Shopping Saturday - NOT genealogy

This post is not about ancestor genealogy but about current family history.  And comparing.

Yesterday, my wonderfully-patient husband took four grandchildren, ages 15, 9, 8, and 6 (last one a girl), our son and daughter-in-law POWER SHOPPING.  In two hours we found jeans/pants, shirts, socks, underwear, shoes and backpacks for all four.  Then lunch at Ritchie's Diner (a Riverside, California small restaurant group) and then on for school supplies.  School starts Monday in this rural town in Southern California. 

Now, can you imagine trying to get clothes for four children 100 years ago or even 40 years ago?  In my family, (in the 1950s-1960s) each girl had one "store-bought" dress each year and new underwear and socks.  Shoes were dependent upon whether we needed them at that moment or not.  My brothers had store-bought "slacks", underwear and socks.  (Boys didn't wear jeans or t-shirts to school then.) Everything else was sewn at home.  Since I was the eldest, my mother and I sewed a lot during the summer (when we weren't canning from the fruit trees in our back yard.)  We didn't live in a rural area, but we just had a large back yard with 35-40 different fruit trees. 

Back to the original topic.  Last night, before I fell asleep, I just started thinking that while the trip was somewhat "stressful" if that's the right word, getting clothes for the kids was done quickly, and fairly easily.  It took two hours, not all summer.  Is one better?  Who knows?  But I have good memories of both.

Shopping Saturday - J C Penney

Shopping isn't what it used to be.  While I don't shop much anymore, I've almost always relied on J C Penney's for some basic items.  In the past few years, as many of us know, the store changed.  And it's changing again, trying to "win back" some of us who didn't fit into their new customer profile. 

With these changes, I started thinking about the J C Penney when I was little.  What do you remember?

I remember loving to go shopping at J C Penney in Arcadia, California, with my mother and/or grandmother.  No, the shopping wasn’t the best part.  The greatest fun was watching the tubes run on the cables in the ceiling. 

The cashier was upstairs in the back corner.  At the service desks, the sales clerk wrote up a receipt, took the money from the customer, and put both in the tube.  Then, up and away!!  To the cashier.  A few minutes later the change came back down, the merchandise was then bagged and we were off. 

I don’t know when this method was phased out.  However, imagine my surprise to find cables and tubes in a store.  While my husband and I were in Canada.  (We lived there from 1999 to 2001) we went to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue for breakfast one summer Saturday morning.  After eating we decided to “window” shop.  I believe the store’s name was G D’Aoust.  We went into this department store and there were the cables again.  And, they were still being used.

We walked up the wide, well-worn wood steps to the half balcony, to view the merchandise as well as the little “office” used by the cashier.  What fun and what great memories!!