Hate seeing once busy stores now standing empty
I hate driving through our community and seeing once busy stores, factories, restaurants, or other businesses that are now standing empty. I don’t mean an occasional “coming soon” slot in a shopping mall. I mean those places — probably every city has them — which just can’t seem to keep a business going no matter what.
When my wife, Shirley, and I go to pay our weekly homage to Sam Walton (i.e., we do a weekly shopping trip to our favorite Walmart Super Center), we pass a place that originally was a trendy restaurant. Then it was a coffee shop, then it was I forget what. Now, three years after the original restaurant closed, I see it’s a barbecue rib joint. (To make matters worse, this building sets on the end of the block where there’s an empty Circuit City location.)
But there are other towns with many more closed businesses than ours, so I consider us fortunate. Though many of the jobs in our community are low-paying service jobs, rather than the manufacturers’ factories we used to have, at least there ARE jobs here. So good for us, I guess.
And, even better news for us all, many economists and business people are now starting to think this miserable recession is winding down and things are getting better, little by little.
But I still find it downright depressing to see those once busy stores and restaurants now standing empty.
