The Corporate Animal

Last night, I looked at an old diary of my Grandmother's. Stuck inside was the price tag, indicating that She bought it at Woolworth's, for 99 cents.

Woolworth's is gone, now. Out of business. Extinct. Vanished forever from the corporate ecosystem.

That's got me thinking. One of the book that my boss is requiring us to read takes a look at the birth, life and death of corporations. And it's made me realize that the organizations which sell us everything from toothpaste to beer to shampoo, are, indeed, in many ways like a living organism.

What is as familiar in your downtown today as the oak tree upon which you carved your high school love, may tomorrow be but a memory. Or it could endure another century.

The company that makes Altoids, Callard and Bowser, has existed since 1700-something. Happens to have one of the weirdest corporate websites on the web, too (www.altoids.com).

Lea & Perrins has made Worcestershire Sauce since 1835.

Sometimes when I buy something, I look for the company headquarters on the label and look up the location in my atlas. Sometimes I visit the website. You can learn more than you might think about history, about culture, that way.

I have an old brown bottle on my bookshelf, embossed with "Forni's Alpenkrauter Blubeleber." Someday, I'll tell you the fascinating story behind that product.