Hopeful about our economy

I'm hopeful about our economy, and not in the way most people will say. I don't know enough about all of the things that are going down right now to venture a guess as to where we will all end up when the cards land where they will. (That much Sarah Palin and I do have in common) We might see a turn around after the election, as some say. We might see a decade or longer struggle to return to where we were just eight short years ago. At present though, I am seeing changes that I am hopeful will have a lasting effect on our lifestyle choices, our environment, and our concept of ourselves as Americans. So many people that I speak with are re-aligning their priorities. They are striving to return to the conscientious spending and consumption habits of their grandparents. You know the ones I'm referring to, the tin foil re-users, the menu planners, the canners. Customers are coming in and investing in one good open ended toy that will see their children through multiple stages of development, rather than pick up a few bells and whistles throw away's at the big box. I have sold more good old fashioned American made Beka blocks this last year than I have in all of hopscotch's years combined. Puppets, puzzles, "guys" as my boys called them, balls, dolls, marbles, and of course board games are moving out at a steady clip.
I am hearing the sentiment voiced over and over again that we need to fortify our local economy through keeping our dollars local. This comes not from my fellow shop keeps, but from our customers. There is finally a realization that maybe, just maybe the big boxes are really not the answer. At first, I was worried that the fear of less money would make people rush headlong to the "Lowest Price" sale signs of the big boxes, but the opposite has seemed to be true. People get it. If 3rd street were to fall, livability in McMinnville would be greatly reduced. The influx of new residents, new tax dollars, and new industries would be affected. Schools would suffer from the loss of tax revenue, and subsequent to all of these things housing prices would take a huge hit. If Wal Mart closed, would our property values be adversely affected at all? For the first time, I hear others speaking of these issues that have been near and dear to my heart since my parents made their living in their small shop in 3rd street. I don't feel so weird and backwards in my thought processes anymore. All these years I've been on the cutting edge of yesterday!
All of these new awareness's have the potential to have a huge impact on our environment as well. What if we all went down to Boersma's and invested in a $300 vacuum cleaner that we could have serviced rather than throwing several of the $50 big box vacuums into the landfill when they crash and burn? Ummm, maybe they wouldn't need a dump expansion... oh yeah, that's Portland's dead vacuums they need to expand for. But I digress.
Frugality and cheapness are not the same thing. Frugality is a mindset wherein you keep track of your assets. You manage them. You place your money where it will give you the most return, where it will be serviceable as an asset in your home, and you will not have to replace it over and over and over again. Cheapness, is spending a little and getting less over and over and over until there is nothing but a big pile of broken plastic parts and McDonald's wrappers to reconcile at the end of the month. I see our population moving away from the cheap and toward the frugal, and that means a better quality of life for us all. Yes, I am very hopeful indeed.

A Toy Expert

I find the concept of "Expert" an interesting one. I remember my first day at hopscotch when a customer asked me for a recommendation. She thought I was the expert. I was the Toy Store Owner, of course she thought I was an expert! I felt like such a phony showing her the things I liked, things my children liked, and explaining the why's as I perceived them. That first week I made many recommendations to customers. I recommended the Darda track because of my memories of my own son playing with the track at Kids at Heart in Portland, his desire brimming over, and the birthday on which he received it. Oh, the glorious day! I recommended Gertie balls for children who had developmental challenges and for two year olds. I did this because I had purchased one for my daughter as an impulse buy at Child's Play in Northwest Portland when she was about two. That ball was in and out of diaper bags, chewed on, washed off, inflated, deflated, and always easy for Zoe to catch, so I recommended it. But I was just a mother, not an expert, and felt like a complete poser! I didn't fully appreciate the value of my own accumulated knowledge. I had been a homeschooling mother of three for 12 years at that point. I had purchased countless birthday gifts, seen what worked, what broke, what the kids loved IN SPITE of it breaking... Balsa Wood Airplanes come to mind. Now, five years down the road I have made recommendations for THOUSANDS of gifts. I have read many books, gone to more trade shows than I would like, been mentored by many members of the American Specialty Toy Retailers Association (ASTRA) some of whom have decades of expereince in the toy industry. I have squeezed, pushed, pulled, and ridden some of the craziest most wonderful inventions in the known universe. I have written "body organ slime $2.50" in big letters and my best handwriting.
I am a Toy Expert. I'm afraid to date, the position does not come with a cape, but I do get to wear a great apron complete with scissors, sharpies, and a box knife. With that and my trusty price gun I am quite a well equipped superhero indeed. So now, I've amassed enough information that I think that I have a lot of useful things to say, about toys, children, and life in general. Welcome to the hopscotch blog.