Bill, I agree with you. The tiny town I lived in for more than 20 yrs used to have the lovliest uptown. Then Walmart came along, uptown died. It is now all antique shops. Bus loads of winter visitors come in there every day. That was Arcadia, Fl.
When I got here to DeFuniak Springs, it, too had a lovely OLD uptown with great little shops and a hardware store that had been in business since 1896 with the original building. It tried to hang on, but gave it up about 3-4 yrs ago. Wharever you wanted in the hardware line was in that store - even oldie goldies. They had the most unusual gift line of old fashioned things. When I first got here, they had a dept store in it as well. hardware on one side and dept store on the other and it actually sold yard goods and that is something you can't find anymore unless yu go to a fabric SHOP. Men's haberdashery, ladies clothing store, shoe store that carried really good shoes, family drug stores. All are gone except the 2 family drug stores and I guess they hang on because of Medicaid rxes, but they have stuff there that can't be found elsewhere. Where, oh where, did our uptowns go. Walmart took them! And tho I find much in Walmart, the old stores are sorely missed. And miss the friendliness that went with them. Some of those folks had been in business so many generations and they were just pushed out of their livlihoods. Ain't it a shame.
For those of you who don't know about uptown - here in our small towns in the south, we never say we are going downtown. We say we are going uptown. And when we say something is REALLY UPTOWN, we mean it's really fine - like richly furnished, etc. Just threw that in for ya'll who aren't southerners, bless your hearts!
