My dear sister presented me with a special surprise on Monday. She found for me a bottle of Blue Waltz perfume. What a nice thing for her to do.
It has been a couple of years since one of us discovered a charming little catalog for a country store in Vermont, that specializes in selling many such delights that have apparantly been almost forgotten. A page of perfumes and scents is a wonderful find. And I found for sale little bottles of Blue Waltz perfume.
Along with having a very nice fragrance to apply to yourself, this lovely fragrant bottle of charm and dreams takes me a very long way back in time, back to the antiquity of Main Street and long gone Five and Dime stores, back to mid 1950's when everything wore such a different fashion.
Mama would take me and my little sister downtown on Saturdays, which I'm quite sure she did every week of our young lives. Almost all the stores she shopped at were on the same block, lined up down the same side of Main Street. There was a Walgreen's on the corner, with a luncheon bar inside. We often went inside for a fountain drink and snack after shopping for hours. I can't forget that all the tables had innumberable globs of chewed gum stuck to the undersides. If you ever looked under a table those globs fastened all over like big crackly bugs would gross you out for sure. The first thing we learned about manners was to never touch the underside of a restaurant table. Also, you don't comb your hair at the table. Walgreen's also had a row of telephone booths along the back wall...it really was a very small store.... Sometimes Mama would take u s back there and Marie and I would pretend to use the phones to call someone. They took a dime to make a call. Without the dime you could just play and play because you weren't connected yet.
The main stores downtown, the ones we always went into no matter what else was done, was the Kress store and Woolworth's. These stores had everything you could ever think of to buy. And they had a toiletries counter that housed Blue Waltz. Sometimes there were little square jars of cream that was scented, called satchet. The satchet sold for 5 or 10 cents. And if there was no Blue Waltz, Marie and I would tease and cry for those. But Blue Waltz was the scent of choice. It smelled so good and the bottle was so pretty with it's curvey blue lid. Blue Waltz cost 10 or 15 cents. I wonder how much that would be in today's market. We knew it wasn't much then. That's why we figured it was affordable, but I wonder how much it really was compared to now.
With this precious treasure, a flood of memories come back to me. What else is fragrance for but to evoke beautiful memories? I remember Shelly now, most of all. And rainy, wintery days living on Windsor Street and Eighth South. Shelly bought umbrellas for Marie and me one year for Christmas. She asked me what I wanted and I really wanted an umbrella. Mine was a beautiful orange and yellow plaid with a pointed top. The colors blended and played together like a fabulous sunset. Marie's was blue plaid. I'm so glad I got the right color. We loved those umbrellas. Glade was a baby and he got a tiny toy bunny that played Braham's lullaby. That was a soft magical sound. The house was full of softness and wonder and, not expectation but abundance and love and warmth. It's hard to describe the feelings that come back by holding a bottle of Blue Waltz, hard to describe the transcending of time in my heart and mind. Ahh, Blue Waltz..wonderful then, even moreso now. Thanks Big Sister. It's more of a gift than you probably realized.
6 comments:
Doesn't this just bring back memories! I used to ride the bus to town with my Grandma. When we got to the end of her shopping, she took me the Woolworth's, where I got a chocolate soda for a quarter. I loved those sodas. I was sad when Woolworth's bit the dust. What a great place. It had everything. My mother worked at the Bon Marche, so a trip to town always included a stop to see her. She worked in the office. Tacoma is built on a hillside that rises up from the bay. By starting at the bottom and using all of the elcalators, you could get to the Bon without walking up the hills. One year, during the Daffodil Parade, my girl friend and I went to Woolworth's and I bought nail polish in many colors, about 5 bottles--yellow, blue, green, and whatever. You get the idea. What fun!
Oh! I forgot to mention this great music you have going here. Songs really bring back memories. I came on to 500 miles, which I love. Then Jimmy Rogers, such a great singer. And who could forget being young and "Feelin' Groovy"? That was us, young and energetic, unlike how we feel now. Those bursts of energy come, but they just don't last as long, do they? Oh, oh, oh, here comes another great song, "A Man and a Woman." I took 5 years of French in school. C'est magnifique! This makes me think of the Girl from Ipanema. Know what I think of? Picking strawberries in the berry fields in the valley here. I picked berries to that song, and dreamed of berries at night! UGH.
JUDIE... your comments here are really a trip down memory lane as well. I'm so glad you like the music. It's some of my very favorites. And I love Girl From Ipanema.
I love that your mom worked at Bon Marche. We had one on Broadway (3rd South) in Salt Lake. It looked so fancy. I remember going in there one time so Mama could buy a new hat.
And I bought green and blue nail polish too!!! To this day they are my favorite colors, even if they are long gone.
Our family drove through Tacoma once and I just loved it. I wanted to move up there and stay forever. Seattle is still my son Ben's favorite place. How would it be to go up the hill on escalators?!!
It's too bad we're not young anymore, but the memories can carry us away.
And just wondering...in the song 500 Miles....what does "hather" mean? "heather"...how do you spell it?
And did you ever see that movie "A Man and a Woman"? I don't remember much except the music.
Well, I feel like I'm interupting, but I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your post mumsy- and Judie's comments. I love hearing about how things were and especially your feelings about it all. It's like I get to connect with you and grandma in a different way than just always knowing you as mudder. Thanks for sharing!
Well, I feel like I'm interupting, but I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your post mumsy- and Judie's comments. I love hearing about how things were and especially your feelings about it all. It's like I get to connect with you and grandma in a different way than just always knowing you as mudder. Thanks for sharing!
Argh! I couldn't post on Emily's and now I posted two on yours. What's up with that!? Sorry.
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