legal system and could well end up in prison. I mean, he should end up in prison if our system is allowed to operate unimpeded. It appears unlikely.
So heaven help us all if the government keeps stroking the "one percent" and the floodgates of "monopoly money" stay open as the Fed just prints. "Creative destruction" is a good thing. "Adapt or die" is a wise axiom. Don't bet on the right things being done now.
How much longer will our Morris restaurants even exist? Don't worry, at least we can get our lawn/garden stuff at Town and Country.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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