Ojai Valley News Blog

Commentary by Bill Buchanan
It is almost Easter — which was one of my least favorite holidays as a kid.  When I was growing up Easter meant two things —- well, two additional things — extra worship services and shopping for new clothes to wear to church.  Easter Sunday meant dressing up and wearing your best, which meant a trip or two to the store to get something shiny and new.I have heard it said that women shop, men replace. Given some of the shopping experiences I endured as a child and the emotional scar tissue I still carry from it, I can see why that might be the case.As a kid, I despised shopping. You had to stop playing, go inside, get cleaned up, put on nice clothes and go into shop after shop after shop to find shoes, pants, shirts, etc. This meant losing hours of playtime that could never be regained. Generally, shopping with my mother, sister and maiden aunt was an exercise in extreme boredom, followed by total humiliation. While waiting for the adults as they shopped, there was little for a kid to do. Chasing my sister around and hiding from my mother in the clothes racks provided only limited entertainment. Add in the fact that I got scolded and sometimes smacked on the behind for such behavior, and shopping became something even more dreaded.The humiliation came when it was time to shop for my clothes. I was a chunky little kid. My mother and I would walk to the boys’ department of the store. As soon as a salesperson flashed any sign of recognition of our presence, my mother would undergo a transformation. Normally a demure, soft-spoken Southern woman, she would suddenly evolve into a human megaphone. From about 100 yards away, she would belt out, “We’re looking for some pants!”  Then, gazing down at me, she would add, “And he’ll need a husky!” This would be uttered at a decibel level roughly equal to that of a departing jet or an Aerosmith concert.Then we would begin the ritualistic torture of selecting clothes to take to the dressing room. My mother would stand just outside the door, passing garment after garment to me. I would dutifully try on each item of clothing, and then trot out for inspection. My mother was a careful shopper, and had a keen eye for any imperfection in the material. While I just wanted to get it over with, my mother would turn me in 60 different directions, only to say, “No, that shirt has a spot on it” or “No, that seam is pulling loose.” Then we would start the procedure all over again. It seemed like we did this for hours. I felt like Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day.”It might have been worth it all if all the work had paid off, sartorially speaking. But my sweet mother had heinous taste in boy’s clothes. I look back on childhood pictures in amazement and horror at some of the outfits I was forced to wear in public. There were oddly patterned coats and short pants and skinny clip-on ties and bizarre little hats that made me look like I had just landed in this country on a boat from a Soviet-bloc nation. Fabrics were chosen for their sturdiness and length of wear rather than for comfort. There were many hot Southern Sundays that saw me squirming around on the church pew in a scratchy wool suit that felt like it was made out of haircut clippings.Years later, when I was allowed to shop on my own, I enjoyed the experience a lot more. One of my favorite shops growing up was a small store owned by Heiman Ziedeman. I loved going into Ziedeman’s. Mr. Ziedeman was Jewish and German, which made him a very rare commodity in rural Alabama. It would be akin to finding a really good interior decorator at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. I did not realize until later that my friend had escaped Hitler’s Nazi Germany because he feared for his life.One of the things I liked most about the store was the beautiful Persian cat that always lounged lazily on the television he kept in the shop. The TV was always on, but I don’t think anyone ever watched it. I think it was kept on so the cat had a warm place to lie. Whenever I was in the shop I would go over to the television and scratch the cat on her belly and behind her ears and listen to her purr.Mr. Ziedeman had a wonderful accent and I loved to hear him speak — -”zis” and “zat” and “yah.” One day two friends from high school and I went into the shop for some pants. I was browsing through the rack of pants, and Mr. Ziedeman came up to assist us. “Hello, yunk man (he always called boys young man), vat size trousers do you need?” By this time, I had hit a growth spurt, and was tall and slender. I answered, “Size 32 (waist), please, sir.”He pointed me to the right rack, then he turned to one of my friends, who was not so slender (in fact, kind of short and pudgy), and asked, “And vat size pants do you vare yunk man?”My friend replied, “Yeah, I’ll take a size 32, too.”Mr. Ziedeman looked down at his midsection, and without missing a beat, said, “Yunk man, I vill eat za pair of serty-twos zat you can vare.”My other friend and I laughed so hard we almost fell over the rack. The story soon became legend in our high school. And that one shopping trip almost made up for all the bad ones I had endured as a child.