Those really were the days! The Ben Franklin in my town was in a shopping center with a W.T Grants. And downtown, there was a Woolworths, Newberrys, & a P.N. Hirsch. And all of them had fabrics & patterns! And a little of everything!
We had a nice shopping district...dress shops, shoe stores, an ice cream parlor, drugstores that delivered (& one of them had a soda fountain), a menswear shop, Western Auto, & old time hardware stores that always had what you were looking for! Then Walmart came to town & one-by-one these family-owned (some in their 3rd generation) closed. I really hate what Walmart does to a small town....