The decision has been made and Aldi's is coming.
There was no reason to deny Aldi's occupancy of that building, and the Town Board's unanimious vote to appove it showed good sense and judgment. Competition is efficacious for consumers, and our community will now have an additional option for grocery shopping. This can only be a good thing, particularly at a time of rampant inflation in food prices.
But what I want to explore is the reaction this matter generated. When this issue was being considered by the Town Board, Brookfield Now offered an on-line forum where people were able to enter their opinions and views on whether or not the Town should allow Aldi's to open a store at Bluemound Plaza. The comments were not only prolific, many were intense, almost incendiary. There is no question that it exposed a tap-root of emotion and sentiment, most of which was rabidly anti-Brookfield.
Perception is reality, so I say - fair enough.
But it got me wondering about the people that live in this community. To hear us described on the pages of NOW, we are little more than affluent elitists, langorously idling away our time in hammocks, all while wondering if our Great Danes need grooming, or agonizing over the quandry of whether to use the Jag or the Mercedes for our drive to the club. There is no question that the Town and City of Brookfield and the Village of Elm Grove are home to some people of considerable means. But the more relevant question remains this - does that reality define the collective character of the individuals comprising these communities?
The financial means of my parents was at best, modest. They carved out a good life for their family, often denying themselves things that today are deemed necessities, so that their kids would have what they needed. While we never lacked for anything critical, it was clear to us as we grew up that at times they struggled financially. This background was the source of a major culture shock when I attended a small, liberal arts college in Michigan. There was a lot of money there - and I mean BIG money. Suddenly I was hanging with and dating eighteen year old kids who had nicer cars than my parents, had grown up in country clubs and prep. schools, and had never once in their young lives encountered the notion of financial limitation. I admit to having some resentment at the time. Who are you, I thought, to have all these things that my parents didn't have?
While there I got to know some of the wealthiest families in the United States, and as I did a reality became clear. Many of them were also amongst the finest people I had ever met; the content of their character, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, exceeding the considerable content of their bank accounts. And of course some of them were cruds. But I came to realize that it was not their money or their cars or their club memberships that defined them, any more than our LACK of those things defined my family. It was the content of their character that defined them.
I thought a lot about this as I read the comments that peppered the pages of Brookfield Now. I kept trying to reconcile those horrific descriptions with the people I know in this area. I couldn't do it, and I still can't.
Most of the people in Brookfield that Barb and I know work hard every day, doing their best to care for their families and to support their schools and churches. We know countless people who give generously of their time and financial resources to charitable and humanitarian causes, often denying themselves rest, leisure, or financial betterment in order to do so. They cut their grass and shovel their driveways and care for their homes and look after their kids and watch out for their neighbors and try to use less gasoline, and guess what - they even try to save money on groceries.
I am glad that Aldi's is going to be in our community and am certain my family will patronize it.
But let's not get so swept away that we believe the presence or absence of a particular grocery store defines the character of thousands of people.
