Do you remember being asked what you wanted to “be” when you grew up? My mother would, when someone asked me, reply, “She wants to be a nurse. What did I want to be? It wasn’t a nurse.
Let me explain.
My future occupation was inspired by a once yearly trip before Christmas.
Outfitted in our best clothes and with pointed instructions about behavior, Mom would take us “downtown” to Abraham and Strauss or A & S’s, an iconic and elegant department store complete with fountains and elaborate Christmas decorations arranged around a five story atrium, flanked by a row of gleaming elevators.
I remember one in year in particular. I was 7, my sister Kathleen was 5, our brother was 4 and the baby, Joan, was 3. This was the first year that Mom had included two youngest on this expedition. It boggles the mind that my mother had the courage and fortitude to accomplish this especially when we travelled by subway.
We went there to visit Santa Claus. I had mixed feeling about this. I was anxious, a 7-year old’s anxious. Would Santa reveal some venal thing I had done that might have put me on the naughty list? Would he talk to me at all? Would I remember the list of things that I had been carefully crafting since Halloween? And while desperately afraid I was also gleefully anticipating the gift that each child received after speaking with Saint Nick.
Thoughts of that gift enabled me to keep it all together as the line moved me and my siblings closer to Santa, a replica of Nast’s jolly elf. The setting itself was typical of the style of A&S’s. He was surrounded by tinsel covered Christmas trees glowing with multicolored lights and he was assisted by elves dressed in red velvet and white fur that sparkled as much as the lighted trees. There was nothing like this at home. I was transported. Especially because I could easily see the pile of boxes from which a helper would gift each child. I can remember holding my breath. What excitement!
My sister Kathleen wasn’t impressed by anything beyond that she too knew that there would be her own gift. But my brother was something else. From the moment he saw Santa Claus, he began to whine and as the line brought him closer the whining became crying until, when at Santa’s lap, he began to scream. My mother was mortified, scandalized. She had taken such great pains to get us all dressed up. She was the proud parent of her four offspring in one of the most elegant stores in Brooklyn only to become the center of attention, unwanted attention as she took screaming Richard from Santa. Neither Richard nor Joan got one of the post-Santa toys. I do remember one of Santa’s helpers trying to give two boxes to Mom who was heading away with four children in tow at supersonic speed.
We visited so many places in the marvelous store, not buying anything, but soaking up the elaborate and luxurious way that everything was displayed. At least as much as small children can absorb anything more than a feeling of “more than normal”. Then it was time to return to the real world via one of Abraham and Strauss’s gleaming bronze elevators. And there I found that which was the inspiration for how I would live the rest of my life.
At home, we entered our house through a door that led to a space under the stoop where we stored the garbage cans. But at A&S’s the doors that led to into the ornate elevators were beyond anything we could imagine. They literally shone with the mirrored bronze facades.
Although I had mixed feelings about Santa, I had only a singular feeling about those elevator rides. It was like stepping into a moving fantasy. Built with brass and gold appointment, during Christmas they also had walls of glittering lights. Art Deco finishing made them elegant but it was gloved and uniformed elevator operator that captured my heart and soul. What a wonderful thing it would be to ride up and down announcing each floor in that beautiful uniform. I was in love with that job. A seven year old’s version of paradise.
A& S’s meant Santa, gifts and panache but even more was an infatuation that meant that for many years when I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was elevator operator.
But elevator operators went the way of buggy whip salesman, so I had to reimagine what I would be …I am still reimagining.
