The Humanity of the Pickle Barrel

As we've progressed, we've regressed.

Photograph of mural General store and post office by Doris Lee at the Ariel Rios Federal Building, Washington, D.C. (Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons)

“One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.” — Elbert Hubbard, 1911

You need a pickle barrel.

Not because you need to eat more vegetables (although your mom would still insist you do). But because you need more intimate and personal conversations.

I grew up in a small town in Connecticut — the kind with a town green and a white-steepled church, population 10,000. And I remember going with my mom or dad to the bank and the post office, and the teller or clerk behind the counter would know them by name. They might even ask how I was doing in school or on my baseball team.

It seems like a data-driven fantasy now, but those were the days when you didn’t need three forms of ID to pick up your mail or make a withdrawal. It was the way business was …