Sally Breslin: My Life: SHOPPING DOWNTOWN DEFINITELY WASN'T FOR WIMPS

ELM STREET IN DOWNTOWN MANCHESTER,
NH...WAY BACK WHEN

Although my visit was brief, the last time I shopped in the Mall of New Hampshire I left there feeling as though I should be sitting in a rocking chair, wearing a shawl and knitting. No kidding, I think I was the oldest person in the place.

Throngs of teenagers were crammed into every nook and cranny of the mall. Most weren’t even shopping, they were just “posing,” like an army of jeans-clad mannequins. And they, both male and female, all seemed to be posing for the same reason…to attract other teenagers.

Although it’s been over 100 years since I was a teenager, I find myself thinking that things haven’t changed all that much over the years. I mean, the Mall of NH really is nothing more than the downtown Elm Street of my day…only with a roof over it.

I guess one of the biggest differences between the malls of today and Manchester’s Elm Street when I was a teen was shopping took a lot more guts, stamina and energy. And strutting up and down Elm street in mid-winter while wearing four layers of clothes didn’t exactly attract a whole lot of teenage guys.

But when I was in the mall one frigid winter night, the temperature inside was a balmy 115 degrees – perfect for all the navel-baring fashions the young girls were displaying. I, however, in my heavy sweater, boots, flannel-lined jacket and scarf, was about as comfortable as a polar bear in Tahiti. My lips were so dry by the time I got out of the place, I was afraid if I smiled, they’d crack into pieces and fall off my face.

Back when I was a teen, my friend Sandi and I were all excited about the first two malls that opened in the area: the Bedford Mall and the Nashua Mall (not to be confused with the modern and much spiffier Pheasant Lane Mall). Every weekend we’d get all dressed up in our sharpest outfits and drive to Bedford to roam through the mall there. Then we’d hop onto the turnpike and head to Nashua and do some more shopping in that mall.

That sense of adventure rapidly wore thin, however. No matter how “cool” the malls were, my heart still belonged on Elm Street. In fact, the stores downtown held so many special memories for me, I actually felt like a traitor whenever I set foot in a mall.

I also felt like a wimp, a real sissy, in malls. I mean, unlike shopping on Elm Street, mall shopping was pretty cushy. There were no skirts flying up to women’s waists or hairstyles being whipped to within an inch of their lives by the tornado-like winds that always greeted shoppers at the corner of Elm and Hanover Streets, even when the weather was calm everywhere else. And there were no puddles to leap over or snow to trudge through to get from store to store.

In malls, I also missed the Santa Clauses of all shapes and sizes ringing bells on street corners; policemen blowing whistles and motioning everyone to cross the street; and most of all, Old Mike, the newspaper man who walked up and down Elm Street every day shouting, “Leader paper, get your Leader paper!” as he peddled the New Hampshire Union Leader.

Maybe I’m just biased, but I think the stores on Elm Street back in the 1950s and ‘60s were a lot more fun than the ones in the malls of today. I still vividly remember the live hand-painted turtles and baby alligators upstairs in Woolworth’s pet department. And the lunch counter there and the one at J. J. Newberry’s always were favorite places to stop for a snack or a cold drink (or hot chocolate in the winter - served in real ceramic mugs). I’ll never forget the day my mother and I sat eating chocolate-cream pie (also served on real ceramic plates) at the lunch counter in Newberry’s when we spotted a big cockroach with whipped cream on its back scurrying across the counter. I was only a kid, so I thought it was hilarious.

But for some reason, my mother, her complexion suddenly looking a bit greenish, didn’t see any humor in it whatsoever.

And then there was Moreau’s Department/Hardware store where I, when I was just a little kid, saw a beautiful Lazy-Susan with dainty porcelain dishes on it on display and gave it such a forceful spin, all of the little dishes went flying off with such force, they looked as if they’d been launched by NASA…before they crashed to the floor. That time, my mom’s complexion wasn't greenish, it was a few shades paler than usual.

The store that was the most fun, however, was Leavitt’s Department Store – five spacious floors containing every item imaginable, from baby clothes to lawnmowers. The store even had an elevator that was run by an actual human who announced which departments were on each floor. Where else could a person take an elevator ride to the mezzanine? (Heck, I didn’t even know the meaning of that word until I shopped in Leavitt’s!).

And there was “Jerry the Cobbler” down in Leavitt’s basement, where he worked miracles on old, worn-out shoes and made them look new again. OK, so maybe he did intimidate people a little at first, what with all of his tattoos, long black hair and stories about his wild times with the Hell’s Angels, but he sure knew his way around a shoe.

Leavitt’s also gave free Gold Bond stamps with every purchase. One floor in the store was devoted to a large redemption center where customers could trade in their stamps for merchandise. I ended up with so many Gold Bond items, I could have opened my own redemption center after a while. Even to this day, I’m still using some of the avocado-green, Teflon-coated pots and pans I got with those stamps.

Now that I think about it, I suppose Leavitt’s Department Store was Elm Street’s closest thing to a mall – a vertical mall.

And I can’t count how many hours I spent listening to 45 r.p.m. records at Manchester Music, where customers were allowed to try out records before they actually bought them. That probably explains why it was so difficult to buy a record there that wasn’t scratched. It didn’t bother me, though, because I always did more listening than buying anyway.

But in all fairness to the malls of today, I must give them credit for having one thing that’s a lot better than what Elm Street had: public restrooms. I’ll tell you, just one trip to the Merrimack Common area of Elm Street, where you had to descend a spooky flight of subway-like steep stairs beneath the sidewalk before you reached the “fragrant" underground world of those public restrooms, was enough to give you an instant case of constipation.

Nope, shopping on Elm Street definitely was not for wimps.

But in all honesty, I must confess…I loved every minute of it.

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Sally Breslin is a native New Englander and an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net

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