For someone like me, seeing this spooky display for the first time I couldn’t help thinking, gee, isn’t that nice, Woolies is joining in the spirit of our Festival of Fisher’s Ghost.
Naturally it only took silly old me another five or 10 seconds to realise what was really going on here.
That’s right, this had nothing to do with our Fred Fisher, this was a display at the front of the store dedicated to an American tradition, Halloween.
Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t got anything against Halloween.
Indeed when we lived at St Andrews our kids and the rest of the urchins of our street would do the “trick or treat’’ walk around the block.
All good, harmless fun.
Except that Halloween is an American tradition, and the last time I looked Woolies was still dinky-di.
Admittedly Woolies is a giant national brand with stores in just about every suburb and town.
But as far as I am concerned its stores in Ingleburn, Minto, Eagles Vale, Campbelltown Mall and Macarthur Square make their money out of the residents of Campbelltown and Macarthur.
That’s you and me.
And it just would have been nice if they returned the favour by getting involved in our community via something like the Festival of Fisher’s Ghost.
Maybe the managers of the local stores have to stand up to the marketing people who work in some 40th floor office in the big smoke of Melbourne or Sydney.
Their local customers would certainly appreciate it.
