I decided to tentatively start off a blog series based on a book I bought many years ago entitled The Conversation Piece It is a neat little book, designed to give a person some ideas of things to talk about in gatherings or at home or whenever you might want to have an interesting conversation. There are 320 Questions in the book, so I chose a number at random -

If you were sent on assignment to rate the top ten best small towns in America, what particular criterion would be most important to you?

Not the BEST question I could have gotten, but still...

Neighbors? Cost of Living? Schools? I can only pick ONE criterion so here it is : The grocery store. I want a small town with a nice big grocery store. One with plenty of selection. I once lived in a "small town" with THREE grocery stores, and one was a GIANT H.E.B. store that sold salon line shampoos. Don't know HOW, but they did. If I want tofu one week, the store needs to have it. Veggie cheeses? check. Doughnuts? check. Open 24 hours a day? Even better. What's attached? A photo shop? A flower shop? Yes, I want a nice big clean grocery store because one thing I love to do is shop for groceries. I take my time up and down the aisles and read all the labels and look for new products, even though I usually buy the same exact foods, week in and week out. If I can have just one pleasurable day shopping for my groceries, the entire neighborhood could be filled with crack-addicted maniacs and I could care less.