Today, we have large shopping centers and �big box� stores

that tempt us with their vast quantities of products.  They are

also absolute models of efficiency being designed to get a

customer in and out of the store as quickly as possible while

selling as much of their inventory as possible.  There is a

minimum of interaction between the store's staff and those who

are shopping.  And, even when friends encounter each other

during their shopping time, the stores provide nothing to

encourage anything more than a casual �hello� and �goodbye.�

  There was another time and place, though, when stores

functioned in a different manner.  At a crossroad, sometimes in

a town or in the country, a �general store� would be built.  They

might not have everything that the customer needed but they

could always order it or help find it.  They usually were not very

large but they were always big enough to have a place for

people to sit and visit.  Yes, in every respect to today�s stores,

they were completely inefficient.  But the main difference was

that they were �alive� with the warmth of the people who

managed them and the people who came into their doors to

shop and visit.  My remembrance of that lost time and place

came from an abandoned store in the southwest

part of Oklahoma.  

Another Time and Place is a watercolor, painted on 15" x 11"

140# cold press paper.  The original has been sold.