The other day I found myself slowly strolling down my city's downtown main Street. Which of course is called Main Street. This area has been through more then a few changes since the place was founded around 1782 or so. For most of those years Main Street was just that. Main where folks shopped for things they needed like food or dry goods and don't forget stuff for the house. The biggies were all represented, Wards, Woolworths and Thrifty Drugs. Throw in a few banks and it really was a downtown downtown. Well like most cities do Main Street got longer and longer until poor ol downtown was just a bunch of old brick buildings. Mr. Wards and Woolworth high tailed it to a fancier digs away from Main Street.
Meanwhile, the city's life blood which was black gold. oil stopped flowing through its veins and another way to generate income was needed and was found. tourists. Lucky enough to be right on the Pacific coast and far enough away from that City of Angeles people started to flock to escape the traffic and other not so grand things that their city provided. So what would fill the empty stores in what was now called Historic Downtown? One fine day (or maybe it was raining who knows?) A Thrift Store opened which was a great idea for the owners. Why? It's easy, all their inventory is donated, old clothes, outdated furniture and things that nobody really knows what they did. Televisions with permanent vertical rolling well you get the idea. Now all this stuff sold and viola insta-profit. I seem to remember when I was a kid and your shoes were bought at the Thrift Store you kept that fact to yourself. Nowadays it's a status symbol to wear that 60's paisley shirt from a Thrift Store.
Next to the Thrift Store someone went a notch higher, they opened an Antique Store which like the Thrift Store sold old and at times battered items however unlike the Thrift Store the Antique folks sold theirs at prices that would make many folks break out into a sweat. It may look just like that end table with the scratch and loose leg offered at the Thrift Store for six bucks may sell at the Antique Store for sixty bucks. Why? Because they used a new term. Instaed of a little folded card that said table, six dollars they added the word Circa and a date which may or may not be accurate and who cares because circa kind of means “around”.
Okay so there is nothing wrong with good ol' capitalism but all of a sudden there were Thrift Stores and Antique stores popping up all over downtown (except for the little store that sold prewashed and ripped jeans for a Hundred bucks and a Headshop or two disguised as record stores). They all seem to do well catering to folks who either need that old steamer trunk (who really needs one me thinks) and find it for 10 bucks or want to impress their peers and pay 75 dollars on a antique weekend quest.
Interesting fact though, both Wards and Woolworths are things of the past. perhaps they should have stayed in Historic Downtown.
Time for a Latte.
