Like the flowers that bloom in the spring, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores’ Total Store Expo is once again upon us. Depending on when you’re reading this piece, it is either beginning, in progress or recently ended. The venue is Boston, the cradle of Democracy. The dates: August 27 to August 30. The event: the annual gathering of mass retailers and suppliers, with an emphasis on merchandise and merchandising, with pharmacy and health and beauty aids at its core.

Though TSE, as it is familiarly labeled, is a relatively new exhibition, it has already been overlooked or downplayed by many of its participants or observers. The most frequently voiced complaint is that it follows too closely the NACDS Annual Meeting, the Mercedes of retailing trade shows. The old refrain from those retailers and suppliers who profess to know it all goes like this: Same subjects, same attendees, same venue. Who needs it?

Of course it goes without saying that nothing could be further from the truth. NACDS, about to celebrate a momentous anniversary, is no stranger when it comes to organizing and staging industry events. When viewed as they should be, but too rarely are, the Annual Meeting and TSE are bookends that embrace and encompass the mass retailing community. The former is about the mass retailing industry, where it is and where it’s going. The latter is about how it intends to get there.

And indeed, it’s time to quote, once again, the late Stephen Sondheim. In his recently restaged production of Into the Woods, one lyric goes like this: “Better take care, unless there’s a where, you’ll only be wandering blind. Just more troubles. Different kind.”

In that vein, there are those industry people, buyers and sellers, who maintain, incorrectly, that mass merchants have lost their way, that merchandising today has lost its focus, its meaning, its reason for existing. For those who subscribe to that sentiment and those who do not, one road to recovery leads to Boston and TSE. It’s all here — the buyers, the sellers, the products, the merchandising ideas, the ways to use the expertise and knowledge that attendees from all segments of mass retailing and all corners of America bring to this event.

Sad to say that those among us who decided to stay home have already missed a golden opportunity to get caught up or get ahead in this never-ending merchandising race. Those, on the other hand, who were determined to participate are already wiser for their decision. In Boston, they are learning and have already learned about the newest ideas, the latest trends, the current successes and the soon-to-come failures.

Most important, they have continued to learn to exchange ideas, to share knowledge, to admit past failures and brag about recently discovered successes. For one thing remains forever true about mass retailers: They are not overly shy about sharing or about asking each other for ideas, advice, insights, obstacles overcome and obstacles yet to be conquered.

It is this willingness to share that had traditionally set mass retailing apart from other businesses, other industries. It is alive and well in Boston, in Palm Beach, in venues yet to be announced and yet to be attended (or not). So long as these opportunities exist — and industry people are willing to utilize them — mass retailing will remain what it has long been: the most dynamic retailing segment in the world.