Westword, Volume XXVII

WESTWOOD – Ah, how I love me a good meme. They are everywhere, and since the technocracy knows everything I do online, plenty of funny memes and sundry targeted clickbait come my way, surely selected for my demographics and behaviors (I try to ignore that little detail, awash as I am in guffaws and chuckles.)
 
One of my favorite memes is the one that encourages you to shop local. For when you shop local, it says, the money remains local, you help workers pay their bills, help small business owners pay for their mortgage and their kids’ college expenses, all good stuff like that.
 
When you shop at a giant chain megamart store, however, you help some CEO acquire a fourth vacation home or second private jet, and help a bunch of faraway executive vice-presidents fund their golden parachutes – all while their worker bees fight for cost-of-living raises, and see their pension plans discontinued.
 
Now, don’t go there – I promise I am a capitalist, but I’m also a realist. I can root for all businesses to be successful, but still express some displeasure that Jaylen Brown will soon be making $60 million a year, or the head honcho of Hertz makes $182 million a year. Yes, really.
 
But today’s bleating isn’t about the distribution of wealth, anyway, because those who earn money are – sometimes sadly – entitled to keep it (seriously, would those megamart CEO’s still survive with, say, only three homes, just one private jet and also some big tax-deductible donations to help the less fortunate? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I digress.)
 
Rather, today I’m thinking more about YOU; and where YOUR dollars go.
 
One of the great things about being a community columnist is that I am not yet trying to sell anything to you. Instead, I want to shop WITH you, and embrace this great town and its people; let’s figure out together how best to navigate local businesses and get the most bang for our hard-earned bucks.
 
Look, I see those blue trucks delivering to your houses (and mine) every day – you can’t beat some of those prices and fast deliveries! For sure, they are amazin’. But take a closer look as you click through there…you can usually research and determine the actual seller, and it might be a megamart but it might be a small local business on the other end of that transaction. With a few clicks, you can often arrange to buy from them directly next time.
 
And with a few turns of these pages, you also just might find what you need right here in the 02090.
 
Welcome to September; a new school year, a new season, and a good time to evaluate our budgets and day-to-day habits. And a reminder: when you shop local, you are doing more for this community than any magazine or lecture ever could. So support your neighbors and friends here in town – there is a reason the best of them appear in here each month. Got it?
 
And don’t worry, for today I may want to take some of that local energy and help Tom pass it around and grow this thing we’re growing…but next month I plan to return to the usual complaints about things that annoy me.
 
Frankly, with so much material available, those are the easiest columns to write. Harrumph!
 
For today, though, spread the word, happy shopping and I hope to see you at Westwood Day; make a day of it and please do stop by the Westwood Living booth. I’ll see you there!
 
Westwood Living? No…thank YOU for living in Westwood. See you next month, and I look forward to hearing from you any time at jayresha@comcast.net (even if it is just funny memes, pictures of your pets making human faces, offers for super-cheap pharmaceuticals, etc.)