03/29/2024
Thoughts While Shaving
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Thoughts While ShavingIt is more blessed to give than receive.  How ’bout you, is it more difficult to receive than give?

Unemployment rate for North Carolina is 4.5%, up 0.2 in December.  Nationwide the rate is 4.1%. County information will be released February 1.  Can’t understand why anyone interested in work, is not employed, and, if all goes as planned, another 200 to 300 jobs on the way, including many at Smithfield Foods.

Retirement allows lots of time to dream, back to the days of yesteryear.

Remember when there was only one bank in Elizabethtown, one in Bladenboro, one in Clarkton?  Later the number began to grow, then branches in Dublin and Tar Heel (both later closed).

Remember when there were at least five new auto dealerships in Elizabethtown, at least one in Clarkton and one in Bladenboro?  Today, not a single new auto dealership in the county.

Fewer new auto dealerships apparently was a design plan by the auto makers.  There was a time when the emphasis moved from small town, locally owned dealerships to the bigger chain type franchises.

Thinking of dealerships, remember Kaiser, Frazier and Henry J?  How about the Edsel?  And, there were others, many introduced following World War II.

Remember when the only company owned chain grocery store in the county was A&P?  There were small, locally owned and operated food outlets around the county affiliated with Red and White, Piggly Wiggly, IGA, maybe others.  Later Winn-Dixie and Food Lion came to the area, and some smaller regional chains as well.

And, how about the medical profession?  Most local doctors were self employed, located in the area, and if you were their patient, they were still your doctor when you went to the hospital.  Totally different today.  All, or most are employed by large regional health care centers where hospitalists see you in the hospital.  Many who have been around for a while are still adjusting.

It has been an interesting time in Bladen, still is.  And, hopefully, the best is yet to come.

Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.  Mother Teresa

If you don’t love yourself, chances are good you do not love anyone, and your life must be miserable!

Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’  Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you.’    Erich Fromm

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