RoosterTales

It is perhaps ‘old news’  by now to hear that Wausa is losing two mainstays in our business community but no matter how often you think about it the sadness doesn’t lessen.  When you lose a Drug Store and a Restaurant you lose more than bottle of Advil or a Cheeseburger, you lose a way of life.  Being a creature of habit, you will now have to change your ways, routines, and schedlules to find a new avenues to meet those same, vanished needs.  If you don’t think that’s true check out the Senior Center where coffee and stacks of rolls are not a once-per-week gathering anymore.

I’m not sure if it is age-appropriate, but the increased coffee clutching at the Senior Center has prompted an idea that they could now take on a new name, “B’ Old”, in some contrast to the past, “B’ Young” restaurant.  If and when new owners take over the restaurant and resurrect that eatery, they can bring the internet and computers into vogue and call themselves the “Blue Tooth-Pick”, “Chips R Us”, or “Farmers on the Dell”.

Without going into the history of past or current owners/operators of retired or door-closing businesses, we really need to take a look at what the communuity loses.  The credits of what these businesses have performed for Wausa patrons over the past century cannot be listed here.  However, for 6 and sometimes 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year and for over a century of quality services,  these business operations kept their doors open for any local or visiting patron to serve their needs.

We lose more than just those devoted owners, families and employees whom served each of us in providing goods and services when our family needs required it.  We lose more than a place to congregate, communicate, and fraternize over social or political events of the moment.  We lose more than another shiny neon sign, reflective window, or a place to park our car.  In fact, it may not be long before we have the entire street to park our vehicles.

These thoughts may appear to be the normal and natural observations from your own memories of downtown Wausa, today and yesteryear.   But do they really reflect the true spirit of this gutsy, little Swedish burg?   I believe each resident would like to add, “Well, we’ve lost businesses before and we’re all still here!”  Yes, there is no doubt that Wausa has seen plenty of businesses come and go, some lasting a few years, others for multiples of decades.   Despite everything, we appear to have survived the topsy-turvy, changing business climate as the whole world also changes theirs.   Becoming a global business climate affects how we operate right here in Swede town.  Simple rules of supply and demand creates the stage for how we operate whether we are Viking Lumber or Exxon.

Most of these businesses are long gone, but do you remember that we had three creamery and produce stations?  We used to have a shoe store, a sporting goods store, two hardwared stores, and a hatchery.  There was a time when we had two automobile dealerships selling Fords and Chevrolets long before VW or Toyota was even in our language, and at a time when fuel was $.15 per gallon!

Wausa also sported a clothes cleaning operation, and had a 6-8 page weekly newspaper of which every letter of every word was set manually.  There were three implement shops where you could buy farm machinery, one located not too far from a building that housed a boat construction business.  And that building wasn’t located too far from our own Empress Theatre where you could attend matinees for a dime while eating nickle-popcorn.  If Wausa had anything that reflected “Hollywood”, it was the Empress, or maybe Hotel California on the east end of town.

Can you imagine Wausa having two thriving grocery stores in the same era?  We had four stores in town where you could buy an assortment of tires and other related automotive parts and small engine repair.  We had our own blacksmith shop, a few cabinet shops along with three stores where you could get your paint mixed, all while standing there wondering when the can was going to fly out of the shaker.  Let’s not forget the Bakery and two Bicycle shops.

Standard Oil and Mobil had their claws on the Swede’s pockets too, but were only two of four gas stations in town.  How on earth could they survive financially when we only drove half the miles of those driven today?  We also had medical doctors that made house calls in all sorts of weather, along with Veterinarians doing the same.  We still have two businesses that work with plumbing, heating and cooling.

Can you remember that we had two successful butcher shops?   As my memory stretches we also had two different barber shops where they cut hair from more than the top of your head.  How could we forget the train and our beautiful depot where often I would pedal down and watch an agent pound out choppy-messages using the morse code?   For me, this put the proof in the pudding that all of those old cowboy and indian movies we watched at the Empress, were actually real!!

You could also find park benches in a number of locations at store-fronts where you would find several of our locals shooting the breeze or pidgeons perched atop the laundromat.   Even though we never had a ’stop and go’ light it would have been great to see the myWausaNews Webcam in action when highway 81 ran right through our mainstreet.  I can recall many of those same folks getting up from their benched seat to walk over and introduce themselves to an out-of-state motorist when they parked.  Yeh, we were a friendly bunch too, an art we haven’t lost.

No doubt every resident in Wausa’s history can recall some, or many of these small ‘mom and pop’ operations that all appeared to thrive in our eonomic climate.  If you can think of more please add a note or two in the ‘comment’ section of this article.  It would be interesting to note how the community has lost so many businesses, yet kept the same population for more than a half century.

It may be a greater question to see how the community will react to our current, two business losses.  In nearly every situation, even as a child, I could feel some significant loss when one business would finally close their doors.   It has been somewhat amazing to notice how our community could ‘bounce back’ and change their own life styles after having patronized those businesses for several decades before closure.  Maybe we’re getting good at it?

As the new political environment calls for “Change”, and OPEC puts the squeeze on us at the gas pumps, we will have to rearrange our lifestyles more than ever before, perhaps like we have when Wausa loses another business.  If you have some thoughts or ideas on how business closings changed your life, please make a comment or suggestion.   We realize that it all falls under a concept called ‘progress’, but why does it have to hurt?   We’ll miss you folks…Thanks for the ride!