ben franklin stores

 i just ordered a postcard over the weekend that shows a ben franklin storefront, it was definitely a long enough chain of ideas that led me there. trying to find an inflation greeting card and couldn't. trying to find an inflation postcard that mentioned dime stores and couldn't. a reminder of how my hometown had a woolworth, it closed decades ago. it was what the town had instead of a ben franklin. the woolworth actually lasted longer than the k-mart did after walmart arrived, i recall a sign inside k-mart saying 'we will not be undersold' except they were. when i go to new ulm for oktoberfest i do see the former ben franklin storefront, in the middle of town. they changed around some letters so now it says 'zen' instead of 'ben'. i think one thing driving me here is knowing the store was named after a founding father. the articles i have found say it is due to his speech saying 'a penny saved is a penny earned'. besides postcards, i am seeing plenty of other things on e-bay with the store's name on it. shopping baskets, rulers, wooden nickels, stickers. so it is possible that i decide to order another item besides the aforementioned postcard. i even found some videos on youtube about the store. one was from iowa public tv, saying the last one in the state is in sheldon in northwest iowa. one of the two articles i found online mentioned there was just 125 stores nationwide left with this name, as of 2015. this was in the st. paul paper. so shopping at one may be hard to do, especially when it is hard to tell as to if there are any left in the twin city metro area. both articles, the other being from the minneapolis paper in 2022, did say that they were the target and walmart of their time, stating why there aren't many left as it was hard to compete with those two big-box stores. at work i reported back to the 'move team' two things. one was the need for a doorbell for the check shop at the new location, something i take for granted. except it tells me when i have a visitor. the other is asking for the estimated delay on me moving with the rest of the team, prompted by my metro-pass arriving. except there was no answer for this, just mention of the reimbursement process. late in the evening i went on a walk and found 35 cents. the 'big bang theory' reruns were when sheldon tried to seduce amy by dressing like a 'rat pack peewee herman'. it was followed by the one where sheldon gets a haircut from penny after visiting his barber in the hospital.