Childhood and Markets.

Ran into an old customer this morning, we chatted for awhile. She brought up "the old days",  and how life in the neighborhood didn't include today's horrific violence. 

And, how we may have had the last best childhood. I generally agreed, but silently also wondered if every past generation felt as we feel, that theirs was the last best.

My own childhood growing up in south Los Angeles, 50's and 60's, both blessed and stressed in ways that are probably more typical than strange, all families challenged, most have the mixed-bag whether known or realized. Being loved meant we never felt poor, or without hope, or too afraid of the future. There was a trust, unnamed perhaps, but strong. 

Some of my best early memories include markets. Grand Central Market, downtown on Broadway, now also a local historical landmark. Our neighborhood market, I think it was a Von's on the corner of Florence and Van Ness. I remember a meat market with my father, many visits, east Pico Boulevard. You had to put on a heavy white freezer coat, and no kid sizes, and it was still freezing. 

There was the lively Greek market across from St. Sophia's Catholic Church on Normandy, pungent aromas, giant rings of bread hanging everywhere, sawdust on the floor, tubs of olives and blocks of feta cheese in the cold cases. Still thriving today, the best markets find a way to survive.

Markets of the mind, of memory, so many years later, they still generate that uniquely human energy of commerce, common exchange, daily substinance. It's more than the food, much more.