An Aesop of Sorts, Maybe

In my late teens or early twenties maybe, I forget, the late former editor of my hometown paper,  Keith  Blackledge,  wrote an emeritus column describing his trip to Lillehammer Norway for the 1994 Olympics there.  He described how he was shopping for things one Saturday there and was shocked to find that all of the stores closed early on Saturday.  Keith went on to decry how Scandinavian socialism  had destroyed to good entrepreneurial spirit of the Norwegian people.  Mind you that Lillehammer is a town only the same size as my North Platte, about 26,000 people.  I'd guess with some confidence that it's the smallest place to ever host even the smaller Winter Games. And I emphasize now that this is actually what Blackledge actually reported to the people as fact, that small corner shops in a small town closed early on the weekend because socialism.  He had stepped off the plane expecting to see alien leftist decadence all around him,  so he did.