Shopping trips to Boston

Every once in awhile my mother would drive into Boston to go shopping. It was an all day event. In the nice weather I would get dropped off at the Boston Public Gardens. There was a fenced in area where all the children stayed while their mothers shopped. It had a set of cubbies and you put your brown bag lunch in one of them. There were playground ladies to look after the children. We played all day and watched the swan boats. Other times I would get dropped off at my grandmother's house in Belmont. Grammy and I would often hide in the pantry and sneak potato chips. My mother never bought potato chips and Grammy took great delight in us hiding what we were doing from my mother.


My mother shopped at Filene's (especially the basement), Jordan Marsh, R.H. Stearns, and Gilchrists. These were the major department stores of the day. They had massive window displays along the streets that were decorated at Christmas with animated holiday scenes. It was an annual event to go "window shopping" on a Sunday before Christmas and then have brunch at the Parker House. There would be crowds of people lining the sidewalks, looking at the windows, as the stores were closed on Sundays then .



My father was the one with the favorite saying in our house at Christmas. He would open his presents and exclaim "oh, my favorite brand...irregular!" Just as he was known for his tailor made suits, my mother was known for her shopping prowess at Filene's basement. Labels on all their marked down items were always stamped "irregular". I grew up wearing clothes that my mother had sewn or the infamous irregular brand. One of the first things I bought when I got my first job was a pair of Papagallo shoes from the Papagallo store, $25.00 on my $65.00 a week salary. My mother was mortified and I was in shoe heaven. Like Carrie and her Manolo's, I had designer shoes in colors to match every outfit. I was determined that "irregular" was not going to be in my vocabulary.