Let's Go Krogering...

...the happy way to shop!

Having lived in Cincinnati all my life I've taken "going Krogering" for granted. Kroger has always been around with a store in every Cincinnati neighborhood and suburb. So I was more than a little "Cincinnati Proud" when I found out the first Kroger store originated right here in our Queen City. 

Bernard Henry Kroger was born in 1860 to German immigrants living in Covington, Kentucky. When Barney was 16 he took a job selling tea and coffee door to door in Cincinnati. A couple of years later he took a job at the struggling Imperial Tea Company. The owners offered him 10% of the profits if he could turn the company around. After successfully moving from clerk to manager and turning the unimpressive company for a profit, Kroger wanted to invest his share of the profits in one-third of the company. The owners refused so Kroger struck out on his own.

In 1883 Barney Kroger, with $350 borrowed from a friend and $372 of his own money, opened his first store on Pearl Street in Cincinnati. The Great American Western Tea Company was 17 feet wide and three blocks from the river. He also bought a horse and shiny red wagon, for back then groceries were delivered to the customer. He ran his business with a simple motto: “Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself.”

Despite a couple of setbacks; losing his horse and wagon in a train wreck two weeks after opening and then a few weeks after that, losing his entire stock of groceries in a flood; Kroger persevered. Within a year Kroger was doing so well he bought out his partner and within two years he owned four stores.Today with nearly 2,500 stores in 31 states under two dozen banners and annual sales of more than $70 billion, Kroger ranks as one of the nation’s largest retailers.

Barney Kroger not only started a chain of grocery stores he was an innovator of the times. He advertised more regularly in the newspaper than any other grocery in town. By 1902, the Kroger Grocery and Baking Company was organized and was the first grocery in the nation to bake its own bread. He was also the first to sell meats and groceries in the same store.

Kroger saw an opportunity to increase his income by manufacturing some of the products he sold. When farmers came to town with their produce, he bought far more cabbage than he could expect his customers to buy. He took the cabbage home to his mother who, following her favorite recipe, turned it into tangy sauerkraut that proved hugely popular with his German customers. Today Kroger operates 40 food processing plants producing over 14,000 private-label items.

The company introduced another innovation in 1916 with the beginnings of self-service shopping. Like today, customers went to the grocery store, chose their own merchandise, and brought it home themselves. Many customers appreciated having the opportunity to select their own items. Other stores quickly adopted Kroger's innovation. In 1972, Kroger became the first grocery retailer in America to test an electronic scanner.

Sources:
Cincinnati Then and Now - Iola silberstein
Pleasant Family Shopping
Kroger Website
Ohio History Central

Today is Martin Luther King's Actual Birthday

...and I feel the need to speak out about the state of racism in our country today. It makes me sad, but not surprised, that one of the end results of having Barack Obama, President of the United States, a black man, in the White House, is the ugly muck of racism rising to the top of our American society.

Out of the Mountain of Despair A Stone of Hope

We have Sarah Palin using racist terms like "shucking and jiving" and John Sununu making allusions to the denigrating racist description of African Americans when he referred to our President as "lazy." The complete description so popular among racists is "lazy, shiftless n.....r." Then there are the Photoshopped posters with the President's face super-imposed on an ape or with a Hitler mustache. I am embarrassed when I hear or see these things.

When I was growing up in the eastern suburbs of Cincinnati in the 60s and 70s there were no African Americans living in my neighborhood nor attending my school. It wasn't until I started working at Swallen's in Fairfax at the age of 16 that I met and worked alongside African Americans. I became friends with many. I was fortunate to be raised by a mother who never allowed the n word to be said in our house and taught us to respect people who were different than us. Over the years I have had the privilege to know many African Americans and have the honor to call them friend.

The fact is, many people don't think they are racist.

Some years ago I was in a restaurant having lunch with a African American female friend. When the waitress left our checks on the table, I laid down cash and my friend laid down her credit card. When the waitress returned with the card and change she gave me, the white woman, the credit card and my friend the change. It was a teachable moment for me and my first exposure to what is called subconscious racism.

An innocent mistake by the waitress? Sure. But it illustrated the underlying perception of some white people that people of color are "less than" and could not possibly own a credit card or a house or a car. For many white folk it is an automatic subconscious reaction. Like women who hold their purses a little tighter when they pass a black man on the street.

Usually white folk who behave this way have never had any kind of relationship with a human of different skin color or ethnic background. So they believe the stereotypes and the misconceptions they see or hear from sources like Fox "News" or the ravings of Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. My challenge to them is to make an effort to really KNOW someone of a different skin color, a different religion, a different culture. You will be surprised how much your own life will be enriched.

To many in our country Martin Luther King's birthday just means an extra day added to the weekend. To me it is a reminder that we still have a long way to go in America to eliminate racism.

Post Script: In the January 19, 2013 issue of the Enquirer journalist Mark Curnutte shares some startling statistics on racism nationally and locally. The following are some excerpts from that article:

"A majority of Americans now express prejudice toward African-Americans, even if they don’t recognize those attitudes, according to an Associated Press survey released in October 2012. Conducted with researchers from Stanford University, the University of Michigan and University of Chicago, the survey showed that the number of Americans with anti-black sentiments increased to 56 percent in 2012, up from 49 percent in 2008, when measured by an implicit racial attitudes test."

"The U.S. prison population comprises 40 percent African-American males, though they make up just 14 percent of the overall population. In Hamilton County, 70 percent of the jail population is black men, even though the overall black population – male and female – is 26 percent."

"The number of hate groups – which includes neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, skinheads, black separatists and others – has increased 69 percent since 2000 and now has reached 1,018 nationally, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization based in Montgomery, Ala. Since the end of 2008, the number of anti-government groups, including armed militias, grew 755 percent, from 149 to 1,274 in 2011."

"Despite advances in workforce integration, Cincinnati remains one of the nation’s most racially segregated cities. Cincinnati ranked eighth in residential segregation of the nation’s 22 most racially divided cities, according to an analysis of 2010 census results by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. It reports that 66.9 percent of one racial group would have to move to other census tracts to integrate Cincinnati."

Here's the full article On MLK Day, 2nd Obama inaugural sign of progress

The Miracle of Coming Home Part One

Our house after the tornado hit.

Our home restored.

We are home. And it is a miracle. No really. It IS a miracle. On March 2 our home was nearly destroyed by the tornado that raced from Piner Kentucky to Moscow Ohio where we live. The entire south wall was ripped from the second floor to the ground. The house was originally built in 1890 and has been added to and built upon ever since. The house sits on the river bank of the Ohio River with a spectacular view of  the river from almost every room. It is the house we always dreamed of owning and the tornado ripped up one side and down the other. But a structural engineer brought in by our insurance company deemed the house structurally sound. We had good insurance and it was a no brainer for us to restore the house. And that's what we did. We hired a great general contractor who listened to all our desires and two months ago we came home. We came home to a practically brand new old house. New siding, new windows, new roof, all the broken walls repaired, new electric wiring, new fence. It truly is a miracle.