Thrift Store Sally

I have a lot of friends who love to shop in thrift stores, but I’ve scarcely gone into one in my entire life. I’m taking a class in The Artist’s Way and one of the activities we are required to do is to go on an Artist’s Date—doing something different by yourself that encourages looking at the world in a new creative light. 

I thought, “What the hell, I’ll see what this thrift store thing is all about.”

Growing up, my female role models were my mother and my Aunt Margie—both women who had been raised during the Depression in rural Tennessee. In those poor times, women usually made, or remade, their own clothes or had a relative who could sew. Secondhand stores probably seemed more like charity than their pride could handle. 

By the 50s, they were both living in Nashville, Tennessee, a city with a thriving downtown shopping area. They would dress in nice dresses, hats and gloves, take the bus or Aunt Margie’s car, and make a day of it, usually eating lunch in the restaurant on the top floor of Cain-Sloan, Nashville’s premier department store.

Shopping was a social event.

I loved to shop with Aunt Margie. She never made me try anything on and always bought me an outfit that we both loved. Because she was childless, I was often the recipient of her generosity. We had fun together. When she ran into someone she knew (and she ALWAYS ran into someone she knew—Nashville seemed like a small town to me then), she would stand in the store’s aisle and chat. I would nod at the other person and dash off to play under the racks, pulling the full skirts of party dresses across my skinny, little-girl body.

 I was a fashion model, speaking in a posh voice. I was a society woman, smoking my cigarette and laughing. 

Through my daydreams, I’d keep an ear open for Aunt Margie’s loud, distinctive voice. When her conversation began to flag, I would dash out from under the dresses and appear beside her once more, innocently reaching for her hand.

Shopping with my mother was different. She was more practical and sat in the dressing room with me while I tried on school clothes. There was no hiding under dress racks with her around.

“No, that one’s too fancy. Okay, that skirt will go with a couple of blouses that you already have. No, Marsha. Don’t argue with me. You don’t need a dress like that—you’d never wear it.”

I always ended up sweaty and pouting, anxious to get to the Woolworth’s counter for a cheeseburger and a cherry coke. Sometimes we’d go to the Krystal hamburger stand for their little square burgers and French fries.

During the 50s, girls wore ‘girly’ clothes. Jeans, or pants of any kind, were scarce. I was allowed to wear pants under my dresses on cold morning walks to school, but it was mandatory to remove the pants as soon as you got to the classroom. 

Guess my mom liked to wash my dresses.

I wasn’t particularly careful with my clothes when I was in elementary school. I would saunter home dragging my ripped sashes behind me in the dirt, hems bedraggled. I chewed on my lace collar edgings while I concentrated on a test, leaving them soggy and tattered. My mother would sigh and sew everything back together, thanking God that there was only one of me.

Marsha playing with the boys-fashionably, of course.

In high school, clothes were important. Clothes determined your niche in teenage society. I’m not condoning this; I’m just stating the facts as I experienced them. We pitied our Catholic high school friends their standardized uniforms. Ironically, we in public school dressed every bit alike as the convent girls. We wore our nearly identical stitched-down pleated skirts with coordinating sweater, matching knee socks and a circle pin adorning our round-collar blouses. We girls would meet in the hall, eyes flicking up and down, mentally comparing styles, adding up costs, deciding if we were socially compatible. It was incentive to shop the sales just to keep up. We were little fashionistas in training.

The uniform - and my boyfriend, Jay.

I loved shopping. The big, bright department stores were exciting, crowded and full of adventure. Clerks catered to your every whim, even if you weren’t an adult. I fell in love, a little, with the aura of being in a store. My girlfriends and I would catch the bus downtown and wander through the stores, oohing and ahhing over the new fashions, flipping through the record bins, and hanging over the makeup counters, trying on lipstick that our mothers would wash off as soon as we got home. 

It seems like I had always been selling something—fireworks and Christmas trees in Mississippi, tropical plants in Memphis, Western boots to French tourists in Wyoming—and the logical progression led me to corporate retail. I got over the thrill of shopping when I worked as a sales manager in a large department store in my 30s.

My love of shopping died in Casper, Wyoming.

As a sales manager, I spent seven years merchandising clothes racks, listening to complaints of customers and employees alike, coming to work on holidays and weekends and stressing over visits from the corporate bigwigs. I would hear, “Let me get my manager” and I would steel myself to smile and listen to justifications galore:

“I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“My husband says bring it back or sleep in the garage.”

“My daughter didn’t like it.”

“It didn’t fit the same way it did in the dressing room.”

“This went on sale the day after I bought it. Can I have the sale price?”

I just smiled and projected dark, evil thoughts as I cheerfully refunded their money. When I bought something that wasn’t perfect, I thought about what a bargain it had been, and lived with it.

Of course, there was absolutely no reason to buy anything at full price. I would always wait for a sale (and there was ALWAYS a sale), then get my employee discount on top of the reduced price. Why buy clothes at a thrift shop when I could get new clothes at nearly the same price.

Yes, I’m digressing. This story is about thrift stores. Remember? Now that ‘Secondhand Chic’ is in, I thought I’d check it out and compare it to my department store experiences.

When I got to the Salvation Army Thrift Store parking lot, I remembered that I didn’t like their political stance on gays, so I turned around and drove down Main Street to a place called the Re-finery, an upscale consignment shop. 

http://resld.com/store/9316/Yazoo-City-MS/Exceptions

Inside, the racks were arranged in a boutique-y way—the most desirable (newer, more fashionable, better brand names) were placed forward on display. Larger racks of similar items were scattered through the center and sides of the store. I gravitated to the rounder of sweaters and knits tops and slid through the hangers in a half-hearted way. They looked so tired, so used. No bright lights, no glamorous displays with mannequins.

Duh, Marsha. Secondhand store.

Gradually, the merchandiser in me took over and I spied styles and colors that I liked, and that I knew looked good on me. To my surprise, I found a Nike jacket to use on morning walks and a Coldwater Creek pullover with a crocheted v-neck. 

Okay. This could be more fun than I expected. I saw a friend from the high school I used to work at and decided to call it a social event. More fun. I bought my two items—total cost, about $20. Not bad, but not great either.

Next, I went to Flathead Industries, a thrift store that hires and helps developmentally disabled members of our community. I have donated to this excellent non-profit organization for years, but had never stepped a foot in the door. It was about time.

In the parking lot, I saw two friends who were crowing about the wonderful bargains they got inside the store.

Another social event!

The clothes were arranged mostly by type and color. Much more work was involved in finding something I liked, but the prices were eye-poppingly cheap. I finally struck gold with an Eddie Bauer v-neck sweater and a Jones New York pullover—each for only $4.00! 

Score!

http://flatheadindustries.org/business-operations/kalispell-thrift-store.html

I came away from my thrift store experience with some relief, but with an altered point of view. The total feeling was different from the one I had in a department store, however, so in the future I’ll know how to judge my shopping mood. Ready for a scavenger hunt? Thrift Store. Looking for something specific? I’ll go to a more traditional department store.

I might explore more secondhand stores—I hear that a lot more of them are in the valley. It takes patience and persistence, but there are great deals in ‘gently used’ clothing. I know I’ll find it easier to donate my old clothes, knowing that someone else will get satisfaction from the ‘find’ just as I did.

My finds of the day!

The best part about my afternoon? I took my fistful of savings and my novel du jour to a local restaurant and treated myself to an hour of solitude and a good lunch, far from crowded stores of any kind.

Fall Colors

Saturday morning's sun struggled to make an appearance through the light cloud cover. I drove across town to Lawrence Park, one of Kalispell's green spaces that wraps around the embankment of Buffalo Hill and stretches along the Stillwater River.

I knew that the neighbors around the park have worked hard to make it accessible to a diverse group of locals--children's playground, covered shelter for gathering, walking trails--but until I googled Lawrence Park, I didn't know that it was also a Disc Golf course. Folf. I'd seen the tall baskets scattered around the park, but had no idea what they were.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=FOLF

When we still had our whippet, Lucy, we would bring her to Lawrence Park for Frisbee catching and ball throwing because it has a wonderful, large area for doggie play. She loved the chance to explore the trails and meet new friends.

I passed a wooden gazebo that was being decorated for a child's party. Women laughed as they tossed rolls of crepe paper up over the exposed rafters, creating a colorful, loopy ceiling above the large picnic tables holding pastries and presents.

Children ran back and forth from the party to the playground with its swings, slides and monkey bars. I walked toward the river, and only then noticed how beautiful the trees were becoming. A small flame tree leapt out at me from the rest and I had to snap a picture with my phone.

From that point on, I was in full autumn mode, finding color everywhere. I stolled along the paved path, shuffling through piles of orange and yellow leaves, remembering the way they smelled when I was a child. My dad would rake a huge pile into the gutter where my brother and I would leap, hiding in the golden depths until the tiny stems and bits of dried leaf winkled down our collars, making us itch like mad.



I thought of my own son, Eli, doing the same thing on raking day and smiled at the coming generations of leaf-pile swimmers among the children back in the playground.

From a distance, I could see the pedestrian/bicycle bridge, erected by the Lawrence Park organizers, that allowed access from the park to Whitefish Stage Road with its traffic and noise. Thankfully, it was too far away to intrude on my thoughts as I lingered there by the water.

I paused on the bridge and spent some time watching the gently flowing river. Upstream, the trees and grasses crowded in toward a curve in the stream, while downstream, the river seemed wilder, somehow, faster and more rocky.

I remembered coming to the park earlier in the spring just at the peak of the thaw, when the river was racing beneath the bridge, foaming and fighting over its banks, pushing logs and debris to a new resting place south of town. The scene was very different today, as if nature was tamping itself down into embers for a long winter's rest.

I had almost forgotten that my reason for coming to the park was a brisk walk. It was difficult to hurry along the trail. I couldn't bear to miss any of the fleeting fall sights.

I climbed up the switchbacks that heralded the end of the Park's trail. Ahead lay the busy street and reality. Turning around to retrace my steps to my car on the other end of the path, I took one final photo. The river, the trees, the green expanse of the golf course peeking out over the embankment. It had been a magical walk that reminded me to slow down and enjoy the days as they progressed to the snows of winter that would come soon enough.

O Canada!

Last spring, out of the blue, my husband, Lucky, said, “Let’s go to Medicine Hat!” I had vaguely heard of Medicine Hat and was pretty sure it was in Canada. “Okay,” I said.

I’ll go anywhere.

As it turned out, Medicine Hat is in southeastern Alberta in Canada, only a few hundred miles from us, but in a foreign country. True, Canada doesn’t seem like a foreign country. They speak the same language; they live in a similar climate to ours in Montana and their food is, for the most part, like ours (I’ll get to poutine later). In the spring of 2013, however, southeastern Alberta was experiencing horrendous flooding, so we went to another part of Canada instead, the Okanagan Valley. It was a wonderful trip.

A few weeks ago we decided to give Medicine Hat another try. Lucky likes novels by Guy Vanderhaeghe, a Canadian author who writes about the part of Alberta south of Lethbridge. 

www.goodreads.com/author/list/98125.Guy_Vanderhaeghe‎

“I want to see the Cypress Hills. They sound pretty,” he said.

That was as good a reason as any. I liked the Vanderhaeghe novel that I read, The Last Crossing, which takes place between Fort Benton, MT and the Whoop-up Country near Lethbridge.  So, it was decided. We’d go north to Alberta.

Day 1

A partly cloudy, breezy day followed us along Highway 2, touching the southern boundary of Glacier National Park, closed due to snow, but more importantly due to the government shutdown that was plaguing our nation. We drove north from Hwy. 2 through Babb, MT along the eastern side of GNP. A lesser-traveled border crossing near Waterton National Park (the northern sister to GNP) was closed, so we drove across the border to Cardston, Alberta.  The Canadian border patrol officer seemed a little cranky—perhaps due to all the calls from the U.S. 

(“Are you open? Can I please get out of this head-up-the-ass nation for a while?”) 

With a sigh of relief, we were successfully admitted to Canada and went into Cardston where options for lunch were scarce. Finally settling on a Greek Sandwich shop, we scanned the menu and noticed that the special was something called ‘donair.’

“What’s donair?” I asked the young waitress.

“Oh, it’s my favorite thing to eat! It’s like, a gyro, kind of, with tomatoes and pressed meat.”

She was so enthusiastic, we both agreed to order donair. As we sat there waiting for our mystery meal, we noticed a park across the street with a Fay Wray memorial fountain, turned off for the winter. A wrought iron likeness of King Kong loomed over the dry concrete, giving it a menacing, yet oddly humorous appearance. Who knew that Fay Wray was from Cardston, Alberta?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihcbIb77QEI‎

When our donair arrived, we discovered that it was pressed meat—although what meat exactly was unclear, even after a few bites. Was it beef? Pork? Lamb? We didn’t have the heart to ask. The meat was wrapped in a pita and garnished with chunks of unripe tomato and tzatziki sauce (which was very tasty). The homemade barley beef soup was delicious, though, as were the fries. I was surprised that Lucky didn’t order poutine—a Canadian specialty of French fries dressed with gravy and melted cheese. 

He said, “I just like saying it … poutine … I don’t really like to eat it.” I think it sounds a little dirty.

 Donair, a new Canadian dining experience. We can add it to poutine.

We drove west toward Waterton Park. I have lived in northwestern Montana for 23 years. I’m a regular hiker and fan of Glacier National Park, but the views of the Waterton peaks blew me away. The craggy mountains were crowded together in a spectacular, snow-kissed condensation of GNP. Like Glacier, Waterton is a one-road park but their road remains in the valley whereas our Going-to-the-Sun Road follows a precipitous route that hangs by its fingertips to the steep mountainside. The idea of more trails to explore lingers with me, to be reimagined in another summer.

 I had heard marvelous things about the Prince of Wales Hotel from some of my hiker friends, who raved about the English High teas that were lovingly presented to visitors as they enjoyed the view from the conservatory. A ranger had told us that it was closed for the season, but she encouraged us to drive up for the view. 

We approached the hotel along a narrow shadowed lane that wouldn’t have been out of place a century ago. Finally, the hotel came into sight.

 “Gingerbread cottage on steroids,” I may have shouted this. Lucky’s used to my outbursts.

I’m convinced that it looks exactly the way that it did when the eponymous prince, the future Edward VIII, came to visit in 1927. The hotel was named for him in an attempt to lure him to stay here on a visit from England, but alas, he preferred to reside at a nearby ranch instead. As violently as the wind was blowing, I can’t say as I blame him. The hotel is a little shabby, with rickety, rusty fire exits littering the outside of the building, giving one pause as to the wisdom of sleeping there. But the view! The panorama is amazing, allowing you to see for miles down Waterton Lake, encircled by majestic peaks. 

When we finally dragged ourselves away from the view, we drove to the town of Waterton inside the park to visit the Heritage Center. 

It was closed for the season.

The upside of travel in October is smaller crowds. The downside is that a lot of attractions are closed. Bummer. The charming town made up for it. When I come back to explore the park, I’ll definitely visit it.

On the way out of the park, I suddenly shouted out, “Bear!” Lucky screeched to a halt and squinted along my pointing finger to the hillside above the road. A black bear was digging furiously at the root of a plant (or for a hapless rodent cowering in his little den). This was the first bear I’d seen all summer. To think that I had to come to Canada to see him. We sat for a few minutes watching his labors.

Another upside of traveling in October is that there were no other cars on the road. If this had been the height of the tourist season, ten cars spilling out kids, men with tripods and untold legions of camera phones would have stopped on the road with us. Instead, we, and the bear, enjoyed the sunny solitude.

We drove north beside the majestic mountains of Waterton and the Canadian Rockies until we turned east along the railroad tracks and beheld the vast tabletop wheat fields and plains of Southern Alberta. 

It was flat; very flat and buff colored as far as the eye could see. The only relief from the flatness was an occasional grain elevator located sporadically beside the railroad in small, utilitarian towns. This was Highway 3, the Trans-Canada Highway which runs from the Atlantic to the Pacific across the country. In this part of Canada, it runs like a yard-stick, straight and narrow on top of the unwavering, level plains.

After what seemed like a hundred miles, I decided that I wouldn’t miss any amazing views, so I pulled out my knitting and started a new project for a Christmas present. Two hours and a few inches of knitted material later, we approached Lethbridge.

Lethbridge appeared flat, at first, but in the center of the town is a deep, eroded gorge through which flows the Oldman River. Sounds like a song, doesn’t it? One of the most impressive features of Lethbridge is the Lethbridge Viaduct, or the High Level Bridge, the highest and longest steel trestle railroad bridge in the world, finished in 1909.

The countryside around the city is rolling rather than flat—a great relief from the relentless plains—and is filled with parks and green areas sprawling along both sides of the river for miles. 

We stayed downtown at a huge hotel within walking distance to shopping areas, but discovered that everything in the area closed at 6:00 on Wednesdays. Upside/downside again. The hotel had a great bar that served appetizers, drinkies and dinner, so we amused ourselves there.

Day 2

The next morning we drove down into the gorge to beautiful green space by the river; crisscrossed by walking and biking trails. It made me wish I had a dog to walk. We parked at Fort Whoop-up, a re-creation of the original trading post from the 1870s. There is a Kalispell connection—Charles Conrad and his brother, who worked for the I.G. Baker Company in Fort Benton, Montana Territory, supplied trade goods for the fort. These would be swapped for buffalo robes and other furs brought in by the indigenous Blackfoot tribes. 

Eagerly, we stepped up to the impressive log doors to enter the building.

Winter hours: Noon – 4:00.  It was only 9:55.

We stood desultorily reading the information about the fort, wondering what else was open that we would be interested in. A young man popped his head out of the door.

“Are you open?” I asked.

“Not officially, but since I have to be here, I might as well let you in.” He was much more gracious than his words sounded.

We went in, paid, watched a video about the fur trade in the area and were allowed to wander around wherever we wanted. The rooms where the traders lived had been restored, as well as the trading room itself, stacked high with boxes and bundles of buffalo hides.

“Phew, it really stinks in here.” I hated to be unkind, but I could imagine all sorts of critters cuddled inside all that hide and hair.

“I wouldn’t want to look under the bottom layer.” Lucky agreed with me and we rushed out to the fresh air.

Goats and Shetland ponies were in a pen attached to the log walls of the fort. Bunny rabbits hopped freely inside the stanchions. It was as idyllic as the fort had probably ever been. We wandered around some more, thanked the young man who had taken pity on us and left to see what else Lethbridge had to offer.

Up on the embankment at city level, we found the Galt Museum. It’s the primary museum of Lethbridge and the largest museum south of Calgary. Inside, we found a lot of information and displays of the history of Alberta and the social history of Lethbridge. It was interesting. I finally found out who built the giant trestle over the Oldman River, and I learned that Mr. Galt of museum fame owned and operated coal mines around the area, growing very rich and endowing the Lethbridge hospital (which used to be in the museum building).

http://www.galtmuseum.com/

On the way out of town, we stopped at a Tim Horton’s. If you’ve ever been to Canada, you’ll know that there’s a Tim Horton’s on every corner. They serve coffee, bagels, doughnuts and they are VERY popular. Tim Horton was a big-deal hockey player back in the day who parleyed his success into an even more successful chain of doughnut and coffee shops. He sounds like he was a colorful character who died at age 44, full of vodka and fleeing from the cops at 160 kilometers per hour. You know there has to be a movie in that.

wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Horton

Once we got into Medicine Hat, we had a heck of a time finding our motel. The town is built on a river, the South Saskatchewan, which curves through its gorge carrying the winding streets in its wake. We finally found our motel, right next to a construction site for an overpass. Unfortunately, the overpass needed I-beams, and the I-beams needed a pile-driver. The thump-thump of the machinery echoed up and down the highway and into our motel. I felt like I was living in a boiler room.

To escape the noise, we drove to a nearby mall where everything looked the same as every other mall I’ve ever been to. We looked at each other and left. We found a Chinese buffet that had been recommended by the desk clerk at the motel. It was okay, but the best part was that when we finished our meal, night had fallen and the thumping was gone.

Bliss. A peaceful night’s sleep.

Day 3

The big attraction in Medicine Hat (and seemingly the only one) is the Medalta Potteries and Ceramics Arts Centre in the Historic Clay District. Apparently, Medicine Hat is located on a huge layer of clay that rests over an enormous natural gas field. That’s two of three necessities for a successful pottery operation. Clay to mold, gas to fire the kilns and the third, a railroad to ship it out to the rest of the world—or the rest of Canada.

It took a while, but the Clay District finally revealed itself to us, tucked away between the river and the railroad at the wrong end of one-way streets. We stumbled into the museum foyer as if we had finally found Mecca. 

Yes, it took that long.

The pottery was much more than I had imagined. In its time (1920s-1950s), it had been a huge production, manufacturing and firing 3,000 pieces of pottery a day. Most of the pottery was restaurant tableware, knick-knacks, and crocks of every size and use. The tour of the restored building and kilns was the most fascinating of the entire trip. We watched as modern-day potters made items based on molds used decades ago—but on a much smaller scale. We visited the gift shop, of course, and came away with a few Christmas presents.

http://medalta.org/museum

We were anxious to get to the Cypress Hills, the alleged reason for this trip to Alberta, so we headed south through more flatness, more wheat ranches, more monotony, and more knitting.

The Cypress Hills are just that—hills that rise from the plains like an oasis. Most high ground out west is formed by glaciation, so we were surprised to learn that the Cypress Hills are a plateau capped by an impervious layer of hard rock that withstood erosion after the shallow sea that covered Southern Alberta leaked away (or dried up). The hills have a completely different ecology than the surrounding plains and is a recreation getaway with lakes, wildlife and bird habitat. It was plain to see why the Hills have been inhabited for thousands of years by the native tribes that came here to hunt.

http://www.cypresshills.com/

 The fact that the hills are very long east to west and narrow north to south meant that we drove across them quickly. We did stop at the heritage center (OPEN!) and at the marina for lunch. Too soon, we descended back onto the plains to the south.

More knitting and flatness ensued until, in the distance, we could see the Sweetgrass Hills of Montana and the border north of Havre. Our crossing back into the U.S. was facilitated by a cheerful border patrol officer who welcomed us back with a smile (a rarity and one that we met with gratitude). 

We always enjoy our little adventures in Canada. Next on my agenda? Vancouver.