Like Dylan\u2019s songs says — and the South End believes — when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.\u00a0 So naturally we figured we were totally immune to the ravages of the Great Recession.\u00a0 No jobs, no layoffs\u2026.\u00a0 No hopes, no disappointment\u2026.\u00a0 No woman, no cry\u2026..\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hellfire, we\u2019re practically an ascetic Zen monastery down here, one hand clapping.<\/p>\n
And then the Unthinkable happened.\u00a0 Tyee Store is about to close its doors.\u00a0 I\u2019ve lived here since 1977 and except for a Christmas or two, Tyee Store was OPEN, rain, shine, hell or high water.\u00a0 From the Snowdens, who built the original store back in the Dark Ages,\u00a0 to the Bartletts who made it the economic juggernaut of the South End, to Helen and Don who retired the E-coli dog rotisserie in favor of homemade Texas BBQ sandwiches, the store has been a Permanent Fixture, an icon of the South End Way, a testament that money can still be made the old fashioned way.\u00a0 No, not hard work.\u00a0 By selling cigarettes and alcohol and lotto.\u00a0 Tyee was the prototype for every 7-11, Quicki Mart, Stop N Shop, Kwik Stop convenience store in America.\u00a0 Their motto —\u00a0 Fast is Worth More \u2013 spread faster than the Bird Flu Pandemic of 2008.<\/p>\n
Somewhere in the Heartland, the original Golden Arches still stands, a living monument to American genius in slick advertisement, assembly line cuisine and tasty non-nutritious fare served on a white bread bun in a white Styrofoam take-out container that is easily tossed from another American icon, the very large gas guzzling automobile.<\/p>\n
Tyee Store, soon to be shuttered, OPEN neon dark, outhouse next door locked, will stand as mute testament to that era of the South End when we didn\u2019t need no stinking permits, we didn\u2019t need fresh vegetables, we smoked what we wanted when we wanted, we considered Lotto our only necessary 401-K and we all knew, every man woman and child of us, where to go to get it.\u00a0 If they didn\u2019t have it, we didn\u2019t need it.\u00a0 Sure it cost a little more.\u00a0 That was the Tyee Store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Like Dylan\u2019s songs says — and the South End believes — when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.\u00a0 So naturally we figured we were totally immune to the ravages of the Great Recession.\u00a0 No jobs, no layoffs\u2026.\u00a0 No hopes, no disappointment\u2026.\u00a0 No woman, no cry\u2026..\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hellfire, we\u2019re practically an ascetic Zen monastery down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1999,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998\/revisions\/1999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}