Growing up in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia during the 60's & 70's ones life constantly revolved around the corner shop. Wether it was to pickup the dry-cleaning, buying milk or spending the change on lollies. My friends and I even had a nice little money-spinner in stealing the empty soft drink bottles from the backyard of the shop and then walking through the front door to cash in our empties. That is until they caught on to our entrepreneurial skills and placed a mean old kid-eating dog in their backyard.
The kids on our block were lucky we had three corner shops, so once we wore out our welcome was worn out at one we simply moved on to annoy the next. The shopkeepers knew our names our parents and even our dogs, which always tried to follow us in. It was here where we purchased our first packet of cheap smokes to share with our mates up the park, and where the shopkeepers told all about the local's goings on.
Fortunately living in rural Queensland nowadays I still have a corner shop, actually it is the only shop and it always pleases me when walking in that they know me by name, know my children & dogs name (which still tries to follow me in). Try that in one of those brightly lit 24hr convince chain-store and I am sure you would be given your marching orders by a stranger quick smart.
