Sometimes, we all look back with fond memories

PRIME – December 2013 By Debbie Gardner debbieg@thereminder.com I was very taken with columnist Jane O'Donoghue's piece in this issue, in which she fondly recalls the hustle and bustle of downtown Springfield during the 1940s, when World War II was raging, gasoline was in short supply, and everyone took the bus. It was the heyday of city centers, when shoppers could find nearly anything they wanted – from fine china to books to a steak for the evening meal – in the shops large and small the lined Main Street and surrounding blocks. Her memories of working at Kresge's sounded much like my mother's tales of Muriel's Dress Shop, her after-school job when she was a student at Springfield's High School of Commerce. Mom walked down the hill from school to work, but took the city's crowded, end-of-the-day buses home to my grandmother's house in what is now known as the North End. As it is now, the North End was the place where immigrant families got their start in the city, and my Portuguese grandparents owned a home in a neighborhood that also had families with Greek, Jewish and French roots. My mom has often told me about her neighborhood friends, of having special plates at her Jewish girlfriend's home when she visited for diner, and of singing in the choir of the Greek Orthodox church with another girlfriend. Springfield was a melting pot back then. The languages may have changed over the years, but the neighborhood still serves the same function. It's a place to get a start, and to call home. A few years back, when my son was playing in the city's little leagues, something one of his coaches said to me really brought that point home. A Latino man whose son was an ace pitcher on our team, the coach smiled broadly at my husband and I the afternoon we played a game in Van Horn Park, greeting us and the other parents with, "Welcome to my neighborhood." I smile back and told him I knew the neighborhood well, and that my Portuguese grandparents had owned a two-family home a block down from the park when I was very young. To this day I still remember sharing orange Popsicles with my grandfather on a bench in that park. But I think it was Mrs. O'Donoghue's memories of Christmastime in downtown Springfield that resonated the most with me. You see, I remember a bit of the city's former holiday hustle and bustle myself. Long before I became editor of PRIME, I had another career working at a department store in downtown Springfield. It was 1980 – granted long after Mrs O'Donoghue's memories of the city at holiday time – but it was still a time before 6 a.m. Thanksgiving morning openings, online shopping, and Christmas trees showing up in stores before the Halloween decorations have been taken down. My first year there, I remember the members of our visual display department strategizing how they would transform the store from its everyday look to a holiday wonderland by the time the doors opened on the day after Thanksgiving (now known as Black Friday). Back then, our store management decreed there could be no hint of holiday decorating on display before the turkey was carved, and those dedicated men and women rushed in after their family meals to spend the entire night getting the store – and its large street-level display windows – ready to greet holiday shoppers the next morning. Our store was not alone in these elaborate preparations, it was a ritual repeated at shops large and small up and down Main Street, from Johnson's Bookstore to Casual Corner to the Liberty Bakery in Baystate West – the urban shopping mall now known as Tower Square. Salvation Army Santas rang bells to attract attention to their kettles on every street corner back then, and there would always be a crush of holiday shoppers on the sidewalks, especially on Thursday evenings when all the stores stayed open late. I was privileged to see the city's first-ever Parade of the Big Balloons the day after Thanksgiving from the airwalk of Baystate West, standing next to my boss and the parade's organizer, Judy Matt. I remember thinking what a great idea it was, and how it was bringing families back to downtown and the stores that lined her streets. The parade still take place, this year on Nov. 29, but the families who line the streets will find fewer places to visit after the festivities. I'm glad I saw downtown Springfield when it was still a lively place to shop.