Hindsight being 20/20, I am fervently wishing I had taken better care of my first Barbie this morning. Apparently, some of the original versions of the doll are selling in the half million dollar range. Drat the luck. Mine, I would hazard a guess (or bio-hazard as the case may be), is resting at the bottom of a garbage dump somewhere in Southern California most probably enjoying a very bad hair day.
Even now, I can remember the excitement when my mother took me to the toy store to purchase my first Barbie doll. They had just burst on the market. Every little girl worth her starch wanted to own one of her own. Mother let me pick her out. She had blond hair, impossible proportions, and was wearing a one piece bathing suit. Several outfits were added to the purchase, so she had a choice of attire beyond swim wear. Toy stores were magical places for kids in those days. Shelf after shelf, stocked to the edges with colorful boxes directly off Santa’s wish lists. There were baby dolls with bonnets peeking at you with pursed lips out of plastic windows, followed by Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs in cardboard cylinders. For boys, dump trucks and racing cars, and for the little ladies, Easy Bake Ovens accessorized with miniature kitchens. Aisles lined with bikes and trikes, next to those filled with skates, sleds and metal toboggans for the snow. With Toys R Us closing their doors in 2018, toy stores such as I knew them when I was a child, became virtually obsolete. Makes me sad. Kids today kind of miss out on the joyful outlets we had available to my generation when we were small.
The marketplace at the time was populated with a lot of small, specialized businesses rather than behemoth enterprises like you see today such as Costco,Walmart, or Amazon. If I wanted to buy a paint by numbers, I went to the hobby shop. For new phones, I shopped at the phone mart. And, if I had a craving for ice cream? Yup, I went straight to the ice cream store. A much more personal approach then is in place these days, or at least I found it to be so. There was even a general store around the corner where I could take my allowance and buy penny candy out of jars. When I walked in the door they called me by name and as I left asked to be remembered to my mother when I got home.
Signs in front of buildings advertised personalized services such as alterations, typewriter repair, jewelry repair, and all manner of small individualized shops where men and women worked who had been plying their craft for years, often as they parents had before them. The other day I needed a pair of boots resoled. I literally could not find a shoe repair within a reasonable driving distance, or even within an unreasonable one. This reminded me of the last time I had taken a pair of Rick’s shoes in to have a heel put on. The owner of the shop mentioned in passing he was retiring. While writing down my contact information, he went on to explain many “artisans” like himself, were being phased out. Writing this, I can still imagine the smells and sights inside that little store. There were shoe frames, tools and vices lined up along his unbelievably cluttered work counter. Behind the counter, along the back wall, stood a bank of wooden cubbyholes, each available space filled with pairs of shoes either already repaired or still waiting to be done. I rather enjoyed the ripe smells of shoe polish mingled with the aroma of machine oil. I guess, as he said, true old school kind of artisans like that himself have become passe with the advent of the technology age.
In middle school, if my bicycle was in need of a new chain, or I wanted to pick up a shiny new lock, I headed into town to visit the bike shop. The owner of the shop, Mr. Michaels, was also the youth group leader at our church on Sundays. Always, he was there greeting customers with a broad smile on his face. I wondered at times if the man slept in the back room. Next door, was the appliance shop where I went with my mother when she needed a new toaster or to find a replacement for an old coffee perculator. These small businesses disappeared so breathlessly, I guess it took me a while to notice they were gone.
Often on a weekend, my mom and I would gather her filled S&H Green Stamp books and take them to the stamp redemption store. S&H Green Stamps were given out in sheets to customers by local merchants. The number of stamps you were given were directly in proportion to the amount of your purchase. The stamps were pasted into books, usually my job. When enough books were filled, they could be redeemed for items chosen from the S&H catalog.
The main drag in Covina, California, my stomping grounds from the beginning of middle school until I graduated from high school, was lined with small mom and pop establishments such as described above. My friends and I would ride our bikes downtown on lazy summer afternoons. On Saturdays, the first stop would usually be the old movie theater. After filling our pockets with Junior Mints and Jujube’s we’d find seats in the balcony. Two movies and cartoons were yours for the price of admission. Afterwards, we would head across the street to the malt shop for a vanilla shake or a cherry coke, or head down the street to Orange Julius for something citrusy to whet our whistles.
There were also two garages or filling stations in the downtown area. My stepfather, a teacher, worked at one of them while on hiatus during the summer months. He and my mother always existed slightly above their means. Mum was born with the shopping gene which she passed on to me. Teachers had the option to take all their pay (such as it was) during the school year, or spread it out equally throughout the twelve months. Always a little short, he took the full amount while school was in session. This left him scrambling to find employment to keep things moving along seamlessly when school was on summer break. Though he and only I tolerated one another on the best of days, I have to say he was a neat man, always taking pride in his appearance. It must have taken it’s toll when he was working at the garage to perpetually have grease under his well manicured fingernails. After work, I would find him at the kitchen sink scrubbing furiously with a nail brush to try to get the black off. While at work, he was required to wear a crisply pressed brown uniform with “Dennis” written across the pocket, and a ball cap with the name of the oil company covered his bald pate. When a car pulled up to the pumps, Dennis came out with a spray bottle and washed their windows. While the tank was being filled, he also checked the oil, water, and tires. Seems funny to think of that now. Most times, unless you need a cup of coffee or a snack, or your card doesn’t work at the self-serve kiosk, you never see employees in a gas station at all.
Bakeries are another small business you see less and less of. In high school I took an after school job at one of the local bakeries. The bustling shop was run by an Italian couple, and staffed by their four children (three boys and a girl), myself, and two other part-time employees, also female. The patriarch, a reedy man in his late fifties never seen without a Camel cigarette dangling from his lower lip was, aside from being a gifted baker, a bit of a letch. The Mrs., a generously cut woman, enjoyed eating her baked goods as much as she did baking them. She ran the business and her wandering eye husband with an iron fist. Hair tightly secured with an unflattering hair net, she could be seen mixing the delicate cream for the eclairs with one hand while slipping a finished one into her mouth with the other. Her outstanding features were three long hairs, which though she plucked on occasion, always seem to reappear in the creases of her fleshy chin. To add insult to injury, her parents had named her Mabel, not leaving her much to live up to.
The children were both totally undisciplined and rude, not the most charming combination. When their parents were absent from the shop, they would run totally amok. Several times I saw one of them swat flies found in the display cases with a dirty fly swatter, killing them directly on the pastries where they had landed. Removing the carcasses, they would leave the items where the carnage occurred in the case to be sold to unwitting future customers. If I ever caught them doing this, I disposed of the tainted pastries, and made it a rule never eat out of the cases even though we were allowed to as a perk of the job. I lasted nearly six months on that job before a pinch on my behind became one pinch too many and I left my first paying job to work at the bowling alley scoring games for the weekend leagues.
Seems like a simpler easier time as I write about it. Maybe my memory has fogged the glass, I don’t know. These days it feels like a lot of stress and rush, rush, rush has seeped through the cracks. I hope today finds you relaxed, done with your holiday shopping, your feet up on the coffee table enjoying a warm cup of Christmas cheer.
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