Advertisement
Probably the most traumatic shopping period in my life was the year two of our eight grandsons decided to get married three weeks apart. Being the grandmother of the grooms required me to actually shop for something — Heaven forbid — dressy. I saw no reason to have two new dresses, but our daughters outshouted me on that one. “Moth-errrr, you will be seen in the pictures at two weddings in the same dress!” Since the mother of the groom had given me a lovely dress for my birthday two months before the wedding, I conned her into thinking it was lovely enough for her son’s wedding.
Since I hadn’t received another gifted dress from
our son who was father of the second grandson to be married, I had to meet the challenge of shopping for a new dress. Lucky for me, I found it right here in Winona at Maggie’s, now sadly, history.
Perhaps this all started when I was a 5-foot, 10 and a skinny-to-boot eighth-grader for whom there were no designs to fit my bod. Fortunately, I had a mom who could sew anything, and through her efforts she kept me clothed. I couldn’t even accept hand-me-downs because I was just too tall too soon.
During high school, there actually was one modeling offer for my Twiggy frame that my mom accepted, unbeknownst to me. Choate’s Department store was having a style show and I fit the tall, skinny model role. I was horrified at the prospect and delighted when a week before the show, I careened over a fence landing on cement with both knees. It was my perfect excuse to not participate because both knees were scabby and unsightly. Whew!
When I re-entered college in my 40s, I did my student teaching at John Marshall High School in Rochester, Minn. I was delighted to look up to many girls taller than I was. Many were basketball players, which I definitely wasn’t. I barely managed chewing gum and walking at the same time. I tried out for basketball in high school but in the first intramural game got body slammed and spent six weeks with my rib cage reinforced by layers of adhesive tape. That ended any athletic attempts.
Shopping for shoes — egad, there hangs some tales. First off, as a teenager, I developed the plantar warts frequently acquired by physical education students. My mom took me to a chiropodist, Mrs. Shelton, a very dear lady whose office I think was on Second Street. She healed my warts but in what I considered overkill prescribed orthopedic shoes; they became the curse of my junior high years. They were ugly brown tie shoes that I probably would have traded for the painful warts. I wore those shoes out as quickly as I could.
Once upon a time, I wanted a pair of red shoes to sparkle up a gray suit I’d actually made myself. My efforts to find the shoes of my dreams were thwarted by a sales clerk who bluntly told me, “We don’t carry red shoes that big.”
I don’t think she was a marketing major. Couldn’t she have been more tactful and said “I’m sorry; we are out of your size?” I went home and sulked in my Birkenstocks. One of our sons-in-law refers to my Birks as my “ugly shoes.”
They work for me.
Aging has been kind to me. I’m shorter now. Pounds have found their way onto my frame, making it possible to find clothes to fit. America’s trend to obesity has lured manufacturers into fudging on sizes. I’m 30 pounds heavier than I was pre-children but only one size larger. Go figure.
There are no weddings looming on the horizon for which I need to shop. For that I am thankful. But now I need a pair of shoes. You can bet your boots they won’t be red ones!
