Draperies And Illusions

From 1950-1959, a local TV female personality named Sylvia Scott had a show around one p.m. five days a week. It was called then a woman’s show. She featured topics like cooking (long before Emeril), current fashions for kids and women, books that were popular reading and any local personality that was in demand at that moment. I worked on Saturdays all day and on Thursday nights as a sales person (now called sales associates) at a downtown big department store called Stewarts on Howard Street. It was a big store and since there were no suburban malls in those days; that is where you went to shop for almost everything except appliances. Some of the larger department stores did carry a few appliances.

I was asked to model for them on Saturday mornings and every Thursday afternoon, after high school, I went there on the transit bus to try on the clothes we would be modeling at 9 a.m. This modeling was done before the department heads of the various clothing sections. Sometimes, the public was able to view us, other times; it was the big shot higher up executives who were our audience. One day, the head of the modeling group chose me and about three other ladies (I was the only teen) to be on the Sylvia Scott television show on a weekday afternoon at one p.m. I took off school that day and went to the studio on York Road where we were told to meet at about noon to put on our modeling outfits and to be ready for this live Sylvia show.

This was so exciting, live TV was the in thing and I wish I had a video of that day. Of course, videos were not invented for the general public at that time, no DVD players or video players etc. Sylvia was prettier in person than on TV and she was very nice to us models. We got to keep one of the outfits we modeled out of the two we did do. The show was nice and then she announced that the next segment was the modeling one. There were no live audiences, just the models, Sylvia, the camera man and the executive from Stewarts and the model head of the clothing department.

This was pure delight and what more could a teen want than to model in the first place and then to be on this new invention called television. I never forgot that special day and remember it now sixty- years later, as if it was yesterday.

Good and true memories are the basis of our now lives and to have special ones is a blessing. I am sure that each and every one of you readers can find at least one very exciting moment from your past, either when you were a kid, a teen, a twenty-something or even now that stimulates your heart and soul with the sweet treasures of those long gone years. There is a saying that “love is like the wind, you cannot see it, but you can feel it.” If you have something that you loved, you can still feel its warm happiness even all these years later.

Her show was called The Woman’s Angle and though it was geared to woman and especially to stay at home moms and seniors; it was loved for nine years and then it was replaced with probably a game show or a soap opera.

Sylvia’s real name I believe was not Scott. I shall research it and try to find out the real name. They said she was married to a doctor. She was a pretty lady, hair neatly coiffed and dressed in the clothing styles of the fifties. Television was new and local shows were popular.

I always treasured those sweet moments when I modeled for Stewarts and Stewarts stayed in business for many years and closed down eventually when downtown shopping declined and most people shopped in large and popular malls.

I remember the mall in our area called Reisterstown  Plaza Mall and when my daughter was a baby, a neighbor and her baby and us use to drive there for fun, lunch and relaxation at least once a week. We rolled the two babies in their strollers, stopped for a snack, sat in the lunch area and thought we were big-time mommies. Sometimes, when she did not have the car for that day, we would share a taxicab both ways just to get out of the apartment for an afternoon of what we thought was Mommie fun. The children liked being driven in the strollers, eating there and seeing the world. Sometimes, we bought them a toy to keep them contented or the store owners offered them a   balloon. Times were simpler then, no IPods, cellphones, DVD players and fancy electronic toys. The girls were satisfied with a small doll or puzzle, the boys were happy with toy soldiers or puzzles too.

We can look back to the past now with such plain days of happiness secured through even taking a taxicab to an open mall and if it rained, we were stuck into going into a store until it subsided. I often think how satisfied we were even as adults with obtaining a new piece of furniture, a new piece of clothing, a new book to own, and one day at the apartment I received then a great piece of intense emotion.

 I finally had the money to buy (we did not purchase anything we did not have the money for) several pairs of ready-made draperies for my long ceiling to floor windows in the apartment. Until then, I only had the window shades that came with the place.

I had been yearning for custom ones, but I knew we would be moving in a year or two to a home, so I bought several pairs of cream colored long draperies. I made my husband put up the rods and then I got on a step stool and hung them myself. Of course, they were a bit creased from the package they were in for months in the store. I brought an ironing board (yes we did iron in those days) and an iron and ironed the parts I could reach draping the drapes over the board and trying to smooth them out a bit.

Eventually they aired out and the creases disappeared and I was so happy. I put straight pins in the bottoms like they do in drapery stores when they assemble them in your home. You take out the pins after about two months and the pleats are set into the material. I even went outside and looked up to see how they appeared from the view there. I felt so proud of their outside and inside look, I was contented now in the apartment’s look.

We moved to our home about two years later, but I never forgot the enthusiasm I incurred with my simple drapes. By then, I could afford custom made draperies for our new home and when they were installed professionally; I got a high seeing that but still remembered how I felt with the apartment ones that I had installed.

Simple things, expensively priced things, modeling experiences, writings published, grandchildren’s visits, good health reports, just plain living can give us memories of genuine experiences that we never want to forget. There was nothing that could be simpler than a visit to a mall or the installation by me of inexpensive draperies that can be noted as exciting. Yes, it was in those days and there was a popular song that was called “Those Were The Days.” The title sums up the experiences of our lives that influence our daily living.

If you have had some of  “ those were the days” experiences, think about them, treasure them and know that loving things can be be magic and magic is an illusion, but illusions can be dreams, dreams of new things and old things, can still be beautiful.

Khalil Gibran said “Life without love is like a tree without blossoms.”  We have had many blossoms and there are still multitudes of them still coming our way.

Draperies cannot hide these beautiful events.