M1, am I too late to sign up for bartering horticultural
labor for BEER 
? I love gardening and !
I am insanely jealous of your Alger Market! It's GREAT!
When we lost so many hometown markets and country stores,
we were all the poorer for it.
Many of my memories of childhood contain trips to those places.
Two blocks from my house, there was Sutton's Market which had
been in existence since the mid 1800s. It was one of the first places
that my mother allowed me to venture unescorted. She'd give me a
dollar (imagine!) to buy grnd hamburger. I can still recall the wide
plank pine flooring and Mr. Sutton would disappear into a huge
meat locker (which scared me) and then bring the meat out to a
chopping block & handgrinder. The hamburger was then wrapped in
paper & tied with a string. At the front of the store was a large freezer
with popsicles and Mumma always gave me 5cents so I could buy a
fudgicle (my favorite! my brother Fran always wanted an orange sherbet push up).
My dad was an aficionado of the "Dover Country Store" in the neighboring town
& he'd often take me with him & let me buy penny candy. There was a section
at the back of the store which had "second hand" furniture (discards then would
now be viewed as valuable antiques). I still have one of the first presents my father
bought me - an Eastlake music cabinet with shelves meant to hold sheet music.
It started out as a place to keep all my paper dolls (remember them?), later
used to hold stationery for penpals - and now it occupies an important place in
my living room and contains photographs. It's one of my most treasured possessions!
Good memories of these small places 
! How can anyone ever have fond reminiscences
of Target or Walmart? 
m2