Growing up in the ‘40s and ‘50s, as I did, meant that many things were far different than they are today. It may be hard for some of you younger readers to fathom, but there were no shopping centers to go to and malls hadn’t even been thought of yet. If you needed to buy an everyday item you went to your local hardware store or corner grocery. If you lived in a more rural area you went to your town’s general store.

You would walk in to these neighborhood stores and the owner or his wife (hence the term “mom and pop store”) would great you by name. After some small talk about the family and local news you would hand them a list of the things you needed and they would go to the shelves and pull the items down for you. They would then retrieve an ever present pencil from behind their ear and total the prices on a brown paper bag. Often you would then say, “Put it on my tab” and off you would go. Larger orders could be phoned in and would be delivered to your door, more often than not, by a delivery boy on a bicycle with a huge basket on the front.

If you lived in the newly built suburbs you could be sure that the milkman, the laundry man and the bakery truck would make regular stops at your door and every Saturday during the summer the vegetable truck would drive slowly up your street loaded with fresh produce right from the farm.

Sometimes, however, you needed items that just weren’t available locally. Then you would head “downtown” for an afternoon of serious shopping. Having grown up in Stratford, Connecticut, going downtown always meant going to Bridgeport. Going downtown was an event and as such you needed to be dressed accordingly. Women would always wear a hat and white gloves while men wore a suit, tie and their best felt hats. While slacks for women were just beginning to come into fashion, (mainly in Hollywood and other places where “loose” women abounded) it was still considered disgraceful, at least in our house, to be seen in public wearing them.

Usually a trip downtown started with a ride on a bus. In our locale that meant either a big green and cream colored CR&L (Connecticut Railway and Lighting) bus or, if you lived in the Lordship section of town, a Grey Line bus. Regardless of which your trip would end right in the center of the city, on the corner of Main and Fairfield Avenues. The W.T. Grant Company 5&10 cent store (a much more upscale version of today’s dollar stores) was right on the corner and usually your first stop. This store was always like a wonderland to me. In addition to a large selection of toys there was the pet department in the basement. Stopping by to see the brightly colored parakeets, canaries and goldfish was always the highlight of my trip. I still remember my pet turtle and his little plastic pool, with an island and plastic palm tree, which came from one of those visits. After shopping the many isles and perhaps picking up a couple of spools of thread or some yarn, it usually was nearing lunch time.

On the other side of Fairfield Avenue was the multi-storied and elegant Howland’s Department Store. Entering past it’s many beautifully decorated display windows we would nod hello to the floor walker and head for the elevators. We then would wait to catch one that was going down. Once in the basement the neatly uniformed operator would open the doors and announce, “Basement… appliances, cameras and cafeteria” or something to that effect.

Making our way to cafeteria, we would always discuss what we were going to have. In my case it was easy. I always had a BLT and a glass of chocolate milk. My grandmother, who was my usual shopping companion on these trips, would always order an egg salad sandwich and a cup of tea. In spite of this routine it was amazing to see all the different foods we had to choose from and to watch all the other well-dressed people as they sat and ate.

The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping in the various stores and boutiques that lined Main Street. Reads Department Store was a must for items such as new slipcovers and drapes and sometimes we would stop at the Buster Brown shoe store to get me a new pair of school shoes and to see my feet through the newfangled x-ray machine. It was fun to look into the machine and watch the bones of your toes wiggle inside your new shoes, but, as it turned out, quite dangerous too.

If I had been quite good, the trip usually ended up at Kresge’s 5&10 where I could select any toy as long as it wasn’t too expensive. Then it was back on the bus in order to get home in time to have dinner on the table when my grandfather and aunt arrived from work.

Yes folks, there really was a time like that. The stores were all closed by 6 p.m. except on Thursdays when they stayed open until 9 p.m. Five o’clock was the usual closing time on Saturdays and no one ever thought of opening a store on Sunday. In fact, under Connecticut’s so-called “blue laws” it was illegal for most stores to open on a Sunday. Somehow we managed to survive just fine with this system. People managed to buy what they needed when the stores were open and the store employees where able to spend at least one day a week with their families. Just as importantly, all families had one day a week free from shopping chores. This was time to spend together as a family. What you did wasn’t as important as the fact that you were doing it together.

How many families today spend a good part of every weekend at the mall? Mom goes one way, the kids go another and if dad is even there he ends up in the tool department at Sears. The focus has shifted from fun times spent with the family to how much stuff can we buy.

People mistakenly believe that the large retailers wanted to be open on Sundays. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I spent most of my working career employed by one of the nation’s largest retailers, and believe me; they fought it tooth and nail. However, once the laws were changed to allow Sunday sales they were forced to open to remain competitive. As predicted, sales never increased in proportion to the extended hours so that meant that the retailers where selling approximately the same amount of goods but doing it over seven days instead of six. This meant increased costs for the stores. It was a well kept secret but in my store over a three month period we meticulously raised every price in the store by 10 percent to cover this increased expense. So in the end it was the consumer, who lobbied for the “right” to shop on Sunday, which ended up paying the tab.

Personally, this started a thirty year battle over not working on Sundays. You see, I was hired before Sunday sales were allowed and as such had a contract that read that I had to be available for work from Monday to Saturday. This didn’t keep the company from applying a great deal of pressure to get me to sign the required waver, but I held fast. I always felt that being able to spend Sundays with my family was important enough to fight for. In the end I won. Out of over three hundred employees in my store, I was the only one who was never required to work on Sundays.

I still avoid shopping on Sundays out of principle. I never believed it was needed or desirable. This is just another example of a tear in the fabric of our culture and the values I grew up with. As far as anyone having the “right” to shop anytime they wish, they should more closely examine the meaning of the word “right.” If you wish to take this a step further, it is my firm belief that children have the right to spend quality time with their family.

I had better wrap this up before I begin to come across as more of a curmudgeon than I already have. In any case, I have some shopping to do.