Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio?

[LennG]

Just read in my morning paper that the giant drug store Walgreens is about to be bought up by a private business and who knows where it goes from there.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/walgreens-to-go-private-in-23-7-billion-definitive-agreement-with-sycamore-partners/ar-AA1Asitu?ocid=BingNewsSerp
How many stores will close, will they even keep the name--who knows?

Just another in a very long line of businesses that we sort of grew up with that are no longer around. I guess t he list could go on forever, all the big time operators that have long gone.


who woulda thunk it?

[Ed Vette]

When it was coming of age for the Baby Boomer generation to retire, drug store expansion exploded. As that generation is now dying off, the industry will be shrinking. I would expect store closures of less profitable units and consolidation.

[MightyGiants]

Walgreens stock had taken a beating.   Being bought up by private equity is not that surprising.  I don't think the brand will be gone.   They likely will close some of their under-performing stores, but I suspect the bulk of the stores will carry on.

One thing that hurt the local drug store business is online shops like Amazon.  I used to shop for my supplements and over-the-counter meds and toiletries as CVS (I did that for years).  Now I get all of that via Amazon.

[LennG]

 Just to expand on this, what was your favorite store that is no longer around.

Growing up, we simply loved Woolworth. I guess I would not be alone in those thoughts.

I miss Toys R Us
Circuit City
Even Crazzy Eddie
 I miss some of the old supermarkets like Waldbaums and Pathmark

I guess the list could go on for quite a while

[MightyGiants]

I miss the idea of having a Toys R Us around (I think there should be toy stores for kids).  I don't shop for toys at this point in my life.

I miss Radio Shack.

I miss Two Guys (it was a department store from my childhood).

I liked Sears

I miss Channel Lumber (it was just the right size for me)

I miss Fortunoff (the full store)

I miss Circuit City and CompUSA

I liked Bed Bath and Beyond

I miss the days of Blockbuster.  I enjoyed searching for a good movie to rent

Edit to add:  I forgot to add Bradleys

[ozzie]

Mighty, you mentioned two places that used to be my "go to" stores....Sears & Radio Shack. Sadly, both long gone.

[LennG]

Radio Shack used to have this silly promotion for free batteries. Once a month you could get a cheap Radio Shack battery with the card they gave you. All my kids had a card so once a month we got free batteries.

[Trench]

LennG,

The title of your thread just brought me down memory lane. My mom bought me an absolute WONDERFUL book many years ago. If you are a Yankee fan, you will thoroughly enjoy it. The title of the book is:

"Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio"
- written by Maury Allen

[LennG]

LennG,

The title of your thread just brought me down memory lane. My mom bought me an absolute WONDERFUL book many years ago. If you are a Yankee fan, you will thoroughly enjoy it. The title of the book is:

"Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio"
- written by Maury Allen

You have not read many of my threads when it relates to baseball. I was what one might call a die-hard Brooklyn Dodger fan. I used to bleed Brooklyn Ble (maybe that's why the Giants were my other team). Being that Dodger fan, we hated the Yankees and hated is putting it very mildly. To this day I despise the Yankees and everything about them.
I see older folks who said they were Dodger fans but they left so they became Yankee fans. I tell them they were never true Dodger fans . If they were they could never,e ver root for the Yankees. It was engrained in you, as a Dodger fan, to hate the Yankees.
I'm saying this with a big grin on my face so I have no ill will towards fans, but when I watch the sports today, even exhibition games, and I hear the Yankees lost, it still makes me feel good all day.       

[Trench]

You have not read many of my threads when it relates to baseball. I was what one might call a die-hard Brooklyn Dodger fan. I used to bleed Brooklyn Ble (maybe that's why the Giants were my other team). Being that Dodger fan, we hated the Yankees and hated is putting it very mildly. To this day I despise the Yankees and everything about them.
I see older folks who said they were Dodger fans but they left so they became Yankee fans. I tell them they were never true Dodger fans . If they were they could never,e ver root for the Yankees. It was engrained in you, as a Dodger fan, to hate the Yankees.
I'm saying this with a big grin on my face so I have no ill will towards fans, but when I watch the sports today, even exhibition games, and I hear the Yankees lost, it still makes me feel good all day.       

LennG,

To be honest, I've really never deviated much from the BBH section (except to ask about Naval history of which I'm fascinated as my 2 son in laws are active) which is why I haven't seen any of the posts you described.

That said, I'm a massive Yankee fan. BUT, I wish I was a part of the 1950s glory years of baseball in NY - and the Rockwellesque life in general. My mom also got me a wonderful Brooklyn Dodgers book by Doris Kearns Goodwin called "Wait Till Next Year"....discusses her childhood in Garden City/LIRR and relationship with her dad and together the Brooklyn Dodgers....it reminds me of my relationship I get to enjoy with my daughter and our NY Giants!...anyway, this Keats-Goodwin book is wonderful. As is the DiMaggio book (even for a Dodger fan).

Sports is a wonderful thing. I intend to work hard teaching my grandchildren about the Giants, Yankees, Jackie Robinson and Brooklyn Dodgers. I wish to connect our generations in doing so.

[MightyGiants]

LennG,

To be honest, I've really never deviated much from the BBH section (except to ask about Naval history of which I'm fascinated as my 2 son in laws are active) which is why I haven't seen any of the posts you described.

That said, I'm a massive Yankee fan. BUT, I wish I was a part of the 1950s glory years of baseball in NY - and the Rockwellesque life in general. My mom also got me a wonderful Brooklyn Dodgers book by Doris Kearns Goodwin called "Wait Till Next Year"....discusses her childhood in Garden City/LIRR and relationship with her dad and together the Brooklyn Dodgers....it reminds me of my relationship I get to enjoy with my daughter and our NY Giants!...anyway, this Keats-Goodwin book is wonderful. As is the DiMaggio book (even for a Dodger fan).

Sports is a wonderful thing. I intend to work hard teaching my grandchildren about the Giants, Yankees, Jackie Robinson and Brooklyn Dodgers. I wish to connect our generations in doing so.

I am a huge naval history buff. I am a member of the Naval Institute and subscribe to Naval History magazine.  I have spent countless hours watching these great YouTube videos on naval history

https://www.youtube.com/@Drachinifel

[kartanoman]

I miss the idea of having a Toys R Us around (I think there should be toy stores for kids).  I don't shop for toys at this point in my life.

I miss Radio Shack.

I miss Two Guys (it was a department store from my childhood).

I liked Sears

I miss Channel Lumber (it was just the right size for me)

I miss Fortunoff (the full store)

I miss Circuit City and CompUSA

I liked Bed Bath and Beyond

I miss the days of Blockbuster.  I enjoyed searching for a good movie to rent

Edit to add:  I forgot to add Bradleys

You mentioned Two Guys and I immediately was transported back to the 1970s and my father driving the family to the store in Union, NJ where we shopped for household items, clothes and even toys and sporting goods. Like a kid in a candy store, I generally walked out of there with something; even if it was some pocket change to use for the gumball machines inside the entrance! That store eventually became a Bradlees or Caldoor, if I'm not mistaken, in the 1980s.

Not too far from there, I used to take rides with my father to the "lumber stores" of the day. It was either Channel or Rickels we would go to, which were the Home Depot and Lowes of its day in the 1970s.

I think back to all the projects my old man did to our home back in the day. I think he decorated the yard with the plastic flamingos, swans and ducks (NOTE: not sure if that was a Polish thing). But he became the master at renovating basements into liveable spaces with lots of storage spaces. He did that for both our NJ home as well as our upstate NY home later in the 80s. In both cases, I was recruited to help at the "construction site." If nothing else, it must have rubbed off on me because the first home I bought, a townhouse in SoCal, which needed modernization badly, I took out a loan for home improvements, did most of the work myself and only hired professional contractors when building codes were impacted. Sold the home before moving to Alabama, paid off both the mortgage AND the loan with a nice little profit in the end. Did the same with our country home out there and sold it nine years later at a nice profit. So, special thanks to dad for dragging me to Channel and Rickels all those times.

Peace!