Sometimes You Just Gotta Make The Change

Sometimes a true story becomes an allegory. This is one of those occasions. For more than twenty years my wife and I shopped at the same food store. It is a semi-large chain store located in an older shopping plaza. It served our day to day needs adequately. As we got older and developed some problems it was convenient to stay with a store we new well and that wasn't overwhelmingly large. Over a period of time small changes were made in the store layout that made us a little unhappy, but we stayed with them. Convenience, habit, maybe both. Then one Friday morning we went into the store and it was full of strangers stripping shelves and moving things around. This went on for over two weeks. When we questioned one of the regular employees we were told they are giving the store a good cleaning and re-organizing the shelves. For good reasons that I won't get into,  we do not like re-organizing.

Well, one day we arrived there and the work crew was gone. Hooray! So we started shopping. I am sworn to use civil language in this blog. This is the first time I feel that to be a handicap. Let us just say I have never seen a store so bollixed up in my life. OK so I was a little rude. Get over it. The genius that devised the floor plan must have never done a full weeks food shopping in his or her life. As a matter of fact I suspect most of their food shopping is done at stores where their car is parked at a gas pump just outside the door.

But, hey, will try it for a while. We'll probably get used to it. Right? How bad can it be? Then they changed the weekly ad which we get in the mail and use to make our shopping list. They shrunk it down to useless. High level discussions were held at the kitchen table. Souls were searched. We decided to venture off the safe and familiar ground and try a different store.

There is another market nearby. It is part of a small local chain. We would stop by there times when we just needed one or two items to tide us over. We had not checked out their meat or fish or produce. But it was time for us to make a change. To make a long story short, their produce is great. Their meat is as good if not better. Their fish is right off the boat at a local fishing port. Their people are extremely helpful and we are actually saving ten to fifteen percent a week. Now we're asking ourselves why we held out so long.

OK, now here's the part where this becomes an allegory. I remember FDR. I remember Harry Truman. I actually voted for JFK. My first presidential election. I remember what the Democrat Party was in those days. It is not the same party that we see today. There used to be a line down the middle of the political highway. The Democrats marched from just right of center to left of center. The Republicans marched from slightly left of center to right of center. Yes, I also remember the Rockefeller Republicans and the blue dog Democrats.

Here's where it gets complicated. There is still a group of Republicans that run from slightly left of center (RINOs) to just right of center. There is also a group that has moved a little farther right. But there is still some balance there. The problem today is that a large group has come into the Democrat party that are off on the left berm shouting and screaming. The party has left a lot of reasonable Democrats that love their country behind. Ronald Reagan was originally a Democrat. When asked why he left the party. He stated famously,"I didn't leave them. They left me". I think a lot of Democrats are agonizing over the same thing today. It is time for them to take a deep breath and make that change or they will not have the country they love any longer. When the party straightens out, you can always go back. The future of this country may be decided by those Democrats that are unhappy patriots.