More on Grocery Stores

All too easy to be blasé about the various technologies that permeate even modestly equipped modern lives, but I reserve the right to be in awe of them, if the mood strikes. Yesterday I picked up my telephone, entered a fairly short series of numbers, and then had a half-hour conversation with a man near the shores of the Mediterranean, in Israel. It’s the most pedestrian thing in our world, making a phone call. I’ve bounced my voice up to various telstars before, sending it across the even larger Pacific. Still, I had a flash of awe the moment I hung up. But it doesn’t last.

The conversation was interesting, too. This far removed from Israel, we’re used hearing a steady patter about the politics of that part of the worth (and its continuation by other means, war) and not much else. I had the pleasure of hearing about grocery stores in Israel from my interview subject, a man who’s been in that business for years. An American by birth, as it happened, and in fact from Chicago, he also sounded a little glad to talk to someone who doesn’t think “Al Capone” at the mention of the city’s name.

I’ve never been to Israel, though (of course) I wouldn’t mind going, with so much to see in a nicely compact, New Hampshire-sized place. People fret about the dangers there, but I figure for a tourist there’s more danger, say, in Mombasa in a barroom drinkin’ gin, or – and this is more likely to apply to me – more danger from traffic than scattered acts of violence.

And I would be sure to go into at least one grocery store. Not because of what I heard yesterday, but because of my own personal adage, Ye Shall Know Them By Their Grocery Stores.