RETAILERS and many shoppers look forward to Black Friday, the zany day after Thanksgiving that officially welcomes the Christmas shopping season.

Stores like to get off on the right foot with deep one-day discounts, and shoppers are more than happy to go home with some outstanding bargains. Many leave with Santa’s sack nearly filled.

As the importance of Black Friday grows among retailing competitors, most of them keep looking for an edge. Early-bird sales, five-hour sales, midnight openings and all-night shopping sprees top the lists that seem to expand every year.

But it has gotten to the point where I hope retailers begin to question the sanity of these gimmicks and promotions, which it seems every year, lead to tragic stories across the country. When people start to line up for deals in the middle of the night six hours before they can buy, the situation is begging for trouble. Of course, in the end, the final root of the problem falls on the shoulders of the buyers, who can be become rude, vicious and dangerous when it comes to the health and safety of others.

The mob mentality of 2,000 shoppers at a Walmart near New York City reared its ugly head on Friday when a store employee was trampled to death when he opened the door for the crowd. Not only didn’t the rowdies let other store employees get to the man to help him, but they knew he was hurt badly and just ran over him to get inside the store.

Many people whom I talked with throughout the weekend find it hard to believe that this could happen. Not me. Get hundreds or thousands of caffeine-filled people standing outdoors in the rain and cold for several hours on little or no sleep, many of them desperate to get a deal, and things can turn into frenzy at the simple turn of a key. Retailers and their marketing departments know more about their business than I do, but these early-bird sales and other shopping madness have gotten out of hand. Maybe it’s time to return to more traditional hours, like store openings at 8 a.m. Or stay open for 24 hours, leading to a steady stream of customers who aren’t standing in line and resembling a scene from the running of the bulls in Spain when the front doors open.

Some of the marketing ploys should be fun, but with many shoppers acting like uncivilized beasts throughout the country, I question the wisdom. And what happened in New York can happen anywhere, including right here in Mercer County.

Come to think of it, when a day called Black Friday welcomes what should be one of the most festive seasons of the year, it should be a warning sign that we need to change the shopping culture throughout the country, starting right here at home.

I used to enjoy going shopping the day after Thanksgiving. I’m a shopper at heart, and being out with the crowd was as much a social experience as it was a time to find a bargain or two. But I don’t any longer. I’ll stay at home and order online, or wait a few days and venture out. I might not get a Black Friday deal, but I have more fun with a lot less stress.

The Magnotto family

One of my Sunday rituals is hitting the grocery stores, and yesterday was no different as I made my rounds. It was with a sense of sadness that I spent time in Magnotto’s Shop ‘n Save in Hermitage, which will close its doors later this month.

It didn’t seem like that long ago that I met owner Michael Magnotto at the newly renovated but empty store, and he was excitedly outlining the different departments and how his store would look when fully stocked and open. It was a dream-come-true for Michael and his wife, Aileen.

Many people on Sunday were searching for bargains, not difficult since everything in the store allowable by law has been discounted by 25 percent. Many of the shelves are bare, and it made me wonder how much longer the store will be open.

As I threw a few things into the cart, and although I had been a shopper there in the good times, I felt in a strange way like one of those black birds that you see picking at the bones of a carcass on the road.

I bumped into friend Mark Petrillo, pushing a cart trying to see if what he needed was still on the shelves. “It’s a shame,” he said of the impending closing of the Magnotto’s store, which has been a family business for more than a century.