Fear and loathing in the big box

It's a bad day in the Brooke household when we have to shop at a big box store.
It's enough to make me grimace at people I know and like and try to avoid them.
Shopping at these places produce residual feelings of guilt and resignation to the retail behemoths that continues a good while after I walk out of the silvery pneumatic doors.
Resistance to the “bargains” is futile!
Such a dark day came not too long ago, when a printer cartridge became essential to address envelopes to send out wedding invitations.
A printer cartridge is not something you can typically find in a rural general store.
Desperate measures were attempted: Trying to borrow and swap out printers didn't work. Necessary software no longer exists or wouldn't work once downloaded. The cartridges themselves were incompatible with each other. Other people couldn't get the envelopes printed, either.
I definitely did what I could think of that weekend to try to bypass the experience of driving up to that huge expanse of asphalt, making the long trek from the Cavalier to the personal computing supplies or whatever you call them, dodging highly motivated shoppers armed with fully loaded speeding buggies and grudgingly standing in line to give the world's wealthiest retailer my money for the first time in years.
It's not lost on me that this is a minority position.
That megastore was mega-crammed that day with customers, adding to my discomfort and my sense of frustration about supporting, or not, local businesses.
Admittedly, I'm not much of a shopper and my “crib” has a serious lack of what the kids these days refer to as “bling.”
I do agree with a saying that I heard second hand, however, when it comes to shopping for general household goods in Carroll County: "If you can't get it at Sunnyside, you don't need it."
Given the shift towards “discount” shopping, most locally owned businesses in Hillsville and Carroll County now tend towards services, i.e. lawyers, hair salons, accountants, real estate, food and whatnot, to find their niche.
But there are some savvy entrepreneurs around here that have been able to resist the sucking of all disposable income out of a community by chain stores, all credit to them.
A newspaper from a neighboring locality once acknowledged this by featuring places like Sunnyside and the Hillsville Family Shoe Store and Harmon’s, a few examples of a disappearing retail breed, in an article encouraging readers to take a day shopping trip to Carroll County, that the visit would be worth their while.
And from what I understand, a bunch of people took the recommendation to heart and they made a shopping pilgrimage to the Hillsville area.
I imagine they found it like a retail trip back in time to an era when customer service was key and the wooden floors creak and the aisles are narrow and there’s no laser barcode scanner at the register.
Local businesses continue to face challenges, but organizations like Greater Hillsville Civic Association and the chambers of commerce are trying to find ways to market our merchants and other attractions and keep our economy strong.
If I had my way, I'd take the day-shopping-trip idea and build on it by making a driving tour to stores of interest in Carroll County.
The fresh fruit of Produce Alley in Cana and the Southwest Virginia Farmers' Market, antique stores, arts and crafts galleries, music venues, gift shops, general stores, clothing and more would be featured on thematic maps with highlighted routes popping up from a Web site with the goal of pulling in more visitors to spend money from near and far.
If I had the skills to build an interactive site with clickable store descriptions, photo galleries, maps and driving directions and links, I'd do it myself.
I'll have to settle for doing my part by buying what I can from the stores just down the street from me.
If even a tenth of all those people I saw that day in the impersonal big box would do the same, Main Street would thrive again, I expect.
When I walk into a place like Sunnyside, I don’t feel like an insignificant speck engulfed in racks of cheap clothes, Cheese Whip, Tickle Me Elmos and flat screen TVs.
Chances are I can look over and see the management/owner at work.
While I might leave with an armload of whatever I came in for, I also did something else — I made a kind of investment in my community.
And that makes for a happy day.

Blue Ridge guide dog origin

A little encouragement can go a long way when it comes to staying fit.
People turn to a personal trainer to keep them focused and on task during workouts on those spinners and ellipiticals and simulated flights of stairs and what not.
A little enthusiasm from a second party can help the tired and the sweaty find renewed energy to apply to more repetitions.
But wouldn't it be nice if you could have a personal trainer that motivated you without saying a word? A trainer who only led by example?
Let me share what has worked with me four the last four years: I've lost about 15 pounds without any fad diets.
I eat whatever I want, but then I go out and walk somewhere between one and two miles every day I get a chance.
My walking partner makes sure of that.
To fully disclose: I originally lost a great deal of weight when I was on my work-obsessively-on-your-fixer-upper-60-year-old-home-to-the-exclusion-of-all-else-including-meals phase.
But my purchase of a domicile allowed me to bring home the energetic little thing who pulls me along for extended walks.
Taking her on the trail is much preferable than cleaning up after an accident due to my negligence, after all.
Of course, I'm talking about my combination Australian shepherd/blue heeler/whatever-else mutt. I found her in the Galax-Carroll-Grayson Animal Shelter in Virginia and I adopted her for only $15, plus the cost of her operation...
(Spaying and neutering is required for all animals from the pound.)
The dog, a tri-colored, short-haired puppy with blue eyes, tricked me at the pound because she made very little commotion and, in fact, didn't much stir from wherever I plopped her down when we got home.
But as soon as I rolled in a ball on the floor, she got over her shyness and came alive and pounced on me and nipped me repeated with the tiny sharp teeth that puppies have.
After that, she was ready to go all the time.
That dog, whom I named Sydney because of the Australia connection, could fetch for hours on end. I'd no sooner throw a toy as far as I could, but she'd be back with it and jumping on me to make sure that I knew she'd be willing to go get it again.
Just a little at the end of my leash, I discovered the dog could relax after a protracted walk.
Maybe 'relax' isn't the best word, but she'd lie down and be still for a while.
That was just about when the Beaver Dam Walking Trail opened locally.
Thankfully, Sydney and I can take care of several issues at once by visiting the trail.
We both get exercise. It's possibly the most I've ever had in my life. It's certainly the most I've done voluntarily and consistently.
When you go from no more walking than absolutely necessary to pumping those legs about five times a week for an average of 1.7 miles a day, it's got to do some good. After all, that works out to about 442 miles a year.
Not only that, but they say a person's mental health improves whenever they exercise and enjoy nature.
And there's the idea that a person's blood pressure goes down with the companionship of a pet.
The dog caused me to rearrange my priorities and reexamine what I do and how.
Thanks to her, I'm about as healthy as I've ever been.

A mascot with merit

Happiness is... a tail-wagging mascot.
Were I less modest, or less bound by conflicts of interest, I might have proposed my own four-legged and furry walking companion to become the feel-good symbol that Hillsville officials sought in 2006.
It's more than just pet parent pride — to me, at least, my dog Sydney has changed the way I look at the town. Southwest Virginia, and indeed the world.
Let me explain.
The dog and I serve as faithful walkers on the town's Beaver Dam Trail, and we've probably made it there at most more than 300 times a year since the path first opened.
On top of that, we regularly walk on the New River Trail, and we actively search out other places to enjoy the outdoors, as well.
People might not remember seeing me on any of our outings on those trails, because when they pass us going the other way, they often have their eyes locked on the dog, while cooing in that tone reserved for cute babies and critters.
Many of them don't talk to me directly, but exclaim, "Oh, what a beautiful doggy," while looking her into her eyes.
She might favor the complimenter with a wag of the tail.
We say thank you and move on.
Again, this isn't just a puffed-up parent talking about a single example of such flattery — this happens on a regular basis when we meet strangers.
Sydney makes most people feel welcome, but other canines can sometimes feel her Australian shepherd protectiveness in the form of snarling and barking. (To other dog- owners and -walkers, we apologize for any inconvenience.)
The animal does draw attention wherever she goes.
Twice while visiting attractions on the Blue Ridge Parkway — Linville Falls and Mabry Mill — tourists asked me all about her tri-colored coat and blue-white eyes and then requested a photo of the dog.
I thought it was funny that my dog became one of the features photographed at the most photographed attraction on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
So she had in her favor being friendly to people and photogenic, as well as being a staple on the town trail.
But there's more: When a rabies outbreak happened in Virginia's Twin Counties a while back, Sydney unflinchingly acted as a poster-dog for protecting other animals by getting the vaccination in a photograph to accompany a newspaper article.
Arguably the most famous dog in Hillsville, Sydney has already helped to symbolize the town by appearing in action on the trail on the television show "All in a Day's Drive," promoting tourist destinations in Virginia.
And I've written before how, in a way, the dog has served as my muse in learning about the outdoors.
Her hyperactivity as a puppy convinced me that we couldn't just stay in the house and throw the ball 100 times straight to play fetch all day.
We had to get out and walk in order to burn off some of that energy.
Worked like a charm... with an unintended side effect of deepening my love for Hillsville and other parts of Southwestern Virginia we've seen. I started thinking about her as my Blue Ridge guide.
And that's why, if I could, I would submit Sydney's nomination for Hillsville's mascot.

• Originally posted in The Gazette, Galax, Va., in December 2006