EXTRA: 94 days ‘til Opening Day

Since we’re no longer counting down shopping days ‘til Christmas (unless you’ve waited until the absolute last minute – which case the count is “zero”), we now set the clock for a new target.

Some people began countdown to Opening Day before old season ended

As in only 94 more days ‘til Opening Day. For baseball in Chicago, that is.

THE COMING OF the major league baseball season is the symbolic arrival of springtime – even if those first couple of weeks of baseball in April are likely to be chilly and some fans are bound to be as heavily dressed as they are now for winter.

Anyway, it’s only 94 more days until the Chicago White Sox take on the Seattle Mariners to begin the 2019 season.

And for those of you deluded enough to spend time watching the Chicago Cubs, it’s 98 more days ‘til the Opening Day at Wrigley Field – with the Cubs taking on the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Enjoy!

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‘Holiday shopping’ has arrived, yet the depressing part of retail yet to come

Many of us will indulge our desire to play “Santa Claus” in a few weeks, hoping we can find just the right present to give that special someone in our lives.

Holiday shoppers will see similar scenes along State Street. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

Even though the more-realistic happening will be a rush of items being returned to the store come Dec. 26 for exchange, as people wonder how much our relatives and friends don’t comprehend what we like.

WHY ELSE WOULD they buy that ugly sweater or stinky cologne (or perfume) for us? How could they possibly think we’d enjoy that!

It’s “Black” Friday, and I’ve lost count of all the advertising fliers I’ve received in recent weeks – informing me of all the special sales intended to get us off our turkey-stuffed behinds and out to their stores. Where we’re expected to spend our money in great abundance in anticipation of the Christmas holidays of just four weeks off.

But back to the Christmas event, which will motivate a lot of shopping – with retailers trying to make us think its our patriotic duty to turn out and endure the ridiculous crowds at stores anticipated for Friday.

This is, supposedly, the time of year when stores actually meet all the expenses of having operated this year – meaning that any income generated through sales from this point on will determine just HOW profitable 2018 turns out to be.

Will window decorations be replicated?

I KNOW THERE are a lot of people who took holiday-season jobs in retail, hoping to make some extra money. They’re counting on all those sales to help generate a slightly-larger paycheck than the minimum wage salary provides. They work on commission, after all.

In fact, I still remember a time when I did such a thing. It was the holiday season of 1987. I was a fresh college graduate who had a few writing gigs providing something of a freelance income. But a few extra bucks couldn’t hurt.

That was the holiday season I worked in the men’s department of a Carson, Pirie Scott store – one out in the suburbs that ceased to exist even before the whole chain came tumbling down earlier this year.

I wasn’t much of a salesman, usually because I didn’t have the heart to care if people actually bought anything. The same person who could easily get motivated to chase a political geek to demand answers just didn’t care what shirt style one preferred.

How many miss having city's holiday tree in Daley Plaza

BUT MY BIGGEST memories of that holiday season job were the final days when Christmas had passed.

I got to see just how much of the merchandise I had sold to people wound up being despised. I remember getting daily reports of exactly how much the goods that were returned were valued at.

For me, it used to be in negative figures. As in any sales I generated in the days following Christmas were negated by all the merchandise that got returned.

I even recall one woman who had asked my advice on buying a sweater for her brother made a point of coming back to the store to tell me personally how much he hated it! Merry Christmas to you to, lady!

The city's menorah will see its duty in coming weeks

CONSIDER IT PART of the reason why I don’t get enthused much anymore about this part of the holiday season, and why I consider it a part of my routine of maintaining my sanity to avoid any kind of shopping on this Friday.

I think the crowds will be ridiculous. The idea of sudden bargains financially will be greatly-overstated. If anything, I think I would not want to be amidst the chaos when trying to pick out presents for people.

Planning a trip? Airport decorations to see you off

If I actually like them, I’d want to try to get something they’d enjoy, which probably needs a more sane and rational process than people will endure on Friday.

Most definitely not something that’s going to make people feel compelled to go back to the store the final week of December so they can return the ugly charm bracelet or bottle of Aramis I would have picked out for them now.

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How times change, and not just because more Sears, Kmart stores are closing

Earlier this year, the City Council placed a series of referenda on the ballot for the upcoming elections Nov. 6 – including one measure concerning the continued use of plastic straws within the city.

Soon to be obsolete

How ridiculous, many of us quipped. How absurd. Many of us figured it was purely a political move so as to knock more legitimate issues that politicos would prefer not to address off the ballot altogether.

BUT THERE ARE those people who look at all those straws one uses every time they attend a restaurant. Those plastic tubes allowing you to sip your drink, then throw them away.

Where they will wind up in a landfill somewhere, forevermore adding to the planet’s pollution (or at least several hundred years until they finally decompose into nothingness).

That issue popped into my head Thursday when I stumbled across a story concerning the Kroger Co., a supermarket chain that hasn’t been in Chicago proper for decades, but does have some subsidiaries that operate in the Chicago area.

One of which is the Mariano’s chain of up-scale supermarkets that they purchased not long ago. It seems they’re taking on the same environmentally concerned approach to doing business.

BEGINNING NEXT YEAR in Seattle, they’re going to do away with those plastic bags we all have received far too often when grocery shopping. Unless we’re the type who actively go out of our way to choose “paper” whenever asked the eternal question “paper or plastic.”

By 2025, the Kroger people say they want to do away with plastic bags altogether – as though they expect the world of grocery shoppers to start carrying around reusable tote bags every time they go to pick up foodstuffs. Which may make sense on a certain level, but I suspect a certain segment of society will always remain too lazy to think that far ahead when going out to shop for groceries.

Fun? Or hazardous?

In Chicago, we already have what was supposed to be the initiative to discourage plastic bag use – having retailers charge 7 cents per bag on top of the price of the merchandise.

I know some people are too cheap to pay it, but many others just wind up coughing up the cash for the convenience. Which results in lots of the plastic bags accumulating in our humble abodes.

AT LEAST IN my case, the bags do get re-used. My father and step-mother have a pair of dogs and there are times when I wind up with the task of walking them. Which means I carry pockets-full of the plastic bags so I can pick up the poop and not create a health hazard for the neighbors.

Of course, that means the bags wind up going into a trash bin filled with canine caca and will eventually wind up in a landfill that way – where the bags will outlast the poop inside them.

More in the way of change in our society. The day may well come when people won’t be capable of comprehending why we snickered at the thought of laws against straws – or bag bans!

Just like another story I stumbled onto – one involving the closing of yet another Sears store AND a Kmart by year’s end.

THE SEARS IN question is in downstate Bloomington; the city in which I attended college and where I remember often buying typewriter ribbons and occasionally having to take my Sears-model typewriter in for repairs.

While the Kmart is in suburban Steger – a municipality that typically would not have been considered significant-enough to have such a retailer. But the long-time mayor always considered it his major accomplishment of some 40 years in office that he made the trip to Troy, Mich., to persuade corporate types to locate in his village.

Yet another retail vacancy that will need to be filled by year's end

But nothing lasts forever, and soon they will just be memories – and something to be included on those lists to be published in a couple of decades of things that college-age kids of the future never actually experienced in life.

Perhaps also like the straws that some of us of now see merely as a political tactic, rather than a legitimate issue.

  -30-

Our retail habits continuously evolve – will old Carson’s become Amazon.com

It always amuses me whenever I think about retail practices (not that I think about them that often) to realize that one of the grand old spots of shopping in Chicago is now just another Target store.

The old nameplates remain ...

Which has me wondering with the news reports that Target may be purchased sometime this year by that behemoth of Internet shopping. As in Amazon.com.

DOES THAT MEAN the one-time Carson Pirie Scott flagship store on State Street will essentially become a visible sign of just how much Amazon.com has taken over the world of retail?

The idea behind the purchase, according to the Bloomberg Business News service, is that Amazon.com and Target already share a common demographic in terms of people who rely on them to purchase the goods they wish to have in life. Combining could create a sizable retail combine – albeit one not quite as big as Wal-mart.

But then again, the so-called retail experts consider that to be a separate demographic of shoppers. It’s a matter of everybody will claim they control their segment of society, and don’t really care about other groups amongst us.

But to me, the idea that the grand old department store (which had operated at various sites in Chicago since 1854 and at its current State/Madison street location since 1904) continues to stand in its architectural grandeur (designed by famed architect Louis Sullivan) but without its old retail elegance is amusing.

EVERY TIME I find myself inside the old Carson’s these days, I find myself trying to find traces of the old style – only to find that I’m in a Target barely distinguishable from the Target stores one can find anywhere else in Chicago or at various suburban locations.

If this deal does go through, will that one-time Carson’s location wind up taking on the smiling Amazon.com logo? Will it become a place people go to if they happen to be downtown, check out the goods, then return home to place the order?

... even though the classic retail businesses are long gone from State Street

I’ve seen that kind of behavior in many a Barnes & Noble bookstore, and it is one that I personally find strange. You’d think that since they’ve already made the trip to the store, they’d just buy the item right there and then!

But this is a new age now that we’re well into the 21^st Century and we now have people coming of age who weren’t even alive back on that date when the 1900s receded into the past and we moved into this era of the 2000s (is that 2-thousand or 20-hundred?).

REGARDLESS, I STILL find the old Carson’s building, along with the one-time Marshall Field’s just a couple of blocks north on State Street, to be significant landmarks.

They are points that help me personally anchor my location whenever I happen to be walking about. Yes, thinking of something as being “just a couple of blocks” from Carson’s is the way I think – even if there probably are some deluded individuals who will see the Target bullseye logo and think I’ve gone goofy.

It’s just a matter of how we think. Besides, I’m sure there will be a certain subgroup of people who have become so accustomed to the Target label on that structure that they will forever think of it that way – and will have an even younger generation think they’ve gone goofy.

“What Target? That’s Amazon.com!,” they’ll say.

OF COURSE, IF you want to live in the past and still shop at the Carson’s brand, you can always hit any of the many suburban locations that have kept that name – even though the flagship store did not.

A place to reminisce about Chicago of old. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

Just as you can still walk into what is now the downtown Chicago store of Macy’s and try to pretend it is still Marshall Field’s. Particularly if you go down to the basement level and spend all your time by the Frango mints stand. That brand has managed to outlive the company that originally created it.

Although the Amazon.com move (which previously took over the Whole Foods brand name) toward Target does have me wondering who eventually will wind up taking over the one-time Field’s.

And if we’re ultimately moving in the direction of all types of stores becoming tied together and merged into one massive entity to be known as “The Store.”

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Black Friday misery, or sense prevails?

As one who personally detests the concept of holiday-related retail activity (I’ll go ahead and say it, “Bah, Humbug!!!”), I can’t help but feel some sense in joy in the anecdotal activity I’ve seen with the post-Thanksgiving Christmas holiday shopping that supposedly is taking place Friday.

From what I'm told, Macy's decorations similar to these erected last year. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

I’ve seen a lot of people on Facebook posting their own observations of how the lines at shopping centers and stores don’t seem as ridiculously long this time.

THIS MAY BE an instance of me hoping that by writing something, I make it true regardless of what is really happening.

But I know when I ran an errand Friday that required I physically go to an AT&T store (and yes, they tried giving me the hard-sell to contemplate buying a new phone, even though the one I have now is barely over a year old), I was shocked at how few people were out and about.

The particular store I went to in suburban Chicago is part of a larger shopping area, and shares a parking lot with a Best Buy store – one of those big boxes that typically is particularly gross in trying to sway people in to shop now with so-called holiday retail bargains.

The traffic appeared to be little more than what would be seen on any other Friday mid-day. It didn’t feel like the “Black Friday” holiday at all. Does that mean the retailers who supposedly don’t clear into the black financially for the year until now are still in the red?

Art Institute Chgo's gift to Midwest?

SHOULD WE FEEL sorry for them that the crowds of shoppers trying to find that so-called perfect give to give to Uncle Frankie so he can exchange it for something else during come the late December post-Christmas (he’ll claim it’s the wrong color, but his real objection would be that the XXL size you got him fits perfectly, but he doesn’t want to admit he’s THAT big) aren’t quite so enormous?

Or could it be that many people are coming to the same realization I came to years ago – trying to deal with the holiday shopping crowds on this particular day truly stinks! There are better ways to shop without following the leader – being led by the nose by those advertisements and coupons that retailers put in the Thursday newspapers (and that some people tackily try to steal for free – while leaving the actual editorial content unsold).

A scene we no longer see in downtown Chicago proper

As for those who haven’t learned, perhaps the computer problems experienced Friday by Macy’s (a.k.a., the dirty rats who stole the name “Marshall Field’s” from the Chicago scene) will sway more.

The Friday news reports tell of glitches that prevent people trying to use their Macy’s charge cards from being able to buy anything. Although it seems the problems arise for anybody who tries to buy more than $100 – which is exactly the kind of person Macy’s wants out today (they could care less about the guy looking to buy a package of boxer shorts – which can be as little as a $17.99 purchase if one is particularly cheap).

IT WAS CASH-ONLY at Macy’s, which is such an anti-21^st Century attitude (albeit one that I try to follow whenever possible) that I’m sure many would-be followers will be incredibly offended.

So much so they’ll storm off to Kohl’s or J.C. Penney’s or whatever other option they happen to have available to them.

It’s a bit of that holiday shopping frustration that I wish could convince people there has to be a more rational way to do this than think there’s actually something special about this day-after-Thanksgiving that requires us to shop!

It makes me think to the old days when the idea of a downtown holiday shopping trip was as much about the spectacle – particularly in Chicago where many still mourn the loss of Field’s because the old State Street store’s windows no longer have those unique (remember Uncle Mistletoe?) decorations.

How many remember Uncle Mistletoe's wife, Aunt Holly? Photo provided by Chuckman's Chicago Nostalgia

THE WINDOWS STILL exist under the Macy’s brand name, but I’ve already read Facebook rants about how Macy’s has desecrated the whole concept with their generic decorations.

Which may be some people taking the whole concept far too seriously.

But now that “Black Friday” has come and gone, maybe we all now can relax just a bit – something we all probably can use after the stress of the Thanksgiving festivities and the Christmas/Hanukkah/whichever holiday you do activities that will come up in coming weeks.

A bit of relaxation might be what we as a society needs – just before the moment that President Donald J. Trump decides to screw up a national mood of peace by going on yet another irrational Tweet-from-a-Twit rant about how somebody is committing “War” on the Christmas holiday spirit.

  -30-

Will Mariano’s experience become just another version of Krogering?

It seems to be the fad these days in shopping for groceries – many Chicago-area residents take some pride if they happen to live within a short commute of a Mariano’s.

The latest Chicago-area fad ...

From my own experience, the stores stock several items that the Jewel might consider to be luxury, and also offer a prepared foods section that puts the aforementioned chain’s deli counters to shame.

SO WHAT SHOULD we think now that Roundy’s, the Milwaukee-based company that owns Mariano’s, has been bought out by that ubiquitous chain of supermarkets whose very name has become synonymous with shopping for food.

I’m talking about Cincinnati-based Kroger Foods.  Will taking a trip to Mariano’s soon become a slightly-more urban version of “Krogering?” And no, I don’t mean the slightly racier definition of the term that the UrbanDictionary.com website provides for the term.

Now we in Chicago don’t really have Kroger supermarkets – although those Food4Less stores that exist in many suburbs are an offshoot of Kroger and many products bearing the Kroger brand are sold there.

My own memories of being able to go Krogering date back to college in Bloomington, Ill., when they had one of their supermarkets literally a two-block walk from my college dorm room.

NOT EXACTLY THE upscale atmosphere or image that the Mariano’s stores try to convey. Although one that is common enough across the nation. There’s no doubt that the company has some financial heft.

And it’s not like those of us who do our shopping at “da Jewels” have some reason to be high-and-mighty.

Besides, the Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday how one of the possibilities of this merger is that the financial might of Kroger could be put to use to further expand the Mariano’s experience.

... has become part of a national institution

Could we see their stores in even more Chicago neighborhoods and suburban communities? Could this be the “military might,” so to speak, that gives us a Marianos’s takeover of the Chicago food market wars?

COULD IT EVEN turn out that the Kroger stores across the country – just over 2,600 scattered across 34 of the 50 states – get themselves a move upscale in their retail experience?

Perhaps a touch of some of the finer items that a Mariano’s convert has come to expect will be found there! That could be an improvement for people whose lot in life is to be stuck buying their food from the Piggly Wiggly!

For what it’s worth, the Chicago Tribune reported that Kroger officials said Wednesday in announcing the deal that Roundy’s and Mariano’s will continue to operate as distinct divisions within the greater Kroger Co.

We’re not about to see the blue-and-white Kroger logo take over the Mariano’s any time in the near future.

WITH NO STORES set to close in the near future, and the possibility of expansion, it could turn out to be a boost up for those people who persist in doing all their food shopping at Mariano’s. (Personally, I hit a few different stores, usually looking for who offers the best price deal on certain staples I buy regularly).

I’ll admit that Mariano’s does offer some interesting buys that aren’t easily replicated at other supermarket chains. Although there is a degree to which all of this can be carried too far.

For as my brother used to say whenever he would try to knock down the pretentiousness of people who thought they were better than everybody else because they shopped at a Mariano’s, “A box of Lucky Charms is a box of Lucky Charms no matter where you buy it.”

  -30-

What if we’re too lazy to change shopping habits by bringing own bags?

I got my first look this weekend at those new plastic bags that supermarkets like Jewel will be encouraging people to use because they’re more durable than the flimsy plastic bags that have become ever so common in our society.

These bags aren't 'nice' any more in Chicago

My reaction was to think these bags are barely more durable than the ones we’re already using (except for those people who always went out of their way to ask for “paper” instead of “plastic”).

I’M NOT SURE I’m going to go out of my way to save these bags and keep reusing them, just because they won’t tear after one use like the current plastic bags.

I’m wondering how many people are going to rant and rage in coming weeks about being forced to use these new bags. How long until someone tries to create a Constitutional dilemma about whether their rights are being trampled just because someone wants to try to bolster the environment and the amount of trash that winds up spending decades sitting in a landfill somewhere?

In my case, I was in a suburban-based Jewel supermarket when I saw the new bags. Which means that, unlike Chicago, nobody was forcing anybody to use them. Jewel officials merely put them out as a suggested alternative.

Unlike city residents who won’t be offered the flimsy bags, even if by chance they’d rather have them.

PERSONALLY, I HAVE a hard time getting worked up about this issue.

When I go grocery shopping, the last thing I want to think about are the bags that I’m going to use to haul my goods away.

Although I’ll admit that when I did think about this issue, I’m inclined to ask for a paper bag. Unless it’s literally just an item or two – in which case I’ll just take the flimsy plastic.

Decades of Chicago trash are buried under this mound at the city's far southern edge

I’m fortunate enough to live one block from a Jewel supermarket, so I can literally walk to the store and save the cost of using gasoline if all I need is a couple of items. Along with the reduction in fumes the automobile emits into the air.

I’M INCLINED TO think that’s my contribution to the better environment – rather than having to keep in mind the need to bring my own bags so I can package my own goods and carry them away.

The supporters of this change – which took effect in Chicago on Saturday – say it’s just a matter of encouraging people to change the way they think about things.

The day will come, they say, when it will seem strange that people didn’t bring their own bags with them whenever they shopped for food.

Which is why some aldermen in Chicago say they’re concerned that the new ordinance they approved is already in need of revision. They think these new plastic bags of slightly more durable plastic are going to be treated the way we’ve become used to treating the flimsy, old plastic bags.

THEY’LL GET DUMPED into the trash can and ultimately wind up in a landfill somewhere. Although because they’re of a thicker layer of plastic, it will take even longer for them to deteriorate.

Who knows; Chicago may well celebrate its Tri-centennial in 2136 with someone thinking they’re being an archeologist by digging into a landfill – and finding an intact plastic bag that someone tossed into the trashcan this weekend.

Will that turn this weekend’s waste into the next century’s historic artifact?

Because I don’t care if someone says these new bags are capable of being used up to 125 times – I can’t think of anyone who would want to use it that many times before moving on to another.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: One of the customs of Cubans living in Havana is that people carry around flimsy plastic bags with them, on the off-chance that they stumble across a store that is carrying some goods they happen to actually desire. Somehow, this is one custom I can’t see catching on in the United States.

Will Thanksgiving meal someday come at shopping mall food court?

My brother, Chris, and I plan to spend this holiday Thursday visiting our father and step-mother, who plan to visit her sister who lives in the Beverly neighborhood.


There will be assorted family and friends present – a typical-enough Thanksgiving holiday experience, I suppose.

YET THE PART that may make it the typical experience is the fact that I have been told my step-brother won’t be on hand to share in a turkey dinner. His absence is due to the newest trend of this day – he’s going to be shopping.

He wants to take advantage of all those sales specially scheduled for Thursday – the day before Black Friday.

Before anyone presumes I’m about to bad-mouth a family member, I’m not. For it seems that what really is happening is that all this holiday shopping is becoming more and more the norm for our society.

I’m wondering how long it will be before it is the people who insist on gathering together for a meal who will be considered the aberration on “Thanksgiving” day.

SO MUCH FOR the federal holiday that Abraham Lincoln approved as a day of thanks, based off the imagery of the pilgrims who settled in Massachusetts back in 1620.

Now, it’s a day to pay homage to the “god” that is Sam Walton, offering up all kinds of gadgets at his Wal-mart stores located everywhere in the country.

Now anybody who has read my commentary in the past knows I don’t think much of this trend. To me, the crowds that gather for the ritual big shopping days connected to the winter holidays are just too annoying to put up with.

I’ll be looking for the lulls in activity (as few and miniscule as they will be) to try to pick out gifts for the upcoming Hanukkah and Christmas holidays (I know people who celebrate each).

BUT NOT EVERYBODY feels the same. I have heard my sister-in-law go on and on about the joys of finding a special holiday price by being willing to put up with those same crowds that annoy me.

So the fact that many businesses are not waiting until early Friday to begin the holiday season (some stores literally are going to be open for the bulk of Thursday) made it so that I wasn’t surprised to learn my step-brother and his family will be amongst those shoppers.

My sympathy goes to the people who have to work at places like Best Buy, Target, Sears, Toys ‘r’ Us and other major chains who have decided to be open for business on Thursday. Any semblance of a ‘day off’ gets flushed away to help enhance the financial bottom line.

The shopping mentality even exists in Ferguson, Mo., the St. Louis suburb that has had some outbursts and vandalism in the wake of a local police officer being absolved of criminal responsibility in the shooting death of a black man.

THE ACTIVISTS WHO have been leading protests that have turned into some looting have threatened a more peaceful, but also more threatening to the financial bottom line, action – a boycott of any holiday shopping during the upcoming weekend.

Considering that retail operations go on about how this weekend is key to their level of profitability for the year, NOT shopping is harmful.

So maybe I can claim to be a revolutionary, of sorts, by not shopping Thursday or Friday. Although it would be an exaggeration of great significance. Maybe I’m just too lazy to trek out to the crowded stores and would rather gather with family for a communal meal.

As for my step-brother, I don’t know if he’ll ever read this. But since I likely won’t see him Thursday, I’ll just have to use this commentary to wish him a “Happy Thanksgiving,” and hope he found some special price that made the way worthwhile for him.

  -30-

Was it Thanksgiving? Or merely the first official shopping day of X-mas?

I don’t much care for what the Thanksgiving holiday has become.

Christmas on State Street ...

Because as much as I’m sure some people are going to respond to me by saying it was a chance to spend time with family while enjoying an elegant, overly-fancy meal together, I can’t help but sense that some people thought of it as merely the food they ate to give them sustenance before they went shopping.

YES, I REALLY believe that the Thanksgiving holiday is at risk of being overtaken by all the holiday shopping gimmicks meant to get people into the stores so that they will spend more money than they had planned to.

I don’t mean to be a downer. But I was always the reporter-type person whose least favorite work day was the day after Thanksgiving.

I have many memories of people engaging in ridiculous behavior because they thought the day after Thanksgiving was when they were supposed to go shopping for all those Christmas-related presents. Interviewing the guy who was selling velvet paintings of Elvis Presley from a van parked along Wabash Avenue near Randolph Street is probably the most garish.

But my point being I never comprehended the people who felt the need to rush into the holiday shopping mess. It makes the process of picking out gifts all the more hectic. Why turn it into a hassle?

FRIDAY WAS ALWAYS the day I went out of my way to avoid anything resembling a shopping mall or other place where retail was being performed. A part of me will even be reluctant to set foot in a supermarket on that day.

But now, with the trend of stores opening up on Thursday, it seems that I have a pair of days in which I will need to be careful – less I get sucked into the madness of crowds of people who don’t really have a clue what they want, but are looking to pick out things that will make them appear not to be cheap.

... has a certain character, regardless of when ...

Even though, in reality, they’re probably counting every penny they have (and some they really don’t have) all so they can be tightwads without looking the part.

It’s not so much that I don’t like crowds. I just don’t care for the vibe that comes from these people who feel that holiday shopping is a mission.

IT MAKES THEM all too susceptible to the deals that aren’t all that special. It is a scene I’d just as soon avoid. Even if that makes it seem as though I’m spouting a “Bah, Humbug!” or two.

... it occurs. Photos by Chuckman Chicago Nostalgia

In fact, if there’s anything about this particular holiday season that catches my attention, it’s the fact that Hanukkah is coming earlier than usual this year – and won’t coincide with Thanksgiving again for another 77,000 years or so.

Friday will be the third night (out of eight) of that Jewish holiday, and it is going to be long complete by the time the Christmas madness gets underway.

In my case, my step-mother is Jewish, and our Thanksgiving meal Thursday included a lighting of the candles at sundown that mark each day of the holiday. For some people, the concept of “Thanksgivikkah” was the reality.

ALTHOUGH FOR US, we’ve actually had enough family conflicts in schedules that the decision was made to postpone Hanukkah until mid-December.

So I have a couple of weeks to fret over finding the perfect presents for my Jewish nephews and nieces. Whom I care for too much to snub outright.

Which means I’ll have to wind up plunging myself into the retail madness of this holiday season.

My warning to you now; get out of my way, unless you want my elbow in your ribs!!!

  -30-

EXTRA: Jewel vs. Dominick’s – another great Chicago debate terminates

Only the clocks remain from Field's. What will survive from Dominick's? Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

Probably the biggest retail competition in Chicago history was that of Marshall Field’s versus Carson, Pirie, Scott.

There used to be people who would seriously argue (sometimes as vociferously as if the subject matter was Sox versus Cubs) as to which store was better – both at their main locations on State Street and at their other assorted stores throughout the Chicago area.

TECHNICALLY, CARSONS WON that war. Field’s was bought out and converted to give Macy’s a presence in Chicago. Although the old flagship store for Carsons isn’t a a Carsons any longer.

But to those of us who grew up in Chicago in recent years and were just looking for something to bicker about, there was another fight we could fix over.

Best supermarket – Jewel’s or Dominick’s? Personally, I always shopped at whichever one was closest to where I lived at the time – although I became a little more loyal to Jewel during the stint I lived in Springfield, Ill., and it was a choice of a Chicago-oriented supermarket or the more St. Louis-leaning Schnuck’s.

In the big picture, it seems that Jewel’s will win the supermarket war, since the Jewel/Osco brand remains (although many people think it has deteriorated to the point where they prefer buying their groceries at a Wal-mart store, just a few aisles over from the underwear section).

Will its memory be mourned?

THINK I’M KIDDING? The Chicago Tribune reported that Jewel these days has 29.1 percent market share in the Chicago area, compared to only 8.7 percent. Dominick’s literally is lagging behind Wal-mart, which is at a 9.4 percent share and growing.

All of which is what motivated Safeway officials to say Thursday that they’re pulling out of the Chicago market. Which was the only place they used the Dominick’s brand-name.

By early next year, there won’t be any more Dominick’s stores. They will be big, empty storefronts – many of which might sit there for years as blots on their respective neighborhoods/suburban communities.

Da winner, but still champeen?

A fortunate few will get a new life. Although I find it funny that the owner of Jewel/Osco (the oft-maligned Albertson’s) has already reached an agreement to buy four Dominick’s sites to convert them to a Jewel.

WHICH I’M SURE to those people who remained devoted Dominick’s customers to the end will feel like some sort of betrayal – walking into the Dominick’s on Clybourn Avenue or Canal Street only to discover it a part of, “da Jewels.”

Definitely the days when Jewel and Dominick’s provided about two-thirds of the grocery market share for the Chicago metro area are a thing of the past!

Perhaps it’s just a thing of the past to have a general purpose supermarket, as it seems people either like to split between shopping at a store that offers up high-end or scarce foodstuffs – or one that purports to offer convenience in being able to buy groceries while also shopping for clothes or a new set of tires for the car.

The 21^st Century take on the grocery rivalry seems to be something along the lines of Whole Foods versus Wal-Mart (too bad we can't go Kroger-ing in Chicago like I did when I was in college in Bloomington, Ill.). Which definitely means something has been lost if we can no longer quarrel over Dominick’s versus Jewel.

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Looking for a neighborhood market? Or is this just a political deal w/ payback?

By now, I’m sure anybody who cares has heard the “story” – the Whole Foods chain of supermarkets geared toward upscale items is planning to build a new store in the Englewood neighborhood (63^rd and Halsted streets, to be exact).

Will we soon see fliers like this on South Side?

Yes, the same Englewood that is one of the city’s lower-income neighborhoods – and often is the focal point of much of the urban violence that ideological idiots would have you think is taking place across all of Chicago.

THE PEOPLE WHO like the idea see the fact that people who live in that area have to go to some extremes in order to shop for groceries because of the fact that there really isn’t a full-scale supermarket in the area.

Those who hate the idea of Whole Foods say they don’t see the practicality of putting a food retailer whose image is centered around getting the business of upscale customers who want “elite” (allegedly) versions of products in a neighborhood where there would be higher percentages than usual of people relying on LINK cards.

Which, by the way, Whole Foods officials made a point of saying this week that they DO accept.

Personally, I find the latter attitude to be just a bit snotty – almost as though they’re saying certain people aren’t worthy of having a Whole Foods near them. These are the ones who’d rather have the Food4Less chain (an offshoot of the Kroger Co.), because it better fits their image of what Englewood “deserves.”

NONETHELESS, I’M SKEPTICAL over whether Whole Foods will gain much in the way of customer support when the store is finally built (right by the Kennedy-King College campus).

I actually live within a 10-minute drive of a Whole Foods store. Personally, it strikes me as the place where I might go occasionally to pick up a few specialty items if I’m planning to make a special dish or two.

They also do have some vegetable items in their produce section that aren’t readily stocked in the Jewel Foods store that is located one block from where I live.

But I can’t help but think that anybody who does all of their grocery shopping at a Whole Foods is someone so pretentious about themselves and wanting to buy into the store’s upscale image. They definitely have too much money to waste.

PERSONALLY, I WONDER what Whole Foods is getting out of the deal?

Although I couldn’t help but notice the Chicago Sun-Times story Thursday about the $10 million subsidy city government will provide Whole Foods to help prepare the site for store construction.

Municipal governments routinely offer up such deals to businesses of any size that want to locate within their boundaries. In and of itself, the subsidy isn’t unusual.

But it makes me wonder if the developers who are bringing Whole Foods to the Englewood neighborhood are counting on some sort of political good-will from city officials.

BRING THIS STORE to one of the city’s “food deserts” and help make it look as though the Emanuel Administration is doing something to benefit the inner-city to make it easier for its residents to shop for groceries (believe it or not, they eat too).

In return, it would seem that those developers can now call in a favor or two – perhaps some easier approval for a future project that they will want to build somewhere within Chicago.

So what do I really think about the concept of Whole Foods coming to Englewood? It would be nice if the store can help residents of that South Side neighborhood get access to better food. Maybe it could even help bolster the surrounding neighborhood.

But the political cynic in me can’t help but wonder about that payback. What future project will get greased through the system because of the Whole Foods willingness? And how much of a stinker will that future deal be?

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Holed up like a hermit? Or using what little common sense I still possess?

The scene along Chicago's State Street, or any other shopping scene, bore no resemblance Friday to this 1935 Christmas holiday parade. Photograph provided by Chuckman's photos



I was not amongst the many people whom retailers would have you believe were so eager to start their Christmas holiday shopping that they felt the need to take their turkey-bloated carcasses out to whatever shopping mall or big box store is near their homes to begin expressing their love by blowing away their money.

Nor will I be amongst those who will feel the need to make the special trip to State Street (which is a “Great Street” every day except on Friday), or to any other retailer.

I’M SURE SOMEONE is going to think I’m expressing an “un-American” spirit by refusing to do my part to bolster the economy at this “Black Friday” time of the year.

Actually, I’m just doing my part for common sense by refusing to indulge in this shopping mania. I’m going to wind up spending my share of money in coming weeks. I don’t feel the need to be a lemming and throw my wallet over the financial cliff.

Not quite yet, anyway!

Call it my own personal tradition. Friday is the one day that I try to go out of my way to avoid shopping.

MY AVERSION TO having to go out and join the crowds of people who think it is their “duty” to spend money and bolster the financial status of their local retailers is so much that this is the one day of the year that (if everything goes alright) the only money I’m likely to spend is a couple of bucks for newspapers (or maybe close to $5 if I decide to not be so cheap and pick up a copy of the New York Times -- which gives me less of a headache reading it on paper, as opposed to off a digital screen.

Part of it is that I’m not that fond of crowds of unruly people. It’s the same reason I don’t think much of the Taste of Chicago or parades (you’ve seen one, you really have seen them all) in general.

But there is something about the spirit of the day on this Day after Thanksgiving that troubles me.

I don’t like the idea that some people feel like it is a requirement to shop. They really could avoid much of the hassle of dealing with crowds by simply pacing themselves a bit better during upcoming days (or weeks),.

I DON’T WANT to feel like I’m following the rat pack (unless it’s in the spirit of Sinatra, Martin or Sammy Davis, Jr.). Then again, I’m also the type who thinks that Opening Day for the baseball season is overrated.

It’s cold, miserable and the second game of the season is just as good an introduction to a ballclub for the season as the first – except you lose all the people who could care less about baseball and are there because they want to partake in a spectacle.

Friday’s holiday shopping is way too much of a spectacle for me to take seriously.

Besides, I have never believed that the alleged “sales prices” being offered for those who bothered to show up during limited hours Thursday night or Friday morning are all that special.

THE AMOUNT OF money being saved just isn’t significant enough for me to have to put up with the pushy people who are prepared to turn fellow shoppers into road kill if they dare get in the path of that special something of a present for their alleged loved one.

In fact, the only times I have been out in this pack have been the years in which my duties as a reporter-type person provided me assignments requiring me to go out and interview shoppers.

A part of me always wanted to verbally assault these people for being nit-wits. I always felt my resulting stories were more mocking in tone than anything else. So excuse me for being thankful that no editor this year has decided they’d like me to find out what the “hot” gift item is this holiday season.

I don’t know, and I don’t care. Those people I choose to get gifts for will get items I think they will find interesting. Because personally, I don’t despise them enough to just grab some item off a shelf on Friday just because it’s “on sale!”

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