Recently, I was talking to a young person about how shopping locally is critical, and I said, “I know I sound like a broken record.” She looked at me blankly, and it dawned on me, even if my meaning was understood, she no doubt never had the experience of playing an LP vinyl record so often that a groove got worn into it, causing it to repeat and thus become ‘a broken record’. Add this to the list of indignities associated with aging; the realization that the cliches you use become obsolete references as technology evolves.
At the risk of repeating myself, I do like to remind everyone occasionally that buying locally made products or services is one of the easiest and best ways you can help keep the economic and community momentum going in our region. If you like the range of dining, shopping, and other business-related options we are fortunate to have nearby, it’s important to remember that all of those options are dependent on our ongoing support. You can’t just passively assume they will always be there! The entrepreneurs who have devoted their time, energies, and capital to create and run these enterprises — employing many of our local community members in the process — count on us to utilize their establishments whenever possible. We’re all thrilled to see new business activity in our area, filling previously vacant spaces that give us more opportunities to enjoy and participate in our community, but we run the risk of seeing some of those gains reversed if we don’t continue to support our emerging commercial ecosystem.
Right now, it’s more important than ever to make conscious decisions to invest in local business activity. We are in the deepest part of winter heading towards the full-year milestone of this horrible pandemic, and while almost all of our local businesses have found a way to continue on thus far through these difficult months, many find themselves hanging on by a thread. This pandemic has been tough for all of us, but imagine being a local business person, perhaps struggling to keep everyone on the payroll in the face of revenue declines. Our local establishments could really use your extra efforts and thoughtfulness right about now — perhaps buying a gift for someone in a local store vs. online through Amazon, or maybe leveraging take-out food options once or twice per week to try out local restaurants you haven’t frequented in a while. Experts tell us it will be at least another three-to-six months before a sufficient amount of us can be vaccinated, so your ongoing support of our local businesses will be especially needed throughout the next few months.
America celebrates the ideal of individuality, enabling each of us to pursue our own passions and motivations, and the summation of those individual pursuits creates the fabric of our diverse communities as a whole. There is truth in that, but the best metaphor I’ve heard lately for a community is to think of it as an aspen grove. Aspens are beautiful trees, and a grove appears to be a collection of individual trees rising on their own into the sky. In reality, it is all one organism, with every shoot connected underground as part of the same root system. Our community can be envisioned in a similar light, as one ecosystem with visibly unique constituents but tethered and connected at a vital level to one another as well.
For those of you who never got to experience the broken record phenomenon with an actual LP on a record player, it was frustrating when you realized you caused it to happen by overplaying one particular song (full disclosure — my first instance of this was on Earth Wind & Fire’s Greatest Hits). But it was also a clear signal that you had found something in that specific part of the record that was enjoyable and important enough to revisit again and again. Think of Buying Local in a similar fashion. It’s a great way to interact with your fellow community members and businesses, and important enough to revisit that groove continuously.
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