Blog 783 – 09.23.2017
Everything Changes, Stays The Same

Fifty years ago I was working at my first after school job while attending Central High School in Chattanooga, Tennessee. So many things have changed yet stayed the same. I was reminded of that when I looked up from my day job in Platteville, Wisconsin to see an old familiar sign. Mr. Piggy Wiggly has not changed at all. He is still wearing that same paper hat that he was fifty years ago when I worked for him. My bosses names were actually Ralph and Jim Goodlet, great guys, who were carrying on the family grocery store business, Goodlets, that their parents had started. Later the boys bought into a franchise of the Piggy Wiggly brand. It think I started out working as a sack boy for Goodlets and it became a Piggy Wiggly about a year into my two year after high school gig.

Since I planned to sign up for the U.S. Army on November 22, 1968, my eighteen birthday, I worked full time at the Piggly Wiggly from June till then as a stock boy and sacker, as needed. I learned a lot working for Ralph and Jim. They saw their store as not just a profit center to support their families and a place to carry on the family tradition but as a training ground for all the young men and women that they helped to develop a strong work ethic. We had only one small McDonald’s in Chattanooga then and a few other fast food places but most of the grocery stores hired sack boys and check out girls and that was the first real job for many of us.

I still see sack boys and check out girls in some the grocery stores today, especially the smaller Mom and Pop stores. Oh, you won’t see them at Walmart at least the sack boys  because they make the checkers check and bag and would really prefer you checked yourself out and sack your own stuff. I know how but prefer to interact with a real live person. Computers are fine. I am writing this on my tablet, and I love it, but I still like personal service and that requires a person. Everything changes, but personal service stays the same – a real live person meeting some need or performing some service for you.

We are all servants as Bob Dylan sang so well during his born again Christian phase in the song, “You’re Gonna Have To Serve Somebody.” If you read that quote in a previous blog of mine that’s okay, some things are worth repeating – one of the many things that always changes but stays the same.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White