08/13/2026
It's been a bit since we posted something so here is some random thoughts, facts, and history...
Some of my family roots trace back to Fredericksburg, PA. I have so many memories of helping my grandparents stock shelves and learn how a small business operates. My grandparents, Lee and Pat Rentschler retired in 1999 after operating Rentschler's Food Market for 35 years. I can still remember the beautiful antique glass and wooden candy displays. My grandfather would hand out extra 1 cent candies π¬ to kids. If they gave a quarter for 25 candies, he would count the candies and drop them in their bag, 25, 26, 27, 28. He would commonly give extras.
These type of small businesses were a community keystone. Families came in and sometimes would put their groceries on a tab to pay later in the week when they got paid. Can you imagine asking Target or Walmart if you can put it on your tab and pay on payday?
I also remember how hard my grandparents worked πͺ and how involved they were with community, such as the Hinkle Fest, little league sports teams, and fundraisers by selling subs. It was really fun helping make subs! My grandmother would cut fresh meats, and we made an assembly line to make the subs. The entire kitchen was full of family members, buns, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and everything else you needed to fill orders.
Unfortunately these type of businesses became more and more scarce as big corporations started to be impossible to compete with. They did well for themselves and retired at a good time. What a different type of world we lived in back then. It's hard to believe that 1999 was 27 years ago. I was 15 years old and had a dream to keep the store going. Not something a 15 year old boy could do by himself.
In 1999 when they retired, almost ALL homes relied on dial-up internet, which crawled at a mere 56 Kilobits per second (Kbps). Many folks didn't even have a computer yet. It wasn't until the year 2,000 that the dot.com stock market bubble occurred where the Nasdaq Composite hit an all time high of 5,048 on March 10th, 2000, before plunging 78% over the next two and a half years to a low in October 2002. It erased $5 trillion in market value!
Recently there has been a lot of discussions and market analysts about a A.I. bubble. Will that happen again? No one has a crystal ball. I believe A.I. is here to stay and will be a intricate thing that will be woven into all of our lives. 27 years from now, I wonder what it will be like looking back at this post. What an interesting time to be alive.