One man's feast is another man's famine

As a young boy growing up in Mississippi, I learned basic business skills working in my parents' fast-food restaurant. It was a small, franchised restaurant chain that specialized in hamburgers (five for $1), French fries and onion rings, root beer served in frozen mugs and softserve ice cream in a cone.

It was quite the life. At age 12, I worked the soda section of the restaurant, where I learned to take and serve orders and manage the cash register. The town's teenagers congregated at The Mug 'n' Cone every Friday and Saturday night. It vaguely was my town's version of Sidelines on Pensacola Beach on Thursday nights.

After several years of prosperity, however, a big, national restaurant chain with a clown for a mascot came to town boasting millions of burgers already sold. Suddenly, business started drying up at 'The Mug.'

Mom and Dad struggled to hang on, but after a couple of years it was evident that the kids in town preferred Big Macs to corn dogs. My parents sold out and retired. It was a sad time, I remember.

These memories came flooding into my head last week as Publix opened in Gulf Breeze to much hoopla. I watched as residents poured into the new supermarket with its upscale foods and renowned bakery and deli. It was the place to see and be seen. My wife even bumped into one of my old sports writing colleagues from Mississippi who was vacationing on Pensacola Beach.

Publix is a wonderful addition to our city. I'm sure I'll be shopping there in the months ahead.

But I also feel strongly that Gulf Breeze should remain loyal to Publix's competitors, Brunos in Proper and Winn-Dixie in Midway. The families who operate and work in these stores have toiled very hard through the years to earn your trust and respect. They, too, live and trade here, and both go the extra mile to support community endeavors.

To abandon them now during such difficult economic times would be devastating or our neighbors.

I know. I've been there.