When my niece Sally was little, she loved for me to tell her about things that we had when we were little, that weren’t around anymore.
With Dodgers Baseball (which for me, has changed to the point of being so not the same) front-and-center at the moment, I find myself feeling really nostalgic about lots of things that are no longer.
This week I made a long list and amused myself silly tripping down memory lane. So as not to wax too poetic about said list, I’m going to share three things from it. For now.
The Sears Christmas WISH BOOK.
This was absolutely one of my favorite holiday traditions! The juicy, thick catalog arrived perhaps on Thanksgiving weekend. There was no Black Friday at that time, but there was a seeming urgency to choose Christmas gifts right away. There were five children in our family. Mama timed us taking turns to pore over this so-very-coveted wish book.
I believe that my lead foto is the exact (1968) catalog that I swooned over for weeks, because I wanted a certain Tubsy baby doll from Santa. It was perhaps my first practice of creative visualization; Tubsy arrived just as I’d imagined on Christmas morning. I was nine years old. I found the discarded Tubsy box out by our trash cans that week. I was sad to learn the truth about Santa because my sense of innocence had felt so much better, for so long.
Fabric Stores.
Mama made almost all of our (my sisters’ and my) clothes, and she taught us all how to sew when we were quite young. The four of us spent many Saturdays combing pattern books and fabric bolts in stores that were all over town. If we didn’t find something we liked, Mama would very kindly and willingly take us all to the next store. It held a certain excitement that shopping for clothes (which was rare anyway) never really did. When we finally chose a pattern and fabric we liked, Mama was happy because we were happy.
There was a tiny store in town owned by a tiny Russian man, whom we just called the little man. He sold and serviced sewing machines, and sold zippers. He had buckets and buckets and buckets of loose zippers, and we bought all of our zippers from him. To this day, my sisters and I still laugh to recall the little man.
Stationers Stores.
In our very local shopping center, was Colgan’s Stationers. It was the one-stop for old-world printing services, greeting cards, writing instruments, small seasonal home décor, and all kinds of papers including boxed stationery, which was a passion of mine. I loved spending my allowance and babysitting money on swoon-worthy letter stationery, along with sealing wax and elegant stamps. Maybe I hoped that my letters would be the ones most received with a sense of awe. At this moment, I am so craving that brand of innocent wonder.
Fast forward to here and now and - gratefully in my experience - there are still See’s Candies, a local bean-and-cheese burrito nearly similar to one that was a love of my life in our neighborhood until I was a young adult, and Claro’s Italian Markets.
As for the other things - including that said list that goes on and on - I guess I’m happy to settle for their memories being still-around, in my heart of hearts.
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