Trick or treating -- revisted

This is a repost of a post from one year ago. Nothing has changed so I will put it in front of you again. RS


This is October 31. In addition to its being the end of the month, it marks something called Halloween. When I was a child about half a century ago, I used to go freeloading with my little brother. We probably hit every house in an area of about a quarter mile and brought home a lot of calorie-laden food.

We never thought twice about it. We never questioned the safety of the food. We never asked ourselves why would people we did not know or only knew vaguely would be all ready and apparently happy to give us candy or other treats. And when we found the occasional person who was not participating, we somehow felt that we were being deprived of something to which we were entitled. [And we somehow resented that our neighbors, almost all of whom attended Catholic school, would get the next day off and got to eat their stuff sooner.]

I have long suspected that this type of attitude explains a lot of people’s attitudes toward other parts of life these days. Maybe trick-or-treating enables the entitlement mentality.

The sign is up, the ground was broken, and now the little bear has come out of hibernation

I did visit the new Cub store at 1177 Clarence which opened this morning. I arrived at about 7:30 a.m. and there were about 80 cars in the parking lot. Although they are really hyping the LEED stuff, the store did not seem a lot different than any other Cub Store as far as navigating and shopping are concerned. They were giving quarter-hourly LEED tours, but I did not take one.

One thing I noticed before I could get in is that they have reserved some of the best parking places [similar to the ones for the handicapped] for cars that make 30 mpg. I don’t know how they can enforce that and wondered if it isn’t just a bit elitist, but I went in anyway.

The store will give those of us in the northern and western parts of the East Side another option for shopping, but like Rainbow and the other Cub stores they still sell Hormel pork so people of good heart who are looking for pork will still need to go elsewhere.

I paid the cashier when I left and noticed that the coupons on the back of the register receipt were for places in St. Anthony and New Brighton. I assume that they must have brought over paper rolls designed for the Apache Plaza store and imagine that that will change.

As I was leaving I was given a woven Cub grocery bag with chips, cookies, grape juice, and an unknown substance in a packet [maybe hot chocolate mix or soup mix or cheese sauce mix] which I guess I will have to open to figure out what it is.

I know that the economy is shaky, but people need to eat and based on how the store was doing in its early hours, it seems that this store might be there for quite a while.

Earlier posts: http://ccmusings.blogspot.com/2007/11/revealing-sign.html [11/1/07]
http://ccmusings.blogspot.com/2008/03/phalen-village-cub-groundbreaking.html [3/18/08]

The first post in a while

It has been a while since I posted anything here. The lack of posts is due to complications of a fire, a resulting relocation, and a computer that must have sustained some damage in transit. I appreciate the two of you who seemed to miss things.

I know that I have missed so much of the political funny season and will not get it back. But I am sure that you have received enough of that kind of thing anyway.

I am still having a hard time getting my mind set in the right direction, but keep looking.

RS