Happy Monday, again. I always look forward to Mondays, as they’re my 52 Chances a year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with you.
There’s a trifecta of three grand shopping events, happening this week – National Shopping Reminder Day (today), Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. By the way, Wednesday is the start of National Deal Week, as well.
National Shopping Reminder Day or a shopping reminder app may seem silly to some but trust me, speaking from personal experience, there are people that need this reminder (just like the gratitude app that I mentioned last week).
Some years, I’m so busy working, I just don’t have the time – or I don’t make the time – for all of my traditional holiday crafting, decorating, baking, fudge-making, card-sending, and shopping. Things continually get cut from my checklist because suddenly Christmas is here and there’s no more time left.
All of the hustle and bustle and frustrations that many people feel around this time of year is quite common and partly why Shopping Reminder Day came to be a national observance – to help ease the anxiety and procrastination of our holiday shopping (whether it’s for the gifts, holiday food, and/or decorations).
You could say shopping was one of Mom’s favorite activities or hobbies. She never needed a reminder to go shopping. Instead, she was always looking for excuses to go shopping. She especially loved the large department stores like Sears, Macy’s, J.C. Penny’s, and J.L. Hudson’s.
Department store dining rooms and cafeterias were originally created for customers to be able to pause during their deal-hunting excursions but remain in the same store, resting and rejuvenating and then shopping more; instead of shopping quickly and moving on to a restaurant and other stores.
Retailers believed that, in this way, customers could get some sustenance for more shopping energy, while spending more money there than at a restaurant elsewhere; and, thus, continue shopping there instead of going to another place.
It was based on the theory that the longer consumers were in the store, the more likely they were to look at more things and, therefore, buy more, as well. It was a groundbreaking marketing tactic to attract and keep shoppers in the store longer – and it worked, for quite a while.
Traditionally, since about the 1950s, Black Friday has been the high point of holiday shopping; when shoppers would physically go out (dark and early) to the brick-and-mortar stores for the best deals of the year.
Extreme customers would wait in lines outside of the stores for hours (even days, camping in front of the stores) before they’d officially open their doors for their “special” Black Friday deals. Since the 1990s, extreme deals have often been offered at midnight or during the earliest hours of the day.
However, now the trend is changing again. It seems like, during the last couple of years, more stores (online and physical) have been competing with November’s “Black Friday” event, as well as each other, by offering “Early Black Friday” deals, as soon as July and through October.
We’re in a new era where online shopping and home delivery are more popular. Brick-and-mortar stores and malls are becoming relics of the past, as we’ve witnessed many closings across America. Lakeside Mall, one of Mom’s favorite shopping destinations since the 1970s, recently closed its doors for good, too.
“Whoever said money can’t buy happiness, simply didn’t know where to go shopping.” – Gertrude Stein
In its glory days, the Detroit Hudson’s store was the tallest department store in the world. They closed that store in 1983. The historical building was later imploded in 1998. Great information about the property’s re-development project and the history of J.L. Hudson’s is at https://www.hudsonssitedetroit.com/.
Hudson’s was one of Mom’s most favorite shopping spots and their dining room was one of her favorite noshing places, too. Over the decades, she developed at least 76 imitations of their dining room offerings. I’m still working on that “Master Index of Gloria Pitzer’s Secret Recipes (1973-2018)”. Hopefully, I’ll be able to post it this coming January.
FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
The Original 200 Plus Secret Recipes© Book (Secret RecipesTM, Marysville, MI; June 1997, p. 16)
HUDSON’S OF DETROIT – THE WAY IT ONCE WAS!
DURING THE FINANCIAL PANIC of 1873, Joseph L. Hudson was a young man, working with his father in a men’s clothing store in Michigan. Times were hard. Customers couldn’t pay their bills.
After Joseph’s father died, partly from worrying, young Joseph struggled with the business for about three years and eventually went into bankruptcy, in spite of all he tried to do to bring the business up.
He paid his creditors 60 cents on the dollar and, with great determination, began over again! Through remarkable enterprise and ingenuity, in 12 years, he owned a store in Detroit.
Even more remarkable, he located all the creditors whose claims had been erased by the bankruptcy proceedings and paid them in full – even though they did not ask it of him.
This so astounded the business world, in 1888, that Hudson’s reputation as an honest man, caring for his customers as much is his creditors, that word spread and the store became one of Detroit’s most important, not only in the state, but eventually in the entire country.
He established major shopping centers in metropolitan Detroit, beginning in 1953 with the magnificent Northland Center, the first of its kind in the country. At the time of this writing [1997], Hudson’s, merged with Dayton and with Marshall Fields, no longer offers the personal hometown touch that it used to have…
Their original building on Woodward and Farmer Street, in downtown Detroit, once controlled the shopper’s mecca with Kern’s and Crowley’s, as well, in that area. We have seen the passing of a great institution, but I am so glad I did not lose the precious recipes [for which] the Hudson’s dining room and bakery were known…
The mall concept was an expansion of the department store and dining idea, keeping consumers eating and shopping “under the same roof” but with a conglomeration of small businesses, eateries, and a few “anchor” department stores, all together. It also inadvertently promoted walking.
FUN FACT: 20 Everyday Activities and the Calories They Burn, by the Editors of Publications International, Ltd. (date unknown), says that “pushing a cart up and down the [store] aisles for an hour will burn 243 calories”.
In recent years, with so many mall closings, the holiday deal shopping occasion has also been focusing more on Small Business Saturday. Small businesses are where the holiday shopping event first began in the late 1800s. Many local stores sponsored Thanksgiving parades, following which they’d open their doors to begin the holiday shopping season.
MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
My Cup Runneth Over And I Can’t Find My Mop (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989, p. 53)
RISKS – THE HARD ROAD TO SELF-SUFFICIENCY
THERE ARE MANY RISKS involved with going into business for yourself, no matter what product or service you intend to offer. If I had thought more about the risks than I did about the possibilities, I never would have moved an inch toward doing any of the things about which I now write.
My husband is not a risk-taker. I am. We complement each other well. He still becomes uneasy and anxious about every new idea I have for another book or another project, on the basis that ‘we can’t afford it.’
I have learned, over the years, to keep many of my projects to myself until they are completed, which in the long run saves Paul from worrying unnecessarily about something that will very likely turn out well and keeps me from worrying that Paul is worrying.
Some people experience a certain let-down, after reaching what they consider ‘the top’. When they finally reach the Everest of their ambitions [and] make it to the top, they start to wonder why they were in such a hurry to get there anyhow.
Like Lee Iacocca, who was only in his mid-40s when he was president of the Ford Motor Company, writes in his autobiography, [that he had] no idea what he was going to do ‘for an encore’. I have never had to worry about this…
When I have been asked about goals or destination, it is been my feeling that every corner I turn has a new goal, a new destination awaiting us. I have never thought of any one point as being the top.
Life has so many wonderful opportunities for each of us to take advantage of, that it does not seem reasonable that I should give myself the limitations that would determine just how far I should be able to go.
Because this was never a hobby, never WORK, never a job, I have had no problem with the worry or concern that accompanies a position from which one expects to retire. I would not want to give up what I have been doing since I was a child [writing].
It would be unfair to have to give up doing something that has also brought so much pleasure and good information to so many people. It was, however, only when I realized WHAT I should be writing about and what I should be sharing with the readers – what I knew best – that things really began to happen.
Of course, my husband wisely reminds me, when someone asked about writing their own cookbook, that WRITING it is the easiest part. Knowing how to SELL it is the hard part!
LAST THOUGHTS…
Thanks for visiting! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my memories of my mom, her memories, and other related things. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at [email protected]. You can also find me on Facebook: @TheRecipeDetective.
IN CLOSING…
In honor of tomorrow, being National Cake Day, here’s Mom’s imitation of “Holiday Inn Banana Cake”; as seen in her self-published cookbook, The Original 200 Plus Secret Recipes© Book (Secret RecipesTM, Marysville, MI; June 1997, p. 14). As always, I’m asking only for proper credit if you care to re-share it.
P.S. Food-for-thought until next Monday…
November observes… Banana Pudding Lovers Month, Family Stories Month, National Diabetes Month, National Fun with Fondue Month, National Gratitude Month, National Inspirational Role Models Month, National Life Writing Month, National Native American Heritage Month, National Novel Writing Month, National Peanut Butter Lovers Month, National Pepper Month, National Pomegranate Month, National Raisin Bread Month, National Roasting Month, Spinach and Squash Month, Sweet Potato Awareness Month (See also February), and National Vegan Month – among other things.
This week celebrates… National Game & Puzzle Week and Better Conversation Week, which is always week of Thanksgiving (24th-30th, for 2024).
Today is… National Play Day with Dad and National Parfait Day.
Tomorrow is also… National Good Grief Day.
Wednesday, November 27th, is… National Bavarian Cream Pie Day and National Craft Jerky Day. Plus, as the day before Thanksgiving (for 2024), it’s also… Tie One On Day.
November 28th is… National French Toast Day. Plus, as the fourth Thursday in November (for 2024), it’s also… Thanksgiving Day.
November 29th is… Electronic Greetings Day. Plus, as the day after Thanksgiving (for 2024), it’s also… National Native American Heritage Day, National Buy Nothing Day, and National Maize Day.
November 30th is… National Mason Jar Day, National Mousse Day, and National Mississippi Day.
Sunday is the start of December, which observes… National Pear Month, National Write A Business Plan Month, Operation Santa Paws (always the 1st-24th), Root Vegetables and Exotic Fruits Month, Worldwide Food Service Safety Month, National Human Rights Month, and Universal Human Rights Month, among other things.
December 1st is also… National Pie Day and National Eat a Red Apple Day. Plus, as the start of the first week of the month, it’s also… National Cookie Cutter Week.
Have a great week and shop till you drop – Mom would if she could!
…48 down and only 4 more to go, for 2024!
