I was listening to the news the other day and the announcer was reporting on "retail sales" and whether they were up or down. I don't recall exactly what he said, but it's a safe bet he was saying that they were down. And in the same breath he said something about "fewer people going to the malls" as if that were related to the lower retail numbers. Well this got me thinking, and it gets me thinking every time I hear it. When these numbers are cited, it seems like it's always based on the shopping malls or the big chain stores. I always wonder how accurate those numbers are, since I almost never shop at the stores they talk about. I try, whenever possible, to buy local. Is it possible that things are going better here in our own little universe?

The frame shop down the street is doing better than he did last year. And there are other local shops that are doing just fine, too. I don't know exactly where I'm going with this, except to say that maybe we should not listen to those gloomy news stories all the time. They might not be right. We still have to buy things, and when times are tight, very many of us take our precious dollars to the guy we know down the street rather than to a horrid chain store managed by people from very far away, selling things from other people very far away.

As for those of us who are trying to keep our neighborhoods alive by buying local....are they counting us?