First Pluto, now Carson Pirie Scott

We've lost a lot this week. First, Pluto was de-commissioned as a planet and now the Carson Pirie Scott store on State Street in Chicago is going too.

Sigh.

When I told my wife (my child bride) this, she didn't even know what Carson Pirie Scott was -- so I guess it's really an oldie's thing. No wonder they're going down.

CHICAGO - State Street may still be a great street, as the song says. But Friday's news that the Carson Pirie Scott department store was leaving the landmark building it's called home for more than a century was just the latest reminder that it is no longer the same street.

And, to make matters worse, Marshall Fields is changing its name to Macy's.

One of my biggest complaints about modern society is that every place is the same. You can go into a store in Kuwait City or in Lima, Peru or in Paris or in almost anyplace in the world, and you find the same brand names, the same designs, the same junk you find everywhere else in the world. Apart from the wilds of Tibet or the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota, everyplace is exactly the same. In the old days, you travelled to find new and interesting things. Today, you travel, and (at least at the commercial level) you find the same thing you could have found in your own back yard.

Obviously, the modern Carson Pirie Scott is no different from any of these other places, but at least it had a venerated name and location. Now, let's just go to the mall.

I guess I'm getting old.