To the editor:

People who have lived most of their lives in Lawrence know the benefits — not only the pleasantly nostalgic aspects — of trading with local businesses. The Journal-World’s Jan. 6 article on feed stores in Lawrence emphasized the latter, but I have experienced and come to rely upon places like Roger’s Lawrence Feed and Farm Supply, which was featured in that article, where all the benefits of human contact combine and become “neighbor helping neighbor.”

For example: 15 years ago when my very young Weimaraner insisted on riding on my shoulders in the car (a practice frowned upon by the highway patrol), I bought a crate from Lawrence Feed — and got her into it once. Roger traded it back for a grating, installed in the back of my station-wagon where it remains firm. (The dear dog, long gone now, had attacked it fiercely before finally giving up and accepting this space as her own, to be defended from any intrusion.)

A more recent example after many others, large and small, comes to mind. I had bought peanuts for some different creatures, not stipulating that they were to be in the shell. Discovering that they were not and phoning Roger, he sent his helper to my house to make the exchange. K-mart? Any supermarket? These local businesses help keep Lawrence a community and we should value them accordingly.

Mrs. Albert Bloch,

Lawrence