It's another sign of age I suppose.

Or perhaps more properly, another sign of old age.

I see them everywhere and I'll bet you do, too. Boxes. Boxes with all kinds of insignia's on them, all kinds of labels and pictures. Boxes filled with things people have purchased online.

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It might be clothes, it might be a microwave. It could be cat food or maybe something, uh, personal in a box that doesn't have a fancy label. Quite literally, it could be just about anything and everything.

Me? Well as it turns out, I didn't know it but I'm a "brick and mortar" kind of guy.

There's a lot of things I haven't bought on the internet, haven't purchased online. I've plopped money down for a lot of shirts and jeans through the years. Not one of them have come in a box to my place, bought from a place online.

I don't buy a whole lot of shoes. Don't need to. If I find a good pair of shoes, I wear 'em and wear 'em and wear 'em. When they wear out, I buy another pair...from the shoe store in town.

I see the ads where, oh boy!, you can buy a vehicle from some website. It's apparently cheaper, easier and the way to go. Yeah ok, but not me. I've never even thought about buying a car online. Nope, I'll head over to a local car dealer and find what I want, visit with the folks there, have a cup of coffee and see if we can work out a deal. If we can't, well, there's another fine dealer just down the road. And it's a nice day for a drive.

OK, now the thing that could well blow your mind: I've never bought anything online.

Why? I have nothing against folks that do online buying, not anything at all. I've just never discovered the need to. I've found everything I want and need right in the local stores. And I've met some really nice people doing it, so I guess that's a bonus.

And best of all, I found out I'm not a dinosaur. I'm just a common, run of the mill 'brick and mortar' kind of guy.

Randy's Minnesota Memories

Randy McDaniel grew up on a small farm near Leota, Minnesota during the classic baby-boomer years of the 1960s and 1970s. These are his stories of growing up in the idyllic world of southwest Minnesota.

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