Ready, set, Shop! Black Friday - called so because today puts most stores in the black for the year. If you are not a retail person, that means profit. My mother had a women's retail clothing store for most of my teenage and adult years. She worked about 350 days a year and every day of the holiday season. She retired in 1994 at the age of 79 and passed away in 1996. She loved every moment for it. That store was her pride and joy. And Pre-Christmas was her favorite but busiest time. Christmas eve was always her busiest day.
I worked for her as a teenager - my first job was wrapping Christmas presents, a service that was provided for free. Summers during college and on and off before I started teaching I worked in the dress store. There used to be hundreds of these small locally owned stores in small towns across New Mexico and Texas. The salesmen came to us, traveling with their racks of clothes stuffed in their Cadillacs or even motor home showrooms. This was before Walmart. I would venture most of these stores are closed now. It was a different era.
But I learned the meaning of work, and the joy of loving what you do from working in her store. It wasn't my thing. I couldn't work that hard - or spend that much time and effort on my appearance. She was a natural - loved it, loved the fashion industry. She loved being a woman in business. She loved the clothes and the jewelry. She had a good eye and good taste. She was tough and she had class. Locals tell me all the time how much they miss her store. Me too.
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2 comments:
Wow-talk about evoking memories. I recall being a little girl and going to the "Tall Togs Shop" (A dress shop for tall women)with my mother in Chicago-a million years ago.
I'm willing to bet that your mother would not sell someone an unflattering dress either-there was an unwritten code of ethics in those days.
Sounds like she was a great lady.
PS-that post you did about the makeup case had me dying to go out and buy Noxema and Prell-just to smell them again for nostalgia's sake.
There you go again, making me homesick! When I was a student at Goddard High School, I worked afternoons and weekends at "Ball and Ray", a gentleman's clothing store in downtown Roswell, right next to "The Model", "Bullocks." and "Huff's.". All were "Mom and Pop" locally owned, wonderful businesses, where you could deal with the man or woman whose name was over the door. The Waltons and their ilk have killed that, probably for all time. I, for one, will never set foot in a Wal Mart. Ever. Bank on it.
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