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Except for local car dealerships that have lost their franchises because of mismanagement at the top echelons of big business, most of us in Gainesville feel that we have been relatively unaffected by these huge corporate errors.

Let me bring it down to right here in River City, Gainesville, Florida.

I have purchased four or five Sears Craftsman lawnmowers during the last twenty-five years. It is a sturdy, durable lawnmower. Every year, I would take it in for a tune-up – oil and filter change, new blade, spark plug – at the Sears appliance workshop just off of Highway 441 near the State Troopers station.

It used to be that you could speak to the mechanic, he could diagnose what the needs of your machine were, and he could give you a promised date for pick up, usually three or four days away.

Then, some years ago, Sears decided that it would be more efficient if the mechanic were not interrupted. You could try to guess what was wrong with the lawnmower, leave it with a clerk in a Sears parts store next to the workshop, and still get a pick-up date four or five days away.

A few years ago, Sears decided that it would be more efficient to get rid of the local mechanic and send all of the lawnmowers by truck to Jacksonville to be tuned-up. The drop off and pick up was still at the shop on 441, but the time frame for return now became seven to ten days.

This year, when I took my lawnmower to the 441 shop on May 2nd, I was told that the shop is now closing – that my lawnmower would be sent to Orlando for repair, and I could pick it up in eleven days, on May 13th, at merchandise pick-up at the Sears main store at Oaks Mall. I went to pick up my lawnmower on May 19th, and no one in merchandise return could find it. In frustration, I got the Sears store manager to try to determine what happened. He learned that a part had been ordered by the Orlando shop, but had not yet been received. On May 28th, I received a call from a Sears telephone service center somewhere in the United States that my lawnmower had now been repaired, and would be delivered to Oaks Mall on June 6th. If repairs were complete on May 28th, why would it take nine days to get it from Orlando to Gainesville, I asked. She had no answer. “Do you have a lawn?” I asked. “No,” she said. “Then you would not know what it is like to go without a lawnmower for a month,” I said.

Check your calendar. It is June 3rd, thirty-two days since I took my Sears lawnmower to Sears for its annual tune-up. Grass is up to my knees in Gainesville. The telephone center is somewhere unknown in the United States of America. Lawnmower repair for Gainesville is somewhere in Orlando. My lawnmower is still not here. Is Sears too large to fail? Does it need, perish the thought, new management in the home office, wherever that is? Or will we possibly be reading about a bankruptcy a year from now?

This is Radio Ralph Lowenstein, with a comment at midweek for AM850.