Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

I'm a huge believer in localism. I talk about it, I write about it, I think I live it.

Well, I try to at least. I really try to live in ways that are consistent with my beliefs.

Sometimes, though, I run smack into the wall dividing good intentions from how I actually live my life at times. When that happens, I ruefully rub my forehead and conscience and try to do better.

Today was one of those days. Today was the day I realized it was time to connect my beliefs in localism with my checkbook a little more closely when it comes to groceries.

Delaware is served by three grocery chains: Kroger, Meijer, and Buehler's. (A fourth chain, ALDI, is coming to town this spring.) Meijer is a Midwest chain with 180 stores in five states. ALDI has a larger range, with over 1000 stores in 29 states (and has a large international presence as well). Kroger is the national behemoth, owning a number of store chains (Ralphs, Fred Meyer, Fry's, to name a few) and doing over $76 billion dollars in sales annually.

Buehler's? Buehler's is a regional chain of 13 stores, all but ours located in northeast Ohio. (For the record, Delaware is squarely in the middle of the state.)

I stopped at Buehler's this afternoon to grab some soy milk as Liz was over tonight and she doesn't drink cow's milk. It was after 5 p.m., when grocery stores around here are starting to hum with folks heading home after work and stopping for bread or cheese or soap or something.

Buehler's was very quiet. And while there are a number of reasons to shrug that quietness off, including the cold and snow, I've heard enough through local grapevines to know that Buehler's is concerned about their Delaware numbers.

I picked up my two items, I checked out quickly, and as I drove home, I thought about the quiet store. And about what a commitment to localism means. Or looks like. Or costs.

I don't often shop at Buehler's because the food items I tend to buy - mostly staples - seem a little higher there. I say "seem" because I have never compared across store lines the prices of the 10 or 15 most common items we buy. I haven't thought about the other side of the equation, which is spending my dollars in large, out of the area corporations. True, Buehler's is not a locally owned grocery, but it is as close as it comes to one in this town.

As Warren and I ate supper, I commented on the emptiness of the store and then said, slowly, "I felt like I ought to be giving them more of my business." Warren nodded immediately. He said "and they buy a lot of their produce locally."

I don't kid myself that we will shop solely at Buehler's from here on out, although I can safely say we will try to do most of our shopping there. I don't kid myself that shopping there will be the ideal solution or that Buehler's is free from the evils of the corporate food structure. And I don't kid myself that our shopping at Buehler's will have anything more than a small effect on the store's profit margin. Given that we spend less than $200 a month on groceries most months, we're talking a very small pebble tossed into a very large body of water in terms of impact. But it is a pebble that I feel I need to toss.

As a kid, I grew up a block away from the Olentangy river, which cuts through Delaware from north to south. It was a great playground for me and my brothers and cousins. One of the more popular pastimes was seeing how many times you could skip a small piece of shale or other flat rock across the slow moving surface. One or two skips marked you as a rank amateur; five or more skips marked you as a serious contender.

I hoping for five or more on this one.

Of Starfish and Quilts

The starfish anecdote has been circulating on the internet and before that on office fax machines for at least twenty five years. If you haven't seen it, it goes something like this:

Strolling along the beach after a storm, a woman catches sight of a young man who appears to be dancing at the water's edge. The young man bends down, straightens to his full height and then casts his arm out in an arc. Drawing closer, she sees that the sand is littered with starfish and he is throwing them, one by one, back into the sea.

She says, "There are stranded starfish as far as the eye can see. What difference can saving a few of them possibly make?"

Smiling, he stoops down and tosses another starfish out over the water, saying, "It made a difference to that one."

That's me all over. What I do here, now, in this lifetime, is not unlike the actions of that young man. Bend down, pick up, stand straight, throw, and hope I make a difference.

Earlier this week, author Barbara Ehrenreich spoke at Ohio Wesleyan University, which is our hometown college. Barbara is a social activist who wrote Nickel and Dimed (2001), which details her experiences working in low-wage America. At the end of her talk, she encouraged the students to find an area in which they could become involved to bring about social justice: wages, housing, health care, hunger, peace.

I am a huge Ehrenreich fan and had the chance to talk to her after the lecture for a few fleeting moments while she autographed my copy of Nickel and Dimed. It was a Big Deal for me.

I enjoyed her talk because I enjoy her thinking and agree with her on many issues. All the same, I did not come away feeling motivated and energized to Take Action (uppercase). I came away instead thinking that when I take action (lowercase), it is always locally.

This is not a new thought or a startling revelation. I do think and act locally - beyond my nose, I hope, but not too far beyond my front porch.

Catholic activist Dorothy Day wrote "Why localism? For some of us, anything else is extravagant; it's unreal; it's not a life we want to lead."

That's a philosophy I heartily embrace. It echoes the saying I have adopted from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: "Think locally, act neighborly."

Some may smirk at that homey saying. Acting "neighborly" doesn't necessarily mean always saying "please" and "thank you," although that doesn't hurt one bit. (Especially in light of our uncivil discourse in more and more public arenas.)

To me, the phrase means keeping my focus and my time and my efforts in those local programs I am most passionate about. By thinking locally and acting neighborly, I do my small part to strengthen the community quilt that covers us all.

Quilting and quilts are metaphors for life for me. I don't quilt, although I came from a long line of quilt-makers, all on my dad's side of the family. (That's a look at one of my grandmother's quilts in the photo.) I never picked up the basic skills, let alone the artistry that they possessed, but I did pick up a bone-deep appreciation for quilting, which is why I use quilt metaphors so often.

When I think about that community quilt - that blanket of actions and organizations that gives warmth and comfort to us all - I try to imagine its pattern.

Freeform? Amish? Log Cabin? Rose of Sharon?

None of the above. The pattern of the community quilt, at least the one I am working on, is obvious. My life's remaining work is already cut out, the blocks neatly stacked, just waiting for me to piece it all together.

It's a starfish quilt.