July Fourth with Gru!

July 7, 2014

I had the good fortune to spend July Fourth weekend with friends at a beach house in Scituate. It was wonderful – no schedule and no plans outside of watching local fireworks (which are of course illegal and only handled by professionals), going to the beach, and generally lazing about and relaxing together.

As part of the trip, I got to take part in our friend’s family tradition: going to the Marshfield Hills General Store to buy pick and mix candy. Ostensibly it’s for the kids, but who can resist? It was a real delight to see the joy on the kids’ faces as they rummaged through the bins to find exactly the right combination of five (and only five!) things – a mix of candy and small toys, just like it should be.

But here’s where it gets really interesting: the owner of the store happens to be Steve Carell, and he and his family were there enjoying their own vacation. Steve was gracious enough to chat with us for a few minutes about the work to keep the store going (a generator is a necessity), and to accept my friend’s thanks for keeping the store open and running.

The attached audio clip is my own special thanks to Steve for allowing families to share childhood memories from one generation to the next. As he says in this in-depth article:

“The reason I bought this, ultimately, was that things like this are few and far between. They disappear very quickly, and once they disappear, you can’t get them back. I mean, to see kids just hanging out or people from the neighborhood sitting and talking and reading the paper together, that’s becoming more and more rare.”

I couldn’t agree more: not only are things like this more and more rare, but they’re more and more worth saving. Thanks Steve.