Attention Shoppers!

If you're reading this on a handheld device while standing in a line outside a big box store to snag a once-in-a-lifetime-deal on almost anything under the sun to include a television, a new cell phone, a refrigerator-freezer or gaming console, please go home now.

All of us who have the capabilities to read this blather have all the physical possessions we shall ever need. Anything you're standing in line for now, or elbowing folks out of the way to get to later in the day as Black Friday accelerates, is sheer and absolute greed. 

Thanksgiving and this is still Thanksgiving my friend, is to celebrate with friends, old and new and not acquire more things to put in the basement or attic with the other things we already own and don't use.

Many years ago in Germany, I had an acquaintance who described Americans as "people who buy things they don't need with money they don't have to impress people they don't like." I really disliked him for that characterization but I always think about what he said when Black Friday rolls around and know I cannot argue with his point.

Where I live, Norwich, Connecticut, a town of about 40,000, if I were to add up all the square footage of all the shops in our downtown, occupied buildings or otherwise, I suspect it's less than the floor space in the average Super Box Store. It's getting better and will keep growing but the big bucks head to the Big Box stores. Fair enough, I guess.  

I can be gracious and concede that reality because tomorrow is Small Business Saturday, and assuming you're not tuckered out from that super deal you got on the 1932 hand-carved mahogany Terraplane at MaxBucks MegaStore, you could support one or more of the local shops where you live, all of whom help make your city or town an even better place to come home to.
- bill kenny