I'm guessing that those of you who know that we recently had a baby were expecting a post about our baby. Not to worry, she's doing fine, and a post about that little apple of our collective eye is forthcoming.
But today, I offer up a short post about a significant element from my past: the Hyde Park Co-op. This entity ran (though that verb implies a certain speed and deftness that was missing from the particular Experience that was the Co-op as I knew it, perhaps "walked" or "stumbled drunkenly" might be better) the main grocery stores in Hyde Park, where I shopped when I lived there.
I had some good times at the Co-op, but overall it was one of the more negative features of my time in Chicago. Sometimes the employees were kind and efficient, sometimes they were the opposite. Often I brought home food items that turned out later to be past their expiration date, and I learned to check before I bought. One winter, the smallish branch near me kept placing cardboard displays of foodstuffs in the aisles, where at least twice I watched them get knocked over, after which the food items involved mingled with the mud on the floor for a while, then got picked up and replaced for people to purchase and eat. The bigger store second-closest to me was shut down for health violations once, but then so were a lot of other food-serving establishments in HP.
Apparently a meeting took place recently which called into question the future existence of the Co-op. The Co-op has some very vehement supporters, apparently, who are dedicated to the store's slogan "For People, Not For Profit." As a shareholder, I'm well-acquainted with the fact that they are "not for profit," but as a shopper and an observer of those who work there, who often seemed pretty unhappy with their jobs, I'm not sure which People the Co-op is supposed to be For. Somehow, in some way, the Co-op is supposed to be better for the community than a real grocery store woudl be. I'm not sure how: is it the lower prices a real grocer store would bring that the Co-op supporters object to? The pleasant shopping environment? The wider selection of food items and greater accountability to health codes?
(The two other Co-op slogans I recall were, by the way: "A Love Affair with Fine Foods" (ick) and something about "Outrageous Service," the latter being the only slogan I wholeheartedly concurred with.)
But it was in perusing this account of the meeting that I encountered something that really sums up my feeling about the Co-op and Hyde Park in general, which headed the extensive list of three (3) of "the Co-op’s characteristics as a cooperative":
"Community involvement—including housing, daycare, square dancing."
I...just don't know what to say about that.