Farewell Bear

It's the Holidays. That means it's time for another faceless corporate behemoth to swing through town and homogenize a chunk of the local business environment. Giant-Eagle is buying most of the Big Bear grocery chain.

For the past three years or so, I've become pretty fond of our local Big Bear stores. The surly Somalian cashiers, that 60-something-year-old cashier with the disturbing pink bow in her hair who is smitten with Frankie, the pharmacy which took at least an hour to process a single prescription . . . well, maybe they had a bit of room for improvement. But, I've visited these stores at least as often as I've visited my own dinner table for more than three years. I went to their 20% off closeout sale today. It was a frenzy of activity. I felt like I was stripping Scrooge of his bed curtains in the Christmas that was to be. It was sad.