Catalogs

When I was a child we would, occasionally, get a thick catalog from Sears and Roebuck.  They had a competitor named Montgomery Ward.  My dad always referred to the two of them as Sears and Sawbuck and Monkey Ward.  When he was growing up in the rural areas of southeast Arizona, these catalogs were his only view to the outside world. Sometimes their pages were turned into toilet paper.  Today we’d call it recycling.

For a while J.C. Penny entered the catalog fray. Hickory Farms joined in and then Harry and David, who sold pears and fruit,.  Despite this, catalog purchases waned during the 60’s and 70’s.  Monkey Ward went out of business and Roebuck disappeared. 

When it came, I would purloin the Sears catalog and head straight to my room.  I knew I was safe because my mother thought Sears was “cheap” and she would never be looking for the catalog.  The first place I turned was the toy section. Today a Toys R Us catalog contains a plethora of electronic, digital and video toys.  There are life-like battery operated cars and SUVs that rich kids drive around their yards, and video games killing cops and contributing to childhood obesity.

In the catalogs I read were pictures of blonde girls with pageboy hair styles –always wearing pink clothing-- and Brylcreemed boys wearing plaid or striped shirts who consistently played with some form of sports equipment.  In my day, sitting on my white chenille bedspread—or sometimes on the toilet—I would peruse the pages and dream of what it would be like to have my own miniature oven that would make cupcakes or a bike that had a headlight. Or better yet, a cowboy outfit. I had the good sense to know that I would never be, nor look like, those pink, blonde girls. 

Those catalogs—which came only once a year—unlike the deluge today—offered a glimpse at the possibilities of childhoods that would never be mine.  Believe me, I wasn’t complaining. But cupcakes in your own bedroom…. well that's something to covet. 

Then, sometime in the late 1960’s, we no longer got the Sears catalog.  Just like we no longer got mail delivered twice a day during the Christmas season.  Catalogs became a thing of the past.

Catalogs began their revival in the 1980’s, and remain one of my favorite things to get in the mail. One of the most memorable catalogs was the  J. Peterman—parodied on Seinfeld.  Through its descriptions and hand drawn illustrations, you could image yourself in the Australian bush or a Moroccan Kasbah. They sold a dream as well as overpriced clothing and leather messenger bags.

I know that my mother latterly saw catalogs as a shopping blessing.  With two daughters on either side of the nation, a catalog provided an easy, effective way to “take care of Christmas.”

As well as my elderly mother’s gifts for me, my sister and the grandchildren, I have received a blanket lovingly sent from my hundred-year-old Sunday school teacher, baklava from my childhood best friend and other gifts that only a catalog could provide.

When my mother passed away and my sister and I went go through her mail, catalogs were in abundance.

But I fear for them.  The Internet is the catalog enemy.  So are the environmentalists.  Between the un-p.c.-ness of using too much paper and the convenience of shopping online, I predict the demise of my old friends.  I will miss them when they go as much as  I welcome them when they come. 

The Fireplace

The center of any home is either the kitchen or the fireplace or both.  I now live in Hawaii and fireplaces weren’t high on the list of architechtects, contractors and builders.  I think they are now, though.  Because a fireplace brings gravitas to a home. Even if it’s 84 degrees, having a living room with a fireplace makes a home seem more substantial.

So at Angus Street, we loved our fireplace.  We didn’t have one of those huge kitchens with eat-in counters of granite and bar stools.  The kitchen was the kitchen.  That was it. But we had a fireplace.  It wasn’t an ornate Adams; it was made of simple brick tile.

I remember when I learned that the fireplace could be turned on without wood. Gas would do the trick.  There was a small key on the left side of the grate and if turned and lit with a match “(close lid before striking”), flames would appear.

I was very careful when I lit a match and turned it on.  My dad would trim our fruit trees—plum, apricot, white peach—which met its demise when my dad built us a life-sized playhouse—and, who knows, maybe even the grapefruit tree contributed to our fires.  In the “winter” (this was Los Angeles) we enjoyed wood fires.  My mother taught us how to put orange peels into the flames and watch the oil from the skins turn into blue lights. It was, by far, my favorite thing to watch, Hey—and this was even when we had a TV.

Of course, a mantle and fireplace are a big deal at Christmas.  Our German advent calendar with sparkling glitter sat on the mantle and became the focus of our pre-Christmas mornings.  Closer to the 24^t th of December, our stockings would appear.

My own son, raised in Hawaii, has never celebrated a Christmas with a mantle-hung stocking.  He had to do with cabinet knobs and door handles.  But, in a few years, he will have his mantle-- when we move.

My very favorite days were when it rained.  It rained heavily on one of my birthdays when I was at Ivanhoe Elementary School and I felt like my birthday wish was fulfilled.

When I was older, and we had a rainy day, I would come home, put on the fireplace—using the gas, not wood-- and head to the kitchen.  It was cinnamon toast time.  My mother, home from the Burbank School District, my sister and I would sit on the floor around a rather odd coffee table that fronted the fireplace and eat cinnamon toast cut into strips. 

I miss a fireplace and I am so sorry that my son doesn’t have any fireplace memories.

Unrequited Toy

I watched a lot of Westerns.  Roy, Rex, Rowdie, Gil Favor, Sky King, Tonto, John Wayne, Little Joe and on and on. I loved them all.   Once I saw one of them—not one of the above mentioned—sunbathing on my mom’s beach.  Leathery but in shape and obviously waiting for his agent’s call.  It wasn’t going to happen.

Sometimes, when these shows were shown at kid viewing time, i.e. Saturdays, there would be commercials that crept into our vulnerable brains.  Tony the Tiger, Bosco, Nestlé’s Quik, Malto-Meal and Ovaltine.

My favorite ad for something that I really, really wanted was from Mattel.  They made a tooled Western belt with a buckle.  The buckle featured a small derringer; the same gun that killed Abraham Lincoln.  The gun was “real”—in that it could fire a small plastic bullet and maybe a cap.  I’m not sure, because I never got one.

The deal was that a kid could load his gun—note that I’m not saying “her” because I was supposed to be wanting Barbie accessories—walk around confidently and then thrust out his stomach muscles to trigger the derringer which would swing out and “fire.”   I had never seen anything cooler in my entire life:  baring Dick Tracy’s watch.

I wanted one.  I never got one.   They are on EBAY.  The prices are going up and the belt wouldn’t fit me.  I do think I could fit the buckle. 

The New Room

Why, where or exactly when, I do not know.  But at some point my parents decided to expand our Angus Street house.  I have pretty much no memory of the porch which was over the garage. I do remember the construction to enclose it into a room and excitement that followed.

Thus was born “the new room.”   A decade later, the space was still called “the new room.”  I’m certain that the people who now live there and paid a heck of a lot more than the $10,000 my mother paid using her widow’s insurance from the death of her first husband, would not be calling that space the “new room.”  Everything about that house is now old. But for my family, it was always the “new room.”

Whether my dad had building permits, which I highly doubt, don’t know.  But what I remember was the new beams and sitting astride them.  Our neighbors, Cece and Bernice, didn’t think it was safe.  But they also didn’t think my dad should be feeding us those yellow hot chilies in a jar.  Neither had lasting a lasting negative impact.

Once the porch was enclosed into a room, the floor was laid.  Cork.  Then my dad built bookshelves and electrical outlets.  On one side of the room the shelves housed the World Book Encyclopedia and all the National Geographics that we’d ever received.  On the other side of the opening, were all of my parents’ record albums.  Pattie Page, Leonard Bernstein, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Smetana, Ferde Grove, Harry Belafonte and more. There was also an album by a woman who specialized in singing off key for humor’s sake.  I was told that this was something that was quite difficult.

 These were the days of Sing Along with Mitch.  Folk music was about to hit its acme.

My father had each album ordered and labeled. This is also where my parents’ guitars and banjo were stored.

Then my parents bought an L-shaped couch.  I guess it was pretty modern for the time.  It had some odd plastic cover that always felt cold. White with colored piping.  The backrest came off, making the seat into a bed.  On the opposite side of the room was a business-like desk and chair. 

To separate the living room from the “new room” my parents put up a sliding, accordion door that we rarely used.  The only time I can remember using it was when a young man came to door.  I had worked with him and we’d gone out on one date.  Smitten, I was not.  He arrived unannounced and upon seeing him coming up the stairs to the front door, I solicited my sister.  Her job was to answer the door and say I wasn’t home.  My job was to escape quickly to the “new room," shut the accordion door and hide.  Unfortunately, he decided to wait a while for me to “come home.”  I was inches away from him and was worried that he could see my feet under the door.  Needless to say, we never went out again.

Many years later, a boyfriend came to stay during the holidays.  My mother didn’t like him—and in the long run neither did I.  But he was put on the cold, white plastic couch.  The only good thing my mother could find to say about him was that he made his bed and returned the backrest to the couch.

I have learned that making the bed is not all that important.