Bigness is Better!
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Bigness is Better!By Bill Rowsome
The Ompah General Store is closing. Welcome to the 21st century where bigness is better. At least the residents are sufficiently concerned to try to run it as a co-operative venture. Good Luck but you are bucking a trend. This is the age of Globalization, where the big bullies quickly swallow the little guys. Tour the downtown areas of Belleville, Peterborough and many other smaller cities in Ontario and experience the empty stores of former local merchants. New malls have been built on the edge of town to house the local outlets of multinational chains... read that as U.S of A. With luck the local merchants may become managers or lackeys in the new age of merchandizing. Interestingly these malls are now feeling the impact of the Big Box Stores. The gulpers are becoming the gulpees.
It has been ever such.
Remember Simpsons? A Canadian institution, swallowed by Sears from U.S. of A.
Venerable Eatons, gone except for a store in Toronto, many of the rest picked up by Sears, undoubtedly at a bargain. Knob Hill Farms closing so the owner can concentrate on profiting from professional sports. He would rather amuse us than feed us. Reminds me of the Roman Circuses provided by the Emperors to keep the populace's mind distracted while they starved. That is another story. Such is progress.
History, local and world wide, is filled with similar situations. The former Anglican Church in Cloyne, folded, and now ironically houses an antique store. Keep relevant or the world passes you by.
Mazinaw On Line, written up in the September 6 edition of The Frontenac News, in its sixth year of existence is in the process of being sold to, some would say swallowed by, a bigger organization in a bigger town. A non profit organization which was created to fill a local need, gone to become part of a profit making business. Undoubtedly in a very few months this swallower will be a swallowee as the rate of "progress" in this new digital oriented world is much more rapid than that to which we older folks are accustomed.
When a need is perceived and implemented it has to be continually updated or it is obsolete, unfortunately convenience and nostalgia are not real factors to the power brokers.
The former townships of Barrie, Clarendon Miller, North &South Canonto and Palmerston are now N1, N2 and N3, wards in North Frontenac.... fits into a computer better this way and will not to be confused with C1 etc. in Central Frontenac
Ompah General Store, hopefully you can extend your existence for a while longer. The village citizens are to be commended for investigating a possible solution without begging for a government grant or loan. Local shopping is more than a convenience in an isolated village. Once a store, school or church goes, too often so goes the village. Ompah, may the specter of becoming another Ontario Ghost Town never materialize.
