Headline: “Miss America Pageant
Ends Swimsuit Competition”. It is about time.
Now I’m a wholesome red-blooded American male and enjoy a glimpse at the
fleeting jogger but I’ve never understood the “Miss America” contest. What is it for except to parade around a
bunch of cuties for the viewers to goggle?
Even if it was a talent contest with the best of the best from every
state in a “America’s Got Talent” for white pretty girls, then maybe, but there
is already enough talent contest. Why “Miss
America”?
By the title one would imagine the girl must not be married and perhaps virtuous.
This is the American ideal of a woman before motherhood? There must be an age
requirement or they would all be 13-14 and that would just be wrong, unless you
look at the Paris runways.
So someone gathers these beauties up to someplace like Las Vegas and
each is called out on stage to perform their talent like sing or play the piano
or juggle while wearing prom gowns. Then the girls strip down to their
underwear and poise as if being bid for like slaves to the American dream.
A team of judges tally the scores and one is crowned “Miss America”.
Well it not really a crown but more of a tiara and handed a scepter and a fur
lined cape and placed on a pedestal. Everyone cries and the make-up runs.
Then this gal is sent around the world as some sort of representative of
America? She doesn’t represent anything but the U.S.A. live Barbie. She is not
a queen and has no power but a cute smile. At the end of the year she goes back
to be Jane Doe and hands the crown to the next herd.
So the “Miss America” will end the swimsuit comparison but there will
still be the “Miss (name your state here)” contest and the “Miss Universe”
contest (where are the aliens?) and “Miss World”, etc. There are plenty of spring
break videos and wet-t-shirt contest to keep the guys ogling as long as you
ladies are welling to shake it to get attention.
The pouring rain washed-out the musical sounds of the Greek
Festival.Up at the corner
the neighbors were discussing something very loudly, hopefully full of Ouzo,
for every line was a freaking-frek-frak-freak problem. Using a verb for an
adjective shows the intellect of my neighbor who parks his John Boat out front
or the neighbor across the street whose kid throws found sticks in my yard. Then
my next-door neighbor busted out the glass on her storm door. Now that is
exciting. Still it is tolerable at the late hour as the wives calm down the
zealous yelling and sends stumbling home the drunks who will not be waking
early tomorrow.
Tomorrow is now for pass the midnight hour and the street lamp is
struggling to light like a battery that won’t start. The air is cooler this
time of evening and all lights are out. The traffic is a distant reminder that the
blue lights still perform the duties of wives and mothers.
The grown is beyond saturation and more rain is anticipated so trimming
the weeds would be futile. Slowly the winter clothing is being rolled and
placed in cabinets awaiting the chill and the rows of endless t-shirts are
brought out. It seems there will be a necessary trip to the big box store for a
few shorts have gone MIA and other reminders of last years summer are too ratty
even for the ragbag.
So a dark damp porch is the perfect place to take inventory and optimize
plans for procrastination. I had ordered a large pizza just to get rid of all
those $1 in my wallet I was planning to give to the pole dancer but now I’m
stuffed (plan for today: DON’T
EAT ANYTHING!). Getting accustomed to the new schedule of: 1. Talk,2.
Music radio and notice that anything discussed with an English accent sounds
classy.
In this empty space in time my thought linger and awaken a thought from
the not-so-long-ago past.
We all have seen television shows and been to movie theatres and usually
with other people, but there are those few that are ‘special’. Like the ‘our
song’ on the jukebox, visual reminders of a time when coddling was important.
Now television was a reflection of the time, so everyone saw ‘Friends’,
‘All In The Family’, ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’, etc. These came on at prime
time so after our microwave dinners were consumed we settled back to gulp wine
and swirl between comedies and cop shows. By the time ‘Sex & the City’ came
on, I’d lost interest. There were boxes of DVD sets of serial television I
never watched and gave away rather than that book you bought and placed on the
shelf and never read. It doesn’t make you any smarter.
My thoughts were about movies. Saturday matinees and Sunday serials were
my weekend babysitter. When my parents couldn’t figure out what to do with me,
they gave me a few coins and sent me to the theatre to eat Goobers and Jordan
Almonds in the dark staring at the big screen. Black and white monsters crept
through the bogs then cowboys drove the cows and fought the injuns to get a
kiss from the buckskinned girl until the soldiers dodged all the jap bullets to
raise the flag until some strong guy battled plastic monsters and the seas
parted to organ music. The theatre darkness did share some interesting moments
when the ‘guys’ became the ‘gal’ but those armrest were not conducive to
getting close.
Still a big dark room with cozy seats and sticky floors and hearing that
projector sound we, the audience, would silently stare at the flickering light
to loose ourselves in wonders bigger than any television could provide and
share with others who attended the experience.
That was my thought for this morning. There were a few ‘special’ movies
that I would not have gone to, except for my wife’s insistence. We only went to
one theatre and it was a big deal. We’d walk the blocks from the elementary
school to the Catholic neighborhood and buy two tickets to an hour of coddling
in the darkness with a tube of buttery popcorn. What were the movies we were
drawn to together?
Well it seems from my recollection that they were all romantic comedies
but what caught my attention was how they related to our relationship. The
films were about one person struggling and the other person rescuing them.
Thanks to Wikipedia:
Overboard
Spoiled, selfish heiress Joanna Stayton is accustomed to a wealthy life
with her husband, Grant Stayton III. While waiting for their yacht to be
repaired in the rural hamlet of Elk Cove, Oregon, she hires local carpenter Dean
Proffitt to remodel her closet. He puts up with her rude and condescending
attitude and produces quality work which is dismissed by her because he used
oak instead of cedar, despite her not having specifically requested this at the
start. He agrees to redo the closet if he is paid for the work he has already
done; she refuses to pay and they have an argument, during which he notes that
she is inventing things to complain about because her life is so pampered and
boring. This is overheard by the yacht's crew on the intercom, who applaud him
for telling her off. Their argument concludes with her pushing him off the
ship.
That night, as the yacht sails away, Joanna goes on deck to retrieve her
wedding ring and falls overboard. The next day, a story is aired on the local
TV news about her having been picked out of the water by a garbage scow. She is
suffering from amnesia and is taken to the local hospital, where no one can
determine her identity. Once Grant discovers she has fallen overboard, he sails
back to retrieve her. After seeing her mental state and her lashing out at
hospital employees, he denies knowing her and returns to the yacht to embark on
a spree of parties with younger women.
After seeing her story on the news, Dean, who is a widower living in
squalor with four sons, seeks revenge by getting Joanna to work off her unpaid
bill. He goes to the hospital and tells her that she is Annie, his wife for
thirteen years and the mother of his four sons. Dean lacks legal documentation
to take her home, but is granted her release after telling the hospital staff
about a small birthmark on her buttock, which he saw on the yacht when she was
wearing a revealing swimsuit. She reluctantly goes home with him and is
appalled by his residence, but feels some obligation to pitch in, having come
to think of herself as “Annie”.
Joanna initially has difficulty dealing with Dean’s sons and the heavy
load of chores, but she soon adapts. As she masters her responsibilities, she
learns about the boys’ school and family issues and that Dean is secretly working
two jobs to pay bills. She begins to fall in love with him and to develop
motherly love toward his sons, and starts streamlining the money problems with
more efficient budgeting. Joanna also convinces Dean to step up and be a father
to his sons rather than simply be their friend, as his sons are doing poorly in
school and struggle with literacy, yet he simply brushes these issues aside
rather than fixing them.
Seeing Dean struggle, Joanna makes his dream come true by helping him
design a miniature golf course based on her untapped knowledge of the Seven
Wonders of the World. Although he has also fallen in love with her, he doesn't
tell her the truth about her real identity for fear that she will leave. Billy,
a friend who created doctored photos of the couple to cement the alibi of their
prior relationship, tells Dean that his family needs Joanna.
Meanwhile, after Joanna’s mother, Edith, threatens to castrate Grant
(who has been continually lying that Joanna is “too indisposed” to talk to her)
if he doesn’t produce Joanna in one week, he reluctantly ends the partying and
returns to Elk Cove to retrieve her, tracing her to the Proffitt residence. She
greets him and her memory instantaneously restores. She is shocked and hurt
when she realizes that Dean lied and has been using her for months. She returns
with Grant to their yacht.
Joanna now finds her old lifestyle pretentious and is particularly
offended by how rude and snobby her husband and mother act to the helpers on
the boat. She apologizes to her butler, Andrew, for her spiteful treatment of
him. He then helps Joanna to realize how happy she was with Dean and his sons.
Joanna commandeers the yacht and turns back toward Elk Cove. When Grant finds
out, Joanna says she doesn't love him anymore and Grant, in return, reveals
that he never loved her and that he left her at the hospital upon seeing her
there. After Dean and Joanna reunite, she tells him that all of the money is
actually hers, not Grant's. As the kids make their Christmas lists in the
middle of June (including a Porsche), Dean asks her what he could ever give her
that she doesn't already have. Joanna looks at the four boys and replies “a
little girl.”
An Officer and a Gentleman
Zachary “Zack” Mayo is preparing to report to Aviation Officer Candidate
School (AOCS). As he is doing so, he has brief flashbacks of his childhood.
After the death of his mother, who committed suicide, an adolescent Zack was
sent to live with his only living relative, his father Byron Mayo, who is
stationed in US Naval Base Subic Bay in the Philippines. The elder Mayo, a Navy
Chief Petty Officer/Chief Boatswain's Mate, made no attempt to hide his heavy
drinking and hiring of prostitutes from a young Zack. When Zack said he needed
help, Byron said he did not ask to get married nor be a father, because he is
always out on sea all the time. But seeing the look on his face, he decides to
let him stay with him. Mostly Zack became a Navy brat and travelled with his
father.
The flashbacks advance to the present, where Zack has just graduated
from college and informs his father he will be going to AOCS. Byron, who hates
officers, tells Zack that his dream of becoming an officer is as unrealistic as
hoping to become President. Despite his father's discouragement, Zack is determined
to go through with his childhood dreams of becoming a Navy pilot as well as
prove to him that he can make it and in the end Byron would have to “salute”
Zack. Upon arrival at AOCS, Zack and his fellow AOCs are shocked by the harsh
treatment they receive from their head drill instructor, Marine Gunnery
Sergeant, Emil Foley. Foley makes it clear that the 13-week program is designed
to eliminate OCs who are found to be mentally or physically unfit for
commission as an ensign in the U.S. Navy, which will earn them flight training
worth over $1,000,000. Foley warns the male candidates about the “Puget Sound
Debs”—young women in the area who dream of marrying a Naval Aviator to escape
their dull, local lives. Foley claims they scout the regiment for OCs, and will
feign pregnancy or even stop using birth control to become pregnant to trap the
men.
Zack becomes friends with fellow candidates Topper Daniels, Sid Worley, Emiliano
Santos Della Serra, Lionel Perryman, and Casey Seeger. Zack and Sid meet two
local young women—factory workers—at a Navy Ball. Zack begins a romantic
relationship with Paula Pokrifki, and Sid with Lynette Pomeroy. Meanwhile,
Daniels drops out of the program after he almost drowns in the dunker
crash-escape exercise.
Foley rides Zack mercilessly, believing he lacks motivation and is not a
team player, though Foley also sees potential in Zack. When Zack’s side
business of selling pre-shined shoes and belt buckles is discovered, Foley
hazes him for a weekend in an attempt to make him DOR, “Drop on Request”, a
Navy term for requesting termination of training, but Zack refuses. Foley
states Zack will be declared unfit, which frightens Zack into admitting he has
no options in civilian life. Satisfied that Zack has come to a crucial
self-realization and realizing what he’s made of, Foley decides to let him
stay. He punishes Zack by making him clean all the urinals, but does not
recommend attrition. Henceforth, Zack starts behaving like a team player.
Zack and Paula spend the next weekend together, and she takes him home
for dinner to meet her family. Her stepfather behaves strangely, and when Zack
asks why, Paula shows him an old picture of her biological father. He was an
AOC who had an affair with her mother but deserted her following his commissioning
and refused to marry her when she became pregnant with Paula.
Zack is close to breaking the record time for negotiating the obstacle
course, but Casey faces disqualification when she cannot negotiate the
12-foot-high wall (3.7 m). Zack abandons his attempt to break the course
record in order to coach Casey over the wall, and she makes it.
Zack attends dinner with Sid and his parents and learns that Sid has a
long-time girlfriend back home. Sid plans to marry her after he receives his
commission. Meanwhile, Lynette has been dropping hints to Sid that she may be
pregnant. Sid agonizes over this possibility, especially when Lynette tells him
she will not have an abortion. After having a severe anxiety attack during a
high-altitude simulation in a pressure chamber, Sid realizes he joined the
officer-training program out of a sense of obligation to his family, especially
to the older brother who died as a Naval officer, and he Drops On Request, “DOR”s
meaning he voluntarily resigns. He leaves the base without saying goodbye, so
Zack and Paula go out to look for him.
Sid goes to Lynette's house and proposes marriage. She is elated until
he tells her he DORed, and she would not be marrying a Naval Aviator after all.
Disgusted, Lynette turns him down and admits she was never pregnant with his
child. She says she thought he understood she wants to marry an aviator, escape
from her small town, and live an exciting life overseas with the status of an
aviator’s wife. She berates him for dropping out and gives back the engagement
ring he bought her. Crushed, Sid goes to the motel where he and Lynette spent
his free weekends, asks for their old room, and begins drinking.
Zack and Paula arrive at Lynette's shortly after Sid leaves, and ask
about Sid's whereabouts. Zack curses Lynette for trying to trick Sid, and he
and Paula rush off to search for him. Zack goes to the motel and is heartbroken
when he finds Sid has committed suicide out of grief. Paula tries to comfort
Zack, admitting she loved him from day one and her guilt over failing to stop
Lynette's scheme, but he rejects her and heads back to base with the intent to
DOR himself. Foley will not let him quit so close to graduation and feels bad
about what happened to Sid. Zack challenges Foley to an unofficial martial arts
bout. Although Zack eventually appears to take control of the fight, Foley wins
by kicking Zack in the groin and then tells him he can quit now if he still
wishes to do so.
Zack shows up for graduation and is sworn into the Navy with his class.
Following naval tradition, he receives his first salute from Foley in exchange
for a US silver dollar. While tradition calls for the drill instructor to place
the coin in his left shirt pocket, Foley places the coin in his right pocket,
acknowledging that Zack was a special candidate. Zack thanks him for not giving
up on him and tells him he would never have made it without the hardships Foley
delivered. While leaving the base, he sees Foley initiating a set of new AOCs
who are in the same position he was 13 weeks prior.
Zack, now Ensign Mayo with orders to undertake flight training, seeks
out Paula at the factory where she works and declares his love to her. He picks
her up and walks out with her in his arms to the applause of her co-workers,
including a still-dismayed Lynette.
Flashdance
Alexandra “Alex” Owens is an eighteen-year-old welder at a steel mill in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who lives with her dog Grunt in a converted
warehouse. Although she aspires to become a professional dancer, she has no
formal dance training, and works as an exotic dancer by night at Mawby’s, a
neighborhood bar and grill which hosts a nightly cabaret.
Lacking family, Alex forms bonds with her coworkers at Mawby’s, some of
whom also aspire to greater artistic achievements. Jeanie, a waitress, is
training to be a figure skater, while her boyfriend, short-order cook Richie, and
wishes to become a stand up comic.
One night, Alex catches the eye of customer Nick Hurley, the owner of
the steel mill where she works. After learning that Alex is one of his
employees, Nick begins to pursue her on the job, though Alex turns down his
advances at first. Alex is also approached by Johnny C., who wants Alex to
dance at his nearby strip club, Zanzibar.
After seeking counsel from her mentor Hanna Long, a retired ballerina,
Alex attempts to apply to the Pittsburgh Conservatory of Dance and Repertory.
Alex becomes intimidated by the scope of the application process, which
includes listing all prior dance experience and education, and she leaves
without applying.
Leaving Mawby’s one evening, Richie and Alex are assaulted by Johnny C.
and his bodyguard, Cecil. Nick intervenes, and after taking Alex home, the two
begin a relationship.
At a skating competition in which she is competing, Jeanie falls twice
during her performance and sits defeated on the ice and has to be helped away.
Later, feeling she will never achieve her dreams, and after Richie has left
Pittsburgh to try to become a comic in Los Angeles, Jeanie begins going out
with Johnny C. and works for him as a Zanzibar stripper. Finding out that she
is dancing nude, Alex drags her out while she protests and cries.
After seeing Nick with a woman at the ballet one night, Alex throws a
rock through one of the windows of his house, only to discover that it was his
ex-wife whom he was meeting for a charity function. Alex and Nick reconcile,
and she gains the courage to apply for entrance to the Conservatory. Nick uses
his connections with the arts council to get Alex an audition. Alex is furious
with Nick, since she did not get the opportunity based on her own merit and
decides not to go through with the audition. Seeing the results of others’
failed dreams and after the sudden death of Hanna, Alex becomes despondent
about her future, but finally decides to go through with the audition.
At the audition, Alex initially falters, but begins again, and she
successfully completes a dance number composed of various aspects of dance she
has studied and practiced, including break dancing that she has seen on the
streets of Pittsburgh. The board responds favorably, and Alex is seen joyously
emerging from the Conservatory to find Nick and Grunt waiting for her with a
bouquet of roses.
The Big Blue
Two children, Jacques Mayol and Enzo Molinari, have grown up on the Greek
island of Amorgos in the 1960s. Enzo challenges Jacques to collect a coin on
the sea floor but Jacques refuses the challenge. Later Jacques’ father — who
harvests shellfish from the seabed using a pump-supplied air hose and helmet —
goes diving. His breathing apparatus and rope gets caught and punctured by
rocks on the reef and weighed down by water, he drowns. Jacques and Enzo can do
nothing but watch in horror as he is killed.
By the 1980s, both are well known free divers, swimmers who can remain
underwater for great times and at great depths. Enzo is on Sicily now, where he
rescues a trapped diver from a shipwreck. He is a world champion free diver
with a brash and strong personality, and now wishes to find Jacques and
persuade him to return to no limits free diving in order to prove he is still
the better of the two, in a friendly sports rivalry. Jacques himself works
extensively with scientific research as a human research subject, and with
dolphins, and is temporarily participating in research into human physiology in
the iced-over lakes of the Peruvian Andes, where his remarkable and
dolphin-like bodily responses to cold-water immersion are being recorded.
Insurance broker Johana Baker visits the station for work purposes and is
introduced to Jacques. She secretly falls in love with him. When she hears that
Jacques will be at the World Diving Championships in Taormina, Sicily, she
fabricates an insurance problem that requires her presence there, in order to
meet him again. She and Jacques fall in love. However none of them realize the
extent of Jacques’ allurement with the depths. Jacques beats Enzo by 1 meter,
and Enzo offers him a crystal dolphin as a gift, and a tape measure to show the
small difference between Jacques’ and Enzo’s records. Johana goes back home to
New York but is fired after her deception is discovered; she leaves New York
and begins to live with Jacques. She hears the story that if one truly loves
the deep sea, then a mermaid will appear at the depths of the sea, and will
lead a diver to an enchanted place.
At the next World Diving Championships, Enzo beats Jacques’ record. The
depths at which the divers are competing enter new territory and the dive
doctor suggests they should cease competing, but the divers decide to continue.
Jacques is asked to look at a local dolphinarium where a new dolphin has been
placed, and where the dolphins are no longer performing; surmising that the new
dolphin is homesick, the three of them break in at night to liberate the
dolphin and transport her to the sea again. Back at the competition, other
divers attempt to break Enzo’s new record but all fail. Jacques then attempts
his next dive and reaches 400 ft (122 m) breaking Enzo’s world record. Angered
by this, Enzo prepares to break Jacques’ new world record. The doctor
supervising the dive warns that the competitors must not go deeper - based upon
Jacques’ bodily reactions, at around 400 ft, conditions, and in particular
the pressure, will become lethal and divers will be killed if they persist in
attempting such depths. Enzo dismisses the advice and attempts the dive anyway,
but is unable to make his way back to the surface. Jacques dives down to rescue
him. Enzo, dying, tells Jacques that he was right and that it is better down
there, and begs Jacques to help him back down to the depths, where he belongs.
Jacques is grief-stricken and refuses, but after Enzo dies in his arms, finally
honors his dying wish and takes Enzo’s body back down to 400feet, leaving him
to drift to the ocean floor. Jacques - himself suffering from cardiac arrest
after the dive - is rescued and brought back to the surface by supervising
scuba divers and requires his heart to be restarted with a defibrillator before
being placed in medical quarters to recover.
Jacques appears to be recovering from the diving accident, but later
experiences a strange hallucinatory dream in which the ceiling collapses and
the room fills with water, and he finds himself in the ocean depths surrounded
by dolphins. Johana, who has just discovered she is pregnant, returns to check
up on Jacques in the middle of the night, but finds him lying awake yet
unresponsive in his bed with bloody ears and a bloody nose. Johana attempts to
help him, but Jacques begins to get up and walk to the empty diving boat and
gets suited up for one final dive. Desperately, Johana begs Jacques not to go,
saying she is alive but whatever has happened at the depths is not, but he says
he has to. She tells Jacques that she is pregnant, and sorrowfully begs him to
stay, but finally understands he feels he must go. The two embrace and Johana
breaks down crying. Jacques then places the release cord for the dive ballast
in her hand, and - still sobbing - she pulls it, sending him down to the depths
he loves. Jacques descends and floats for a brief moment staring into the
darkness. A dolphin then appears and - dreamlike - Jacques lets go of his
harness and swims away with it into the darkness.
Finding Neverland
The story focuses on Scottish writer J. M. Barrie, his platonic
relationship with Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, and his close friendship with her
sons named George, Jack, Peter and Michael, who inspire the classic play Peter
Pan, or The Boy Who Never Grew Up.
Following the dismal reception of his latest play, Little Mary, Barrie
meets the widowed Sylvia and her four young sons (George, Jack, Peter and
Michael) in Kensington Gardens, and a strong, close friendship develops between
them. He proves to be a great playmate and surrogate father figure for the
boys, and their imaginative antics give him ideas which he incorporates into a
play about boys who do not want to grow up, especially one named after troubled
young Peter Llewelyn Davies. Although Barrie sees this family as wonderful and
inspirational, people question his relationship with the Llewelyn Davies
family. Sylvia was a widow: her husband died from cancer and left her with four
boys to bring up on her own. Barrie’s wife Mary, who eventually divorces him, and
Sylvia’s mother Emma du Maurier, object to the amount of time Barrie spends
with the Llewelyn Davies family. Emma also seeks to control her daughter and
grandsons, especially as Sylvia becomes increasingly weak from an unidentified
illness. Along the way, Barrie goes on adventures with Sylvia and her boys. He
too is a boy at heart and spending time with the family is special. Barrie
takes those adventures he has with the boys and makes them into a play called
Peter Pan.
Producer Charles Frohman skeptically agrees to mount Peter Pan, despite
his belief that it holds no appeal for upper-class theatergoers. Barrie peppers
the opening night audience with children from a nearby orphanage, and the
adults present react to their infectious delight with an appreciation of their
own. The play proves to be a huge success. Barrie is all set for his play, but
when Peter arrives alone to the play, Barrie goes to Sylvia's house to check up
on her, and misses the show. Peter attends the play and realizes the play is
about his brothers and Barrie.
Sylvia is too ill to attend the premiere, so Barrie arranges to have an
abridged production of it performed in her home. He gets the actors, props and
musicians together in the Llewelyn Davies house. At the end of the play, Peter Pan
points to the back doors and implies that Sylvia should go off to Neverland.
She takes the hands of her boys and slowly walks out into Neverland. The living
room and back garden transform into Neverland and Sylvia continues to walk on
her own.
In the next scene everyone is at Sylvia’s funeral. Barrie discovers that
her will says that he and her mother should look after the boys, an arrangement
agreeable to both. The film ends with J. M. Barrie finding Peter on the bench
in the park where they first met after Peter ran off from the graveyard. Peter
is holding his book where he wrote the plays that he ripped apart and that his
mother glued back together for him. Barrie sits down and puts his arm around
Peter to comfort him. They both fade, and all that is left is the bench.
I won’t connect the dots for you but these were ‘our movies’.
The F. W. Woolworth Company (often referred to as Woolworth’s or
Woolworth) was a retail company and one of the original pioneers of the
five-and-dime store. It was arguably the most successful American and
international five-and-dime business, setting trends and creating the modern
retail model that stores follow worldwide today.
Frank Winfield Woolworth opened the first Woolworth store on February 22,
1878, as “Woolworth’s Great Five Cent Store” in Utica, New York. Though it
initially appeared to be successful, the store soon failed. When Woolworth
searched for a new location, a friend suggested Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Using
the sign from the Utica store, Woolworth opened his first successful “Woolworth’s
Great Five Cent Store” on July 18, 1879, in Lancaster. He brought his brother,
Charles Sumner Woolworth, into the business.
The two Woolworth brothers pioneered and developed merchandising, direct
purchasing, sales, and customer service practices commonly used today. Despite
its growing to be one of the largest retail chains in the world through most of
the 20th century, increased competition led to its decline beginning in the
1980s, while its sporting goods division grew. The chain went out of business
in July 1997, when the company decided to focus primarily on sporting goods and
renamed itself Venator Group. By 2001, the company focused exclusively on the
sporting goods market, changing its name to the present Foot Locker, Inc.,
changing its ticker symbol from its familiar Z in 2003 to its present ticker
(NYSE: FL).
Now I’m a sucker for a good bargain, the same as you, but this store used
to bug me for various reasons we will now explore.
Growing up in the 50’s, the “5&Dime” that were the offshoot of the
general store were fading to the expansion of strip malls and department
stores. There was a ‘5&Dime’ a few blocks from me (where http://stellasrichmond.com is now) across
the street from the Lafayette Grocery and Pharmacy. When we would require
another can of Chicken Noodle soup or a steak that wasn’t brought home from the
club, we’d stop into the grocery and after reading all the comics at the
pharmacy I’d be rewarded with a tin whistle on a ring or a pack of baseball
cards with a sheet of bubblegum inside.
Most of the stuff in there was junk, but it was cheap, thus the
‘5&Dime’ name.
Downtown, where the ‘real’ shopping was, there was a Woolworth’s (and
also a Murphy’s similar but the same). G.C. Murphy was a chain of five and dime
or variety stores in the United States from 1906 into the 1990s. By 1976, the
G.C. Murphy Company had grown to 529 stores.
In April 1985, the company was acquired by Ames Department Stores Inc.
Ames rebranded many of the larger “Murphy’s Mart” stores. In 1989, Ames decided
to sell the variety stores (while retaining the former Murphy's Mart), and sold
the division to the McCrory’s chain. McCrory’s rebranded some and closed
others. The McCrory’s chain filed for bankruptcy in 1992, closed many of their
stores (including former G.C. Murphy’s outlets) in 1997, and ceased its
remaining operations in 2002.
These stores would be passed by for my white-gloved mom would only shop
at Miller & Rhoades or Thalhimer’s. Even the Woolworth’s and Murphy’s out
at the mall were avoided due to the quality of items even with the reduced
cost.
In college, where money was scarce, these ‘discount’ centers were a
blessing for kitchen items and even linen. None of it lasted very long but it
was cheap. Even the lunch counter’s sandwiches weren’t very good. I don’t know
why they wanted to sit-in there?
My wife loved these stores. I still have things in the back of the
kitchen drawers that came from times of ‘2for1’ bargains. The big box stores
took over and these bargain basement ‘5&Dimes’ disappeared.
So it seems the move from brick and mortar establishments displaying
items to try on and test out, to touch, feel, smell and have a customer service
representative persuade in a purchase are long becoming the past.
I walked by those stores every day for over three decades. I watched the
exterior crumble and the interior fade away. Like the rest of the downtown
retail, it has all disappeared, but it will be remembered.
Are we so lazy we can’t even grow or gather our food and cook it and
place it on a plate with eating utensils?
I just ordered a pizza. I tried to order it online but the website was a
mess so I had to do the old fashion method of the telephone.
I was quick and easy and delivered to my door before the storm and was
more than I needed and twice as much as if I’d prepared it myself.
Still the idea of delivery of products has become a hit. My neighborhood
is frequented by many cars delivery dinners while they all have gigantic
kitchens.
Back in the day it was a pleasure to have milk delivered to the front
door. My parents used the service so I continued to use the service. I wasn’t
than fond of milk but it was one of life’s luxuries. On the rare occasion the
local grocer would deliver a paper bag of grocery to the doorstep because we
were regular customers. The same was true for the pharmacy. Some big items were
delivered with schedules and you had to be home.
Everything else was pick-up and bring home. Shopping required an
automobile for any item larger than a pencil.
Today the delivery trucks zip back and forth through the neighborhood
bringing cardboard boxes filled with all sorts of items from easy shopping
online. Even my hardware store will bring flatbed trucks loaded with tons of
items delivered with a forklift.
Still my pizza arrived on time, cost too much and the only redeeming
quality was I got rid of a bunch of $1.00 bills filling my wallet. Not much of
a consequence for eating too much junk food to throw away cash.
There is a room at the hospital that also delivers.
Once upon a time, the camera was a luxury. To have your photo taken was
up there with meeting the queen and winning the lottery.
Only a few cameras were produced and only a few knew how to use them so
in the presence of a photographer was something special. I see a few black and
white snapshots of my family at the beach and wondered who made these memories
happen? They were all stilted and staged as if Mathew Brady took them but they
are the only evidence of people associated with my family I do not know.
There are captures in time of our family so we must have had a camera
somewhere along the way. At the time most pictures were taken outside for the
light because a flash attachment was not available.
For Christmas or Birthday I received a point-and-shoot camera. It was
still elementary school and color film had become available. I took snapshots
of my classes at junior high school as a record of time. This may have provided
the school system to assume I was a photographer and moved me to the yearbook
staff.
With even the most antique cameras with dark bags to retrieve film to be
processed by another before being reloaded by feel. At the same time, the
Polaroid camera was becoming popular. These camera were not instantaneous but
had to be processed and waited on, but were faster than waiting for the bag of
4x5 prints coming days later.
In college I decided I need a ‘professional’ 35mm camera. I bought lenses
and straps and a carry bag and all sorts of attachments and try to learn how to
make all the numbers work on shutter speed and aperture while trying to adjust
focus to capture the shot. As any photographer will tell you, you got to take
an entire roll of film to get a good photo. At the same time I learned how to
process film in a dark room but only made prints for all my fellow students who
wanted to remember their mates in film.
After college I couldn’t afford the cost of photography with other
artistic desires so I sold my camera and all the stuff and went onto another
focus.
Video was becoming an expensive fad but was as complicated as my
reel-to-reel audio tape recorder. The Polaroid became a self-developing process
so that became popular, for obvious reasons.
Then the digital age hit and anything became possible. Capture any event
or situation with low-resolution images that can be posted on a multitude of
media sites for anyone to view and comment.
I have noticed that the people I associate with DO NOT take selfies.
Have you noticed on stage at a live performance between every number the
guitarist reference some clip on their headstock or look at the floor before
starting the next tune?
The fine art of Tune-Ying was not always critical for a show to stop but
today it is part of the dance. Actually it is better for the audience (if they
can hear over the drums and the crowd yelling) and better for the band to play
the right notes.
So what is all about this Ancient Chinese Art of Tune-Ying?
I won’t get into the theory of pitch, harmonics, tones, timbres and
chromatic scale but when an instrument is tuned, then when you play a ‘C’ it
sounds like the ‘C’ the composer expected to hear.
You’ve heard orchestras sit down before the conductor comes out and all
start playing one note. I’ve heard that note is Bb but some say it is A#. I
have no clue how all these wind and brass instruments can tune for I’m a string
man but they make this incredible noise before some old guy in a tux comes out
and taps a stick on a podium to get them to stop.
Back in the day, as I remember, those country or folk players never
checked their guitars for proper sound. They played by ear and maybe if it
sounded right for them, it would sound right for the listener. A piano, if
available, was used to find middle ‘C’, then a pitch pipe was used before
performances, but only occasionally would a guitar picker stop and retune
his/her guitar. The audience never noticed because there was a story covering
the process of trying to stretch the strings to an acceptable note.
Twelve string guitars took a
bit longer so open tuning was used to bypass all the effort.
Today there are these clip-on gadgets that attach to the headstock that
catches the vibrations of the neck to indicate if a note if sharp or flat. Also
tuning keys have become more accurate to hold a string against slippage while
playing.
Like eating the right food and getting enough sleep and treating animals
and children with care, staying in tune is important to make the music sound
good.
