re: #522 Walter L. Newton

To share with you… a short essay about the first time I experienced the “traveling merchants” in Eastern France.

I was wondering how the populace in these small French hamlets acquired their department store type items. It’s easy. Instead of having a shopping mall every 2 miles, Sears, so to speak, comes to the town.

Once a week travelling merchants set up stalls in the early morning, up and down the ancient streets. They hawk everything from furniture to clothes, housewares to CD’s. No parking lots, no traffic. The sun for lighting, the breeze for air conditioning and the streets for storefronts. And by lunchtime they are packed up, moving out of town leaving nothing but the quiet peace of a small French village.

cool , just like the old days, like 800 years ago, less the dancing bears