Most of my first shopping experiences were around a square like Lincoln’s with a courthouse in the middle. That's where I started to learn about the business world outside of home and school — the kind of world where I would eventually work. Compared to Lincoln, a difference was that there were no railroad tracks downtown, but someone did mention a one-track mind.

Among our first stops on Saturday mornings was the money store, known to adults as the Cattle National Bank. As I understood it, we went there to tell them how much money we would need for the day's shopping, and they would give us some.

Ben Franklin, with dolls, books and everything for the desk at school, was another standard stop, with many things I liked, but I couldn't have them all, at least not right away.

On special occasions we might also visit the shoe store, with a row of chairs back-to-back, like in a train station. I would sit in one of the chairs and a man would measure my foot on a metal form, sliding in parts on the sides and top to determine the correct size. He would use a shoehorn to help me try on shoes, and soon there would be many pairs standing around to choose from. Mom reminded me that I was the one who would have to know if the shoes felt all right. That was difficult, especially with all the pretty, shiny exteriors to distract me. It was a place to practice making tough decisions.

Once we had our pictures taken at Samples — a lesson in patience.

Sometimes we went to offices in the courthouse itself. That's where I was introduced to professional confidentiality. My dad needed to discuss school matters with the county superintendent from time to time, but once when I was along, Dad said there were too many ears, so I had to go somewhere else with Mom.

For entertainment, there was a movie theater, the Rivoli, near the post office. In later years, some of the fun came from learning that the local college students called it the Ravioli.

On another side of the square, at the bakery, Mom would ask for a dozen glazed doughnuts or a dozen mixed rolls, and one of the ladies in white dresses would reach into the trays behind the glass and put the iced treats into a white paper bag for us to take home. I don't know what had gone wrong one day, but, by way of lighthearted explanation, the woman said she had a one-track mind.

The rest of the food shopping, including green grapes and bananas, was at a grocery store not far from the square. That was one of last stops before going home for dinner. Then, if Dad was delayed somewhere, Mom let us have a banana while we waited in the car, since we could pull down the peelings and eat the fruit without washing our hands first.

So, in my mind there's a relatively close connection between bananas and one-track minds. Bananas are on the healthy side, while the one-track habits, along with the frills from the bakery, are attractive but not as highly recommended.

The bakery lady's comment still appeals to me, though. I agree that it can be hard to change tracks. I might be confusing single-minded determination with narrow-minded tunnel vision, but one task at a time sounds good to me. I like to work on one activity until it’s done and deal with other areas of attention another day. The balance between concentrating, focusing, persevering and being flexible, adaptable, available is difficult to maintain.

In a current example, I drove back from weekend grocery shopping here in Lincoln with my mind still stuck on a problem I had struggled with on the way to the store. In a way, change itself was the source of trouble in this case. If there hadn't been a shift in a routine situation, the technical glitch with no clear solution probably wouldn't have shown up at all, but circling around the unchangeable facts wasn't helping.

Quite unexpectedly a banana did the trick. In a glum mood as I parked the car at home, I glanced at the grocery bag on the seat beside me and saw a goofy passenger looking back. A yellowish-green banana stem stuck out absurdly from the opening it had made for itself in the sack. The banana could have given me a poke in the ribs if it had been much closer. It was good for a laugh anyway. The color even matched the design printed on the plastic, as if there had been poetic intent to package the message that way: "Hey, you with the one-track mind. It's time for a change."