A "Window Shopping" Kind of Life

"The secret of 

happiness, is to admire 

without desiring."

Carl Sandburg

This quotation has always touched my heart because my family were "window shopping" people.  Growing up in the late 1960's and 1970's in southern California, was not always as easy as it is portrayed in TV shows and movies.  

We, like the rest of the nation experienced the war in Vietnam, which touched the lives of almost every family in one way or another.  For my generation of children we watched the events unfolding on television and saw the worried looks on our parents faces whenever the draft numbers were announced.  Although we didn't fully understand what was happening we knew it was big and scary and that our older brothers and cousins might be drafted.

There was also the ever-changing social and political climate, a difficult recession, a great deal of unemployment, and gas shortages.  In California, in 1976-1977, we also experienced the worst drought and water shortage ever recorded in that region.  Water became a very precious commodity and we had to learn how to ration it in every way possible.  The rules of how much and when you could use it changed dramatically and overnight.  You were allowed just so much water for the number of people in your family and they came regularly to monitor the meters.  If you went over the charges were exorbitant.  My mother and I shared the bath water, only 2 inches allowed.  We could only  flush the toilets but twice a day. We saved dishwater to water the plants, there were 60 sec. showers, and no watering the grass...ever, 

When people look at the 70's they tend to remember the excess of the Disco era.  For most families money was a bit scarce to say the least.  But...it was also made much easier to cope with, for those of us who were lucky enough, to have had Silent Generation parents. They lived through times that were so much worse in comparison and it gave my brother and I a unique perspective.  

The 1930's was often looked back upon with nostalgia during this time, and tv shows like "The Walton's" helped many of us children make sense of what it meant to live well with less.  

If you lived back then which member of the Walton family did you identify with?  I so wanted to be John Boy.  The responsible kid who longed to be a "writer" and scribbled in his pad every night.  A hardworking dreamer.  That show was very empowering to me.  It showed me that children could endure hard times.  

"The Waltons" though, were a pretty idealized vision of the 1930's.  My mother loved the show and never missed an episode.  She said once that the show was:  "...everything she could have wished that her childhood had been but that wasn't."  

My mother Helen, was born on a Cherokee reservation near Spiro, Oklahoma.  My Grandpa Fletcher was a skilled laborer and farmer.  Once the Dust Bowl hit and everyone started leaving, there were few jobs to be had. My Grandma Ruby also developed severe breathing issues.  

Many do not realize that it wasn't just "dust" in the Dust Bowl, it was top soil from several states all blowing in the air at once, turning day into night.  Thick black dirt piling up at the doors and windows.

There were unscrupulous people that sent out thousands of flyers for hundreds of jobs or the flyers were not dated and people would receive them after the fact.  Desperate people held onto these flyers like drowning men hold on to a rope.  They packed their families up and headed to California, expecting to find a promise land of work that did not quickly, or effectively materialize.  

It was very much like the movie "Grapes of Wrath" based on the John Steinbeck novel.  My mother would rarely talk about those time.  I wanted so much to understand.  One day I as a teenager I tried to draw her out and said "Mama was it like Grapes of Wrath?" Her voice trailed off into memory and she replied "Oh baby, it was so much worse, so much worse..."

My mother lived for a time in squalid labor camps and worked along with the adults picking fruits and vegetables from sun up to dusk at only 10 years old.

 

But the thing that hurt her the most was not the days of work.  It was being labeled an "Okie" and being looked down upon for being poor.  Till her dying day she held onto a fierce pride. Today we say "Okie" like it is just a cute name for the people from Oklahoma, but to my Mom and others of her generation who made the long journey, it was meant as an insult, like a sign, that was hung upon their necks by strangers who considered them something "less than".  

It was a hard life that made for very resilient people.   My mother and Aunt Emma Jean loved the singer Meryl Haggard.  This is one of their favorite songs.  I asked them why they liked his music and my aunt said:  "He is one of our people, only someone who was there could write a song like that."  Sometimes it made them tear up but it also gave them comfort because someone finally got it right.

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So when it came to my childhood in the 70's and money was scarce, both of my parents had a way of knowing how to make fun out of very little.  When I wanted something I heard the word "no" more than I ever did "yes", yet I never felt the lack of anything.  I was shown how to save money for what I wanted. I had lemonade stands and mowed lawns for extra money.  I also learned that "making do" could be a creative outlet.

We always had enough to eat, and Dad kept a modest mid-century modern home, albeit with a leaky roof over our heads.  There was never very much left over for big luxuries, outside entertainment and the things that most people take for granted today.  

It was during this time that I learned the joy of window-shopping.  In the late 60's and early 70's whenever my Mom said we were going "window shopping", I knew exactly what those words meant.  It meant getting dressed up, going to the outdoor Los Altos Shopping Center to share a Tulip Sundae at the Woolworth counter.  It meant we didn't have the money to buy anything, but we were going to have fun. 

Window shopping for us, wasn't a time to covet or jealously desire.  It was a happy, optimistic time.  A time to admire beautiful things, and see what was in style.   My mom was a beautiful stylish woman, whose skirt was always raised and taken back down according to the dictates of fashion. She always had "one" very stylish outfit that was up to date, whether she bought the clothes or sewed them herself.   It was always a time to pretend, imagine, and plan for future possibilities.

I carried window shopping into my teenage years.  At 16 one of my happiest summer memories was meeting my best friend Laurie and taking the city bus to the new "Cerritos Mall".  

(I'm the one with the hand under the chin)

The "shopping mall", was still a relatively new concept where we lived and it was so exciting walking from store to store indoors!  It seemed so futuristic, something right out of Walt Disney's Tomorrow Land. 

We walked and talked, tried on clothes and treated ourselves to cinnamon churros. (A churro is a delicious Mexican fried pastry stick, about a foot long and dipped in cinnamon and sugar.  Churro stands, were kind of a fad in the late 70's).

Laurie and I would also from time to time give each other imaginary presents.  If we saw something that the other admired, we would later pretend to give it as a present.  Today when we talk of those days we don't even remember which presents were real or imaginary.  I wouldn't want it any other way.

The world has changed so much.  It is so easy to have anything we want and it is just a click away.  But I wouldn't trade those days window shopping with my mom and my friends for anything in the world. 

For those of us grandparents and older family members, this is a great skill to pass along to the young.  Teaching children to look but not have, while having fun is a becoming a dying art.  Sometimes it is easy to forget how very different our childhoods have been compared to the children of today.  Learning to window shop was a survival skill born of necessity, and helped to steer most of our generation in the right direction for success later in life.   

Did you ever go window shopping?

I would love to hear about it!

Delisa