How It Forever Changed the Way We Shop
It’s so easy, you don’t even think about it. You go to your favorite supermarket, compare items on the shelves, take the ones you want, pay for them, and leave. It’s mud pie simple.
But a century ago, grocery shopping was an entirely different experience for your grandma or great-grandma. Until a pig changed everything. The concept was radically different from anything tried before and it worked so well, we’re still using it today. Here’s how it happened. Continue reading
This column is, admittedly, different than most. Blame progress. I don’t like “new & improved” anything; I’m a fan of “old & worse.” Which is how we wound up with today’s topic.
Of the many sad stories scattered throughout history, few are sadder than the tale of the Romanovs. Driven from the throne their ancestors had occupied for 300 years, they were hustled off to exile in Siberia, awakened on a muggy July night and mercilessly murdered. An entire family, and a royal legacy, passed into legend in an instant.
If you had lived in Vienna in 1913, you would have enjoyed a cultural treat. Capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it was the crown jewel of central Europe. Art, music, literature, fine food and impressive architecture all flourished, happily unaware that a world war would very soon erupt and drastically change everything. But for the moment, it was a grand time to be Viennese.
The Old West seemed to breed larger than life legends. Wild Bill Hickok. Wyatt Earp. Billy the Kid. Calamity Jane. The list goes on and on.
A good many summer vacations in my childhood were spent on my grandparents’ farm in northwest Missouri. It was the 1960s and the older people still “went visiting.” Grandma took me in tow when she made her weekly rounds calling on fellow rural ladies of a certain age.
Every so often, history offers a story that’s so improbable there’s no way it could be true. Yet once in the proverbial blue moon one defies the odds and turns out to have really happened.
What do presidential campaigns and the Christmas shopping season have in common? They both keep starting earlier and earlier.
Sometimes, amid man’s cruelty to his fellow man, a ray of kindness shines through. One such episode happened 70 years ago.
History is filled with stories of prostitutes who, despite their low social standing, did inspiring things. The Bible tells about Rahab, who harbored two Israeli spies inside Jericho. Gone With the Wind included the noble Belle Watling, whom some scholars believe was modelled on real-life Kentucky madam Belle Brezing.