Lisa

Welcome to my About Me page. I'm Lisa Simpson Lutts.

I'm the director of a local history museum and have worked in the museum field for the past 25 years.

This whole experiment in unchained living is my idea. For quite some time now, I've been interested in the sustainability of small downtowns - ever since we lived in Ticonderoga, New York.

As Director of External Affairs for Fort Ticonderoga, which is a non-profit museum, part of my job was to work with the local community. In this position, I became actively involved in the new Main Street program. I also became involved in helping grow and market the local tourism businesses which were such an integral part of our small tourism town.

While in Ticonderoga, I grew more and more concerned about the local Wal-Mart's impact on our town. Wal-Mart forced our one grocery store out of business. Our one locally owned pharmacy also closed and the town's single chain pharmacy, Rite Aid, moved out of our downtown to be closer Wal-Mart. Businesses came and went, and in general, everyone struggled - except Wal-Mart.

So I grew to dislike what Wal-Mart did to communities. But ultimately what made the difference in my thinking about chain stores was the friendships I forged with the local business people. These people's families went back many generations in the Ticonderoga community. They also cared about their town. When I needed something for Fort Ticonderoga, I went to the locally-owned businesses because I knew they cared. The chains - Wal-Mart and the Super 8 - did not.

Certainly the more galling chain was the Super 8. Every year, we had out-of-town speakers come to the Fort to participate in special programs. Ninety percent ( yes -- 90%!) of the Super 8's business came from tourists visiting Fort Ticonderoga and attending the programs. Yet Super 8's out-of-town, corporate owners wouldn't donate any rooms to us for the speakers!

So, instead, I went to the small mom-and-pop motels and B&Bs that were struggling to stay viable and asked them for rooms. These moms and pops gladly donated rooms repeatedly because they knew that without Fort Ticonderoga they wouldn't survive.

Three years ago Dan and I moved to a town of 35,000 in southeast Tennessee where I run our local history museum. It was around Christmas time last year that the idea for this project hit me. What happened was I went on a bit of a shopping spree, spending money at post-Christmas sales buying needless stuff "just because it's on sale."

When I got it all home, I thought - what am I doing? I don't need all this stuff. I'm just cluttering the house, wasting consumer resources, and helping chain stores. And so the idea for the project was launched.

What if Dan and I spent a year shopping and eating only in non-chain stores and restaurants? Could we do this? What would it be like? Will we go broke not shopping at places like Wal-Mart and Target and TJ Max? (Quite frankly, I hadn't shopped at Wal-Mart in ages!)

What you will find in our two blogs is two ways of looking at this experiment. Dan is looking at it from a more heavy-duty research slant - which is great! I'm looking at this from the more practical side since I'm the one doing most (though not all!) of the shopping.

We hope that as we gather all our material, we'll have enough to write a book. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy reading our blogs about our unchained lives.

Unchained and Loving It! I know I am and I'm never going back.