Where Did Mervyn's Go?

Where Did Mervyn’s Go? Betty McCallister 6/21/09 It was at the corner of the street, Mervyn’s was. No need to maneuver around the hectic mall parking lot to grab a quick item. Mervyn’s was so handy, but is no more. Perhaps it went the way of my really favorite store, Robinson’s May. And what happened to the local Hallmark Card shop a mile from home where I bought at least 100 cards, gifts and gadgets. They closed their doors after 23 years, along with the Video shop beside them. Both gone with the blink of an eye. The nearby Target and Smart and Final picked up and moved to the next town. So I drive to Long’s Drugs that I visited on a weekly basis and the parking lot is empty. No more Long’s. Bobby McGee’s, a Brea landmark restaurant has a ‘for lease’ sign on it’s face. We celebrated several happy occasions there, where they would place around our necks a paper toilet seat cover for a bib and the good times ensued. Am I living in the twilight zone, I ask myself. Vacant and boarded up buildings are destroying the landscape and scares me so. And what happened to all the hundreds of employees of these establishments I wonder. Perhaps among the gainfully unemployed. Oh, there is more. These days our minds are burdened with downcast news of spiritless events as foreclosures, bankruptcies, war, gay marriages, immigration, budget cuts, short falls, health care, terrorism, Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan, and on and on the list goes like a snowball gathering snow. Our minds are in a boggled state as we try to digest these bigger than life issues. I want to be informed and be a concerned citizen, but it is all a little overwhelming right now. I guess we are all looking for answers as to how and why and to whom to lay blame and point the finger at. Are you as puzzled with it all as I am? Still, as we greet each new day we put one foot in front of the other and nod. We set the table, fold the laundry, butter the toast and go on with the normal functions in an abnormal world, each of us finding our own coping tools in order to stay on top of the game, the game called life that is. Am I on the outside looking in, or am I in the inside looking out? I have always heard that change is a good thing and we must roll with it. Well I sometimes think I am on a slippery sloop just a rolling and a rolling along. I do not want to hear another newscast of more impossible situations. I cannot fix them, I can only fret about them. Is it okay at 70 years young to bury your head in the sand and pretend that everything is just fine? Do I have permission to do that? I have a sign on my patio that I bought at a craft fair which reads, ‘do you suppose the hokey pokey is really what it’s all about’? Do you suppose????? I just want my Mervyn’s back.