There's a line in the John McCutcheon song, "Closing the Bookstore Down" that goes like this:

"We're taking a giant step into the future,
turning into a thousand other towns.
I heard today, the news that they
are closing the bookstore down."

The song is a lament for the Walmart-ization, Target-ization, Barnes and Noble-ization of small town America.

I didn't grow up in a small town; I grew up in the middle of a 17-acre wooded property that was surrounded by a very large corn field. But the small town I most identify with, and the small town where my parents now live, (to be closer to doctors, pharmacies, and hospitals) is a town of about 7,000. That's small. And it's not like in the 'burbs of my adulthood, where my small town butts up against other small towns. This town is surrounded by corn and bean fields. The nearest city is 50 miles away.

My small town has taken those giant steps into the future. It has turned into a thousand other towns. In the last year, the town has experienced its first gangs and its first armed robbery of a gas station. And five days ago, I heard my mother say words I never thought I would ever hear one of my parents say: meth lab. It seems that Methanphetamine has come to G-burg. This makes me incredibly sad, but it does not surprise me.

There are no more mom-and-pop grocery stores or family owned auto-repair shops. I had a sinking feeling when the very large retailer (the one with a Tower in My Kind of Town) forced my brother to move the appliance and garden-tractor franchise store that he owns out to the edge of town to be near the freeway. My brother had previously owned the largest business on the old town square. But Tower company wanted to compete with Walmart, and my brother did not want to lose 10 years of equity in his business 15 years before retirement, so he moved.

A giant step.

Backwards.