Brands have lore too!

Gather round for a tale as old as 1996. It's a story that's been passed down exactly 1 generation and now I will share it with you.

Once upon a time, as these stories often go, there was a small community unlike the world had ever seen before, or has ever seen since.

This community was full of wonderful people who lived in perfect peace, and found real joy in one another's company. They lived for years in their own secluded world, a town that was free of crime or hatred or greed, and completely self-sustained.

There were hunters to provide meat, and gatherers to find wild vegetables and fruits.

There was a job for every person in the community, and everyone delighted in their work, and was more than happy to share and give back to the community they lived in.

Every evening the townspeople would come together bringing what food they had found throughout the day for storing in the grand building, which was naturally the largest building, right in the center of town.

They would store their food, and after begin to prepare together a large meal, enough to feed every member of their community.

The grand building and the townspeople’s nightly ritual was a reminder to all of how fortunate they were to call this community their home.

One morning the townspeople woke to find that all their stored food had been eaten.

They were horrified. In a town devoid of crime or anger, they had never experienced such a loss. They knew something was wrong and got right down to making a plan to investigate.

After spending the entire day hunting, and gathering, and again filling the grand building with food, the townspeople skipped their nightly dinner and set themselves up directly outside the building, camouflaged into the scenery around them, preparing for a long evening of keeping watch for the food thief.

A few hours after darkness fell and the world around them settled in for the night, the townspeople looked on in horror as a lion entered into the grand building and devoured all their food stores once again.

The townspeople kept quiet so as not to startle the lion and endanger their lives, but instead watched on helplessly.

The next morning all felt lost. They had now had 2 stores worth of food eaten and knew they had only a short time at this rate before they would run out of food altogether.

So once more the hunters hunted, and the gatherers gathered, and they brought together as much food as they could find, storing it all in the loft at the tippy top of the grand building.

As night fell the townspeople took their places, once again camouflaged by the scenery as they waited for the lion.

After what seemed like an eternity he approached. They could hear his large padded footsteps as he walked through the door of their grand building. They could feel the weight of his large body shake the walls of the building as he moved up the steps to the loft at the tippy top.

Then, a small growl as the lion began to devour the food and finally it was time for the people to make their move. They worked quickly and quietly, all together, all at once, building a trap for the lion, caging him in the loft at the tippy top of the grand building.

As dawn broke the townspeople shouted for joy at what they had accomplished together. They spent the rest of the day scavenging for what there was left to eat, and that evening once again came together for dinner, celebrating their victory over the lion.

All these years later the grand building is still a beacon for the community, reminding the townspeople of what can be accomplished when a community stands together.

The grand building still holds the food that the community prepares and shares, and at night you can still see the lion up in the tippy top of the grand building, his figure illuminated in neon.

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This was inspired by a little story my dad made up for me when I was a kid. I was 4 going on 5 and after receiving military orders my family moved across the country to the town that would become my home until I graduated high school and struck out on my own.

I was young and everything was new and strange, but nothing so strange to my memory as pulling up to the closest grocery store to our new home and seeing the sign with a giant lion on it.

Food Lion???

Why did the grocery store have a lion on it? What was the correlation between food and lions? So many questions. When all else failed my dad spun me an answer and it's become a core memory for me. A constant reminder of the way my parents tried to make a life altering change comforting, and interesting, and even a little fun. I never forgot it, and I don't think I ever will.