Danielle and I bundled up for a walk. We had a destination in mind, but a secondary goal was just to get out of the apartment and stretch the legs. Burn a few calories. Monday was the big chill, everything canceled, snow was on the ground in the morning. Texas Coldpocalypse. Now, Tuesday, the snow was gone.
No traffic sounds, only the hum of the heaters over at the Manor. Another “where is everyone?” moment — abandoned city, blue-sky-beautiful, but the wind chill was biting. Interestingly, you get different experiences depending on which streets you choose to walk down. Are you on the sunny side of the street (as the song goes)? Come around a corner and the Arctic breeze slaps you in the face. Shrink into yourself, head down. Then you get to a place where the wind is blocked by the buildings and the sun warms you a bit.
It was the middle of the day, and the place should have been buzzing with business. The family that owns the place was sitting around talking about how dead it was. They were happy to see us. We were there just to give them business. That was our goal. We’re not rich. We can barely make our bills, but I taught survival for a few dozen years, and this is an act of survival. We need these people to make it.
I’ve talked a lot in this space about why I push small, home-owned businesses so much in my columns. So much, in fact, that I’ve been asked if I am getting any benefits from my advocacy (gifts, payoffs, backslaps, discounts, teary-eyed thanks). The answer is no. Would I take them? Of course. But that’s not why I do it. A couple of friends jokingly asked if I was getting NIL (name, image, likeness) money for the city using my picture so much in their advertising. No.
I think the success of small, locally owned businesses, especially in our current political and cultural climate, is the only thing keeping civilization as we knew it afloat right now. Even for us when we lived off-grid in the country, a flourishing small business community, home-grown artist culture, and entrepreneurship in the face of crippling societal woes — these things were important to us. Still are. Our civilization is being dismantled, and the big corporations, media giants, and the political whores who use them for funding and cultural annihilation are the ones taking a bulldozer to the foundations. I support my local business-owning friends because they are on the front lines and I’d rather support them now than compete with them for scraps in a post-apocalyptic hellscape that is the alternative. Oh, and in a post-apocalyptic hellscape, I probably win. You probably don’t.
The holiday season just funneled trillions of dollars to the usual suspects, and some small bit of that went to our neighbors who are trying to keep the wolves away. The bulk of the money you spent at Amazon and Walmart and Target and the chain stores up on the highway – that money is funding the garbage you’re being fed on your screens and supporting the morons running for office.
Like I said, some of that money goes to our small business friends. You spent some with them in December, and we’re all thankful.
Then comes January.
January is a brutal time for these small restaurants, bars, stores, shops, etc. It’s a mental and financial mind siege. People keep spending money at the big box shops in January, but they tell themselves “I need to cut back.” The things they cut back on are the things that are keeping us, as a culture, afloat. Instead, they go to Popeyes or make more trips to Walmart. “It’s too cold to go downtown, let’s just hit the Burger King drive-thru, stay home and watch some spiritual rot the Chinese TikTok government and the globalist financial powers need us to watch.” Oh, look, another election. Match meet powder keg.
You dig how it works?
My challenge to you in these last ten days of January is to mindfully invest in your own survival. Come down and go to the bookstore. Meet someone on the street and say Hi. Chat up a business owner. Hit the ice cream shop, even if it’s chilly. The downtown restaurants will love to see you. Go see a show at the Lyric Theater. Sacrifice a little and enjoy it. Tell ‘em Bunker sent you.
Peace,
Michael Bunker
