Dear Customers,
Some 60 years ago, a cartoon appeared on the NBC lineup on Saturday mornings which featured the vocal talents of comedian, Wally Cox. It only ran for about 2½ years ending in March of 1967, and continued in syndication until 1973, but it was part of my Saturday morning ritual. The Underdog Show featured a shoeshine boy (er dog),who saved his love interest, Pure Polly Purebred, from evil villains namely Simon Bar Sinister and Riff Raff!
I’m not sure if this is where I learned to champion the “underdog”, but it has certainly carried over into my present life. For instance, whenever I turn on a sporting event (which is often), I immediately first check the respective rankings of the two combatants, their statistics and their perceived chance of emerging victorious – then I pick the potential loser to pull for – every time (unless the favored team is actually one of mine)!
This makes for a very disheartening result in most instances, particularly when my favorite teams all lose on the same day. But it doesn’t have to be even a favorite team. I can guarantee that I’m rooting for: “who-ever is playing Ohio State (I refuse to add the obnoxious title “The” in front), the Michigan Wolverines, anybody going up against the Dallas Cowboys and any baseball team whose payroll is larger than the Pirates’. Which is virtually every other team except Oakland!
Costa’s Supermarket is an underdog too if you stop to consider it. We’re a single family-owned small-town store. We compete against huge chains consisting of multiple stores on a daily basis. Consider some of our neighboring towns who have lost their grocery stores. Even a quart of milk necessitates a longer trip than it used to. We have been here for almost 75 years. With your help we will continue to be, but we can’t do it without our faithful customers – “keep rooting for us underdogs!”