Tag Archives: buy local

Giving Thanks: Drink Small Saturday

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ShopSmallThanksgiving is coming up shortly, and I anticipate its arrival with the same enthusiasm I feel sitting in the gynecologist’s waiting room. (That poor bird with its legs in the air…) What I am looking forward to comes the following weekend: Small Business Saturday. Now, admittedly, this is just a made-up holiday concocted by American Express to make it look like they give a flying fruitcake about small business; however, it brings customers by the Prius-load to my bookstore, all cheerily looking to support local businesses rather than ruthlessly scrabbling for the last Disney Light-Up Frozen Realistic Hair Extension Play-Doh Kit. So, don’t think I’m complaining. Rather, I ask you to raise a small glass of beer with me.

I am assuming most of you know the basics of why one shops local, but I’ll go ahead and preach anyway:

  • 68% of all money spent locally goes back into the community through wages and taxes and change dropped on the ground
  • You support members of your community, not distant CEOs on yachts somewhere in the Caribbean
  • You can be rightfully self-righteous

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Drink Local Ohio: Yellow Springs

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My father, who fits in remarkably well in Yellow Springs

My father, whose long white hair is a kind of camouflage in Yellow Springs, Ohio

Spring has finally arrived in Ohio. I’m sitting in my bookstore with the door and windows open wide. Aretha plays on the stereo. Tiny white petals float in on the breeze and polka-dot the welcome mat. I can hear the voices of under-dressed Ohioans who walk down the street and fan themselves in the 60-degree heatwave. All this scene needs is a cold Ohio beer in my hand!

Recently I’ve decided to apply my big talk about buying local to my beer drinking and to take this hobby of mine more seriously. Time to really explore craft beers in my area. My little heart-shaped state is tiny, but Ohio has at least 109 craft breweries, which ought to keep me busy for a while.

On a recent brilliant blue day I drove down to Yellow Springs, Ohio, which is where Antioch College is, which is code for Warning: high hippy concentration (any way you read it). This blue dot in Ohio’s sea of red is packed with little shops — clothing, jewelry, and every form of currently trending anachronistic media (which is, of course, where I spent most of my time). All the stores had cats.

In the air is the smell of locally grown everything wafting from the cozy restaurants, freshly bloomed spring flowers, and patchouli. Creative, empowering graffiti covers any surface not painted in murals or pasted over with creative, empowering bumper stickers. Continue reading →