Best Photo. Maybe the most fitting business name I ever encountered. When I first moved to Columbia in 1995, I was waist deep in photography. I owned a nice Minolta body, a few lenses, and negatives demonstrating my artistic prowess. I wanted to enlarge the best ones and frame them. My goal was to have nothing on my interior walls that I didn't shoot.

I asked around and was told about the hard to find camera shop near Boozer shopping center. I'm not sure who told me about Best, but they knew what they were talking about.

Over the next several years, I used Best Photo exclusively for my photographic needs. I was routinely surprised at their expertise and complete grasp of the term "customer service," and I was never even close to disappointed. No one ever said no. No one recited company policy. No one ever gave me the idea they were in business for any reason other than to make me happy.

When I moved to Birmingham, I still did business with Best. When I moved back here, I stepped right back into old habits.

Then one day I dropped by, and they told me they were closing. No one had to explain why. It is common in every business these days. Wal Mart and CVS develop pictures and sell film. The dinosaurs are dying away.

There is a hardware store in Ballentine. The owner spent nearly an hour one afternoon fashioning a scoop out of several different items so the Woman Whose Garbage I'm Responsible for could have a long handled, sturdy, slime scoop for her pond. He even signed it when we told him how excited we were to own an original.

If you look close enough, you can find grocery stores, clothing stores, and restaurants that don't care about customer surveys, customer trends, or customer return ratio graphs. They just care about customers.

Yet, we continue to give our money to the big giants. We go to the big box hardware stores for plants and lumber. We go to discount grocery stores for everything else. We are willing to sacrifice the very idea of service for a ten percent discount. Soon the great places will all be gone. Our offspring will never know what it feels like to be treated special.

I bring this up because the Happy Bookseller is closing its doors at the end of October. Once again, the giant discount monoliths have won. Alex Hailey, James Dickey, and Pat Conroy had book signings there. People who love books and fresh ideas could always stop by and get a helping of both.

They also allowed a local columnist and pretend author to have a couple of book signings there. The fact no one came by or bought my books didn't change anything. I was still treated as if I'd written

Beach Music or Roots.

I didn't stop taking pictures when Best Photo closed, and I won't stop reading or writing when The Happy Bookseller shuts the lights off. But I will think about them every time one of the giants has an opportunity to please me and fails miserably.