School Shopping #31
When I was growing up this was the season when summer started to wind down and all the Sunday paper ads turned to thoughts of fall and going back to school. I remember the season well because it felt like Christmas – right before the “new year”. I would pick out new shoes, new clothes and start labeling notebooks and sharpening pencils. I would scour Seventeen Magazine and head to the mall with Julie or Martha. I would look at my schedule, choose a new lunch pail, organize my desk for homework and buy new clarinet reeds. This is all when stores were brick and mortar and shopping took all day. Clothes and shoes had to be tried on and we actually had to use cash. (My mom did not have a credit card). Ordering by catalog took too long to ship. Besides, the item might be out of stock and by the time they sent back the order form and check, the item desired would probably be out of style!
The other big thing that would happen almost simultaneously is the fall launch of the new TV schedule and season. We would read the previews and choose what sounded like a potential new favorite and hope that some of our ongoing favorites would have been kept alive during the summer rerun season! This is all back in the “dark ages” when TV shows had to be viewed when they happened; there was no DVD or VHS available and definitely no such thing as streaming.
Those were the days!
I agree. It was always a favorite time for me as well because in late August every year, I would receive a big box in the mail from my sister in Michigan. Exciting for a girl in the 1960s and early 1970s! She was/is a fabulous seamstress and each year, she would pick out patterns and fabric to sew 8 or 9 new dresses for her two girls, Sherri (two years younger than me) and Lisa (eight years younger than me), and for me. We would have matching dresses…mine to be worn in California, theirs in Michigan. I would race to rip open that box and pull out all my treasures!
I would immediately call Sherri and ask her which dress we should wear for the first day of school. And all three of us would then follow suit. (Or “follow dress” as was the case for us!)
Then, it was time for the “fashion show.” My parents had me try on the new dresses, of course, and they fit like a dream. Also, however, it was time to try on last year’s dresses to see if they still fit (or were perhaps too short for my dad’s taste). Our dresses and shirts in this era were very short, and he didn’t like that, so I was told I could no longer wear a perfectly good dress if I had grown taller, and the dress had thus grown shorter.
Not having had children of my own, I started a similar tradition with my friend Sheila. When her daughter Olivia started kindergarten, I told Sheila about my back-to-school clothes tradition and asked if I could buy two new shirts each new school year for Olivia. She agreed, and we have kept this tradition. Olivia entered 6th grade at the middle school here this year. and so, she got to pick out the tops for herself this time (instead of Sheila choosing them for her and then telling me which ones to order).
Each year after receiving these new shirts. Olivia has always sent me a nice thank-you note for them. This year, in her note, she wrote “I LOVE THIS TRADITION!” It made me laugh because I thought that this year she might be outgrowing our tradition and not want to do it anymore. How wrong I was!
Cheers to the blessing of brand-new back-to-school clothes from whomever we receive them!