67th and Foster

When we moved into this part of Southeast Portland umpteen years ago the corner of 67th and Foster Road, like most of the surrounding area, was a bit outdated.  On the southeast corner was a Keinow's Market, the Phoenix Pharmacy and a laundromat.  The Keinow's was the neighborhood market and you could actually see your neighbors there.  There was an old fashioned American style bakery on the premises and it was great to have a place within walking distance to get a fresh-baked cherry danish.  On other corners of the intersection were a furniture store and the old Rexall Drugstore building, come down in the world to become called Allen Video, really sort of a junk store selling VHS tapes and used telephones - the kind with a wire you plugged into the wall.  Its distinctive feature was the one-armed robot gorilla in overalls eternally pivoting and waving out front.  It was great to be able to tell people to "go out Foster until you see the one armed robot gorilla in overalls."  I went through my old photos a few weeks ago and found to my dismay I somehow neglected to take a single picture of the one armed robot gorilla in overalls.  Eventually it lost even that one arm and its ability to pivot, but a gorilla in overalls is still a great landmark.  At last it too went the way of the landline telephone, and Allen Video itself - gone in the mists of memory.

It is the opposite corner of which I wish to write today, of the Kienow's Market and Phoenix Pharmacy.  It was saddening to have the Kienow's close, for me mostly because of the bakery.  It was soon replaced by a Dollar Tree store, a national chain purveying shoddy goods for the lowest price.  Saddening, too, was the fact that the Phoenix Pharmacy, rather than promoting its unique services - pharmacy, post office, newsstand, etc., tried to compete with the Dollar Tree on its own turf, bringing in markdown items and shoddy goods of its own.  Of course it was doomed to fail, and be replaced by a store which raised our hopes but shortly dashed them in the manner I shall soon describe.  Behold the Save-A-Lot.

We walked over one Saturday afternoon to attend the gala grand opening of the Save-A-Lot.  There was a live band inside playing sixties hits, and out on the corner a union protest with a huge banner proclaiming the unfairness of the corporation.  We went in with fond memories of Kienow's and hopes for a neighborhood grocery store to take its place, but found instead a strange alternate universe.  The Savings of Save-A-Lot apparently came from carrying its own proprietary brands, found nowhere else.  Everything had strange names like Mrs. Freshly's and Bubba Cola, Bramley's and Coburn Farms.  Everything also had a kind of cheapness to it which did not inspire confidence.  The problem with shopping at Save-A-Lot was that it made me feel POOR.  It was a store for poor people and when I stepped through that door into the bleak interior and wandered the aisles looking at hillbilly food, I felt poor too.  When I go into the Dollar Tree to buy disposable razors I feel like I am entering the normal world.  When I went into the Save-A-Lot I was entering the hillbilly world, the po' folks universe, the place a cut below WalMart.  A flimsy, cheap-jack bargain world of unappealing crap - rubbery cinnamon buns, off brand soda, and ten pound bags of frozen fish sticks.

Note that I have been writing of Save-A-Lot in the past tense.  I walked over to the Dollar Tree yesterday to get another pack of ten Persona disposable razors to keep my George Brent mustache trim and fit - not because I really needed them but just to get out of the damn house and out into the even more damned blinding glare of hideous late summer sun.  Since I was there I thought I would go in and see if there was even one single thing in the Save-A-Lot I could possibly buy.  I found it semi-chaotic and nearly empty of products as it was in the process of closing, selling off the nearly inedible cheap grub for even more deeply discounted prices.  The type of folks who shopped there found it much to their liking and were resting armloads of bargain semi-foods upon their distended abdomens preparatory to dumping it into the cart.  I actually saw that.  The store manager seemed to be having quite a time, shouting almost continuously about the great deals to be had on that repulsive imitation nutriment.  I did a little search when I got home and found a statement from a corporate spokesperson saying their intention in closing 60 Save-A-Lot, Albertsons, and Acme stores was to cut costs and increase stockholder dividends.  Not to improve the company or provide better service; certainly not to sell better products.  It was truly a fitting culmination to my Save-A-Lot experience.

I rode over today and took a couple of pictures with my crummiest camera, also getting a few shots of this car entirely filled with crap except for a small space for the driver:

They were probably stocking up on pudding cups, canned sausages, barbecue flavor potato chips, and other items appropriate for ingestion while sitting in an automobile entirely filled with useless junk. What will become of the place is unknown - the laundromat was already closed, but there was no sign of the Dollar Tree closing unless they are keeping it a secret until the last minute.  Maybe instead of trying to peddle more cheap crap to poor people, trying to get a dollar each from a hundred people, somebody ought to try selling something good and get ten dollars from twenty people instead.  The next few years hold hints of vague promise for 67th and Foster, but we shall see.