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Nostalgia October 2015

Canaries and Barrettes

By Lois Greene Stone

Sure, the gadget floor of nearby Macy's had wonder, but only for my mother. I preferred merely to place my feet on the wooden escalator strips and just ride. But Woolworth had underwear, perfume, school supplies, pets, embroidery material, curtains, knitting needles, buttons, toys, costumes, party goods....

Why did it bother me, in 1994, when I read about the closing or possible re-designing of 970 nationwide Woolworths? How often had I actually been inside my local one for items or even food at its luncheonette? But the place, had been part of my life; its vanishing took pieces of the past with it. What might vanish in 2016?

Long ago, the leather soles of my shoes sounded harsh hitting hardwood floors of the neighborhood Woolworth. My first canary, in its wooden cage, was selected by bird sounds from the back of the store. Sure my goldfish had come from there, too, but a canary really needed care not just flakes of food as fish received.

White flat pumps, with thin ankle straps, echoed on that floor. They were bought for my elementary school graduation; the white pique dress with its eyelet pique cap sleeves had to be handsewn by all girl graduates during required sewing class. My sewing thread came from Woolworth. For graduation, I wanted the special perfume only that store carried in small purple bottles.

I stopped at the soda fountain – no longer a child swinging in circles on the round counter stool – and got a milkshake. The straw clogged, yet, if I sipped from the glass, a fluffy mustache of ice cream formed on my upper lip.

I knew I'd be “old” when the movie theater on the same street allowed me to sit in the adult section, though I wasn't eligible for three more years. But, after I marched down an elementary school aisle to "Pomp and Circumstance" carrying an old-fashioned bouquet, fragrant from that purple-bottle scent bought with my allowance, I could stop buying red lip pomade and actually wear real lipstick. Of course it'd come from Woolworth!

The big Woolworth in New York City, near Penn Station, had a drink-you-eat-with-a-spoon. No treat was as exciting for that was the very only Woolworth I knew about that served this thick ice-cream-like liquid that was too heavy to drink yet light enough to use a long handled spoon. I bought a sterling silver barrette in the city’s store, and an engraver put my first name on it as I waited. Securing it in my limp flaxen hair, I felt it was an award.

Sure, the gadget floor of nearby Macy's had wonder, but only for my mother. I preferred merely to place my feet on the wooden escalator strips and just ride. But Woolworth had underwear, perfume, school supplies, pets, embroidery material, curtains, knitting needles, buttons, toys, costumes, party goods....

Commuting to graduate school years later, I'd finally outgrown a Woolworth lunch counter, pet section, perfume, and even got my school supplies at the college bookstore. But, when my first child was born, my daily carriage walk was to Woolworth. As if I wanted to expose him to the mystery of the store, I made an excuse for that walk, lifting him in my arms and carrying him while the English pram sat parked outside.

Sometimes I gambled with the balloons suspended from umbrellas at the lunch counter: I selected a specific one, a waitress popped it, and the price printed on a folded slip would be the one paid for a banana split sundae. I never quite got too old for this.

I moved to western New York state where all stores in the Rochester region were closed by the end of January 1994. I remember bringing my three children to rotate on plastic counter stools waiting for lunch. The floors were vinyl, and no purple flacon of fragrance was available. I'd never seen the drink-you-eat-with-a-spoon except in Manhattan, but I showed my children the canaries, and seasonal costumes, and picture frames, and toys, and....

When the Sears catalog ceased, it quietly began the end to mail-order books. Telegrams are obsolete. Many homes have fax machines as part of printers/copiers. “Online” is the current catalogue. Escalators are metal, and some landmarks or large department stores in every town have changed or been torn down. But the 5&10 for those middle-aged and older, is still missed.

 

Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard and softcover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items/photos/memorabilia are in major museums including 12 different divisions of The Smithsonian.