Co-operation's Good Ol' Days, by Jerry Johnston

by Jerry Johnston, former General Manager and longtime Co-operator

There is a weathered sign painted on an old building in Shelby, Nebraska that reads "Moon's Grocery: Produce Same as Cash." I have it on good authority that in Beaver Crossing, counter checks are still available in certain markets. On Main St. in Wilber, Nebraska, you'll find a bakery, a dry goods store, a meat market, and several taverns - all with Czech names and faded floral designs on the buildings.

Garrison Keillor invented a town, populated it, gave it a history, and has gained a listenership of hundreds of thousands in doing so. Lake Wobegon tales bring tears to otherwise dry and sober eyes, partly due to the storyteller's consummate style, but for other persons too. The uniqueness of place and the individuality of person in the "good ol' days" speak to us of our own struggle for identity in modern culture where individuality and uniqueness bow to the efficiency of centralization.

We have made some choices in our culture that have confused our values. Our desire for modern creature comforts has caused changes in our lives we never expected. We like the predictability of adequate telephone service, network television and radio, reliable utility services, and a thousand other "necessities". We rely on regulatory agencies, modern health care (in some form), and research laboratories for scientific discovery. And yet we lament the impersonality of our modern lives brought on by the bureaucracy and centralization that our present expectations demand. We have one name but twenty identification numbers, we feel bended, folded, and mutilated by every bureaucracy we encounter: we feel unappreciated for our talents and efforts. We are confronted with an everyday Catch 22: The comforts we demand require the centralization and depersonalization that robs us of identity.

Of course, the choice is not between Lake Wobegon and adequate telephone service. Choices are normally more difficult and confusing than that. But it does seem to me that we have let our desire for uniformity and predictability rob us of the value that individuality creates. Individuality make one town different from the next, one person different from the rest, one state different form its neighbor, and (here's the punch line you've been anticipating) one grocery store different from another.

Open Harvest is an individual; not a franchise, not a copy, not a branch office. Other stores in Lincoln are certainly more "predictable" than our idiosyncratic Open Harvest. First-time shoppers have to ask questions, the products are not what you see elsewhere; it's not even self-evident how to eat some things. The Co-op has, therefore, a certain identity and uniqueness. It's this character that so many of our shoppers value about us-once they get around to visiting us.

I suppose you could say that when considering where to shop, there are other "values" than getting the most stuff for the least money. We members of Open Harvest express our individuality and uniqueness through our support of Open Harvest. Open Harvest contributes to Lincoln by being a unique store, and by presenting an alternative to high volume, high tech, profit oriented mega-stores. All of this happens because our members have acted together to promote and support Open Harvest.

Moon's Grocery in Shelby is closed, as are most of the businesses on Main St., Shelby, Nebraska. I don't know how long counter checks will be available in Beaver Crossing. Things still look pretty good in Wilbur. Lake Wobegon, you'll remember, is an idyllic place of the imagination. These days, centralization and bureaucracy constantly threaten to engulf uniqueness and personality in the real world we live in. The "good old days" are being made every day-with Open Harvest members for their actions to promote uniqueness and personality in the real world we live in. The "good ol' days" are gone indeed. The "good NEW days" are being made every day - with Open Harvest being a glimpse of how the best of both old and new can exist happily together. Think of that the next time you call O.H. on the phone to change your address on the computer or to ask a familiar voice what time organic oranges arrive via train and truck.