St. Louis is a big city made up of little towns. Today we would call them communities. The little *towns* were bigger than neighborhoods, in that several neighborhoods would share a shopping district, consisting of a couple of blocks of stores. St. Louisans of my generation will know what "shopping on Meramec, Shopping on Cherokee," or even "Shopping at Hampton Village," and "Shopping in the West End" means. Those were places that were once their own towns, before being swallowed up by the city limits Something I miss from my youth--something I truly miss, is window shopping. Window shopping is now a lost art. We did it so often that we even invented a special *family* term for it. The special term was "Eye-Buying." We were fearless and ruthless window shoppers/Eye-Buyers! If that would happen today, we'd be run right out of the store--possibly even detained as suspected shoplifters.
Eye-Buying was something to do with an agenda that involved nothing more than looking into the windows of shops to see what they had. Sometimes if the window looked really REALLY good, we'd go inside and try things on with the full knowledge we'd never be able to pay for those things. It was more akin to playing dress-up in someone else's closet, only with brand new clothing. We were never afraid to try on something beautiful just for the sake of trying it on! We were allowed to do this, I'm sure, because if we liked something we'd be back with a parent to buy it. That would never happen in any upscale store today. It wouldn't happen because store owners are afraid of inventory loss. Ohhh noooo, we musn't tamper with the bottom line!!
Some days we might only have a dollar or two in our pockets. We may have gotten a soda at a soda fountain, or some days we would go so far as to have lunch at "Wag's" or "Katz Drugstore's" lunch counter. If it was an actual shopping trip, we may have even splurged and had luncheon at Styx, Baer & Fuller or at Famous-Barr Southtown (damn, I really miss that store). Styx and Famous both had actual restaurants with linen on the tables--far better than a paper placemat. Today's stores forget the customer's comfort: Just get them in and out so more people can come in and out and buy more things! Large department stores with every available amenity are a thing of the past because corporations fear loss of any kind to their bottom line.
If it was an all out event, we'd go downtown, where all the biggest and best and usually most expensive stores and items were. That normally required taking the bus and a lot of heavy-duty outerwear, since it was usually at Christmas Time. The window dressings were marvelous, especially the ones that featured toys, because we all knew that everything there was something a rich kid might see under the tree at Christmas. If we were lucky, we might get ONE of those things from that particular window. As I got older, I noticed what the manikins were wearing and how they were posed and decorated. I believe window dressing is a lost art as well. Store windows are usually covered or painted to average human head-height. They are painted to discourage any planned shoplifters or would-be robbers. Paint provides a screen against communication with the outside. Corporations fear theft, and that now matters more than "in sight it must be right."
As a really young girl...before I ever went to school, I remember going downtown with my grandma. She would *call a car,* her term for calling a cab, and we would go downtown with a mission. It always, always involved having a nice lunch somewhere. Interestingly enough, she didn't know how to drive a car, even though we had one -- and a nice one, at that. She told me it wasn't ladylike to drive in her time. Being ladylike was how women survived in a misogynistic world. Men were afraid of losing power.
.
Eye-Buying with my grandmother was an entirely different experience than when I went with other kids. While my grandpa was still alive, we would peer into the windows. If she saw something she liked, we'd go in and look around. At every store, people there would know her. "Hello, Mrs. *******, how nice to have you back in our store again! What may I help you with today?" Those were still the days when my family name meant something to damned near everyone in the city. Those were also the days when being a sales clerk meant you had to have manners and respect for your customers. Sales clerks respected their lady clientele because if they didn't, a lady's husband would be right down there to push their faces in for them, at best. At worst, the husbands would have a word with their boss. The clerk was afraid of losing his job even more than being worried about having his own face pushed in.
It was great fun to go on adventures with my grandma, she was powerful in her own right, and I was never afraid when I was with her. She was a five-foot-two, brick house dynamo! Men fell over themselves trying to serve her. She was fully AWARE of the power she wielded, and yet it was subtle. She never barked orders like a drill sergeant, all she had to do was lift an eyebrow. She was a powerful woman who never left the house without stockings and heels, or a hat and gloves! She was beautiful. A man at her funeral told me she was *movie star beautiful.* Men and women alike both coveted her beauty and feared it.
After my grandpa died, my grandmother just sort of shriveled up into herself. She outlived my grandfather by thirty years. The only time she left the house was if someone took her, or if I had to go to the doctor, we'd take a cab during the day. Eye-Buying for her was then only done from catalogs or newspaper ads. She might have walked all of 50 yards total to the dairy, or the neighborhood delicatessen, and only then if it was absolutely necessary. She became reclusive. Nearly everything she did was done over the phone. Unless, as I said, someone came to pry her out of the house. Her beautiful, naturally platinum hair began to gradually dull and was ash-blonde at the time of her death. Sadness and loss took away her beauty. Fear took away her power.
Perhaps if she had only learned how to drive, that wouldn't have happened to her. Long after "being ladylike" didn't matter as much, and by the time that most women were driving, there was too much traffic and it scared her. The thought of driving a car scared her. Driving an 18 or 19 hands high carriage horse didn't scare her though, and it took more moxie and finesse to drive them. Riding one of them with a sidesaddle (A SIDESADDLE!) didn't scare her either--I'm not talking about Hackneys here -- any four-legged equine was putty in her hands. Odd isn't it, the things we fear?
