It is not really a long trip, between 2 and a half and three hours, but it is to about four blocks west of “The Circle” which has in its center The Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Back in the days before malls, when big department stores were downtown, the day after Thanksgiving, the stores would unveil windows that featured animated elves and reindeer and all sorts of Christmastime scenes.
My parents would take me and you know, I honestly think it was more magical than anything Pixar can come up with. We stood in the cold of November, dressed up because we were going to Indianapolis and stared in at all the creative wonders. It was the W.H. Block Company that I remember most. If I remember correctly, Block’s also had pneumanic tubes that transferred money up to a central office, and brought back the change. Tubes right through the air – who would have thought?
But, tomorrow, I will not be in the back seat, riding along. I will be driving, and that’s okay, except Interstates run through the city and there I’m not certain about parking around the Government buildings. We are going early, leaving plenty of time to get where we are going, because we don’t know the correct lane without GPS.
We’ll be down by the Indiana Central Canal – and if I have time, I’ll probably go over and stand there thinking of towpaths and times gone by. Then I’ll get in the car and turn on the GPS again. Kind of a little bit of guilt there.
When we lived in Chicago we would go downtown every year and spend an hour or so walking along the street gawking at the amazing mechanical Christmas displays. Marshall Fields had the best ones ever. Every year now I go into a mall or store and am so disappointed because the decorations are so bland, and usually the same ones they had the year before.
Oh Oh Oh… and the pneumatic tubes. I loved going to the department store in the town next to us because they had a pneumatic tube and we would wait in anticipation for it to zip up to the office on the second floor. It was quite fun. For some odd reason the bank drive-through today doesn’t bring about the same level of excitement.
Yes, I know, the bank is just not the same. And how about escalators? To this day, I can hear a whisper of my parents’ warning when I use one.
Half the time, I walk into a mall in December and think, “Oh, poinsettias, wow. (Audible” SIGH.” And everyone is so politically correct, sigh again. Being a decade older than you, when I went as a little girl to see Block’s windows, I was wearing the required velvet coat with the matching hat and black patent leather shoes with ankle socks. I do remember there was an advantage to being short and having been well-dressed by Mother – adults would always make room for me to get so close to the windows that I practically left a nose print on them.