Sunday, September 30, 2007

Build It, They Will Come

There are two background voices that keep going off in my mind with the new store.

The first is from the Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams. The main character hears voices in his head, "If you build it, they will come." He mortgages his life and puts all his energy into building a baseball diamond in his corn field. He's rewarded in the end.

The second voice is from an Isuzu commercial. This guy is driving his Isuzu SUV and he hears a whispering voice say, "Farther!" He goes off road like a brave explorer. He's being adventurous and he hears the whisper again, "Farther!" He turns into impenetrable jungle in his trusty SUV. In the last scene we see him in his SUV on a raft, about to go over a waterfall. The voice whispers: "Too far!"


  1. Unfortunately Ray said the voice told him "If you build it HE will come."

    So hopefully your voice is correct, as having a single customer is probably not what you want.

    I hope this quote from that movie comes true for you:

    "Gary, people will come Gary. They'll come to Black Diamond for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the gameroom; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the tables, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll play the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Gary. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been games. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But games have marked the time. These games are a part of our past, Gary. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Gary. People will most definitely come."

    Or at least it was something like that. :-)

  2. I was thinking of using that quote (the short one) in one of my emails about the play space today.

    Are we on tha same wavelength here?

    Should I be afraid - very afraid?

  3. I was going to mention how people flocked to the game space on Saturday (and likewise bought lots of stuff), but I had a two year old in desperate need of attention.

    We built it. They came. The questions we now ask ourselves are about how to manage it.