I emptied out my office closet. 
 
And, lo and behold, there was a treasure trove of stuff that matters—stuff that I swore had been tossed out, by design or by accident, years before. 
 
I already knew where to find my labels for file folders, business envelopes and blank cards because I use all of them. But I didn’t expect to find childhood drawings more than 50 years old; love letters from years during and right after college, and my first circus contract.   
 
The drawings were in an oversized manila envelope that my mother had saved. 
 
Most of the contents went into the recycle pile, but I couldn’t resist keeping several yellowed, blue-lined sheets that show off my perfect cursive writing. 
 
And, there’s the picture above.  I was six years old when I made this, and no doubt the teacher wrote the poem on
a blackboard for everyone to copy.  But the writing is entirely mine, as are the red crayoned hearts with those
kite tail tendrils.  
 
Another large packet held love letters from three different beaus, all older than me, two of them irascible newspapermen who didn’t much like anyone.  But because they liked me, and really liked me, I couldn’t help but feel special in their arms.
 
Yet, these were also men proficient at mind games—vowing to call and then not doing so, or confirming a time to meet and then not showing.  Reading their missives, I know now that I wasn’t imagining their love.  But today, I can also see that they were incapable of making commitments, although the letters indicate otherwise. 
 
There were also notes from someone else, a boy who was sweeter, and closer to my age.
 
He was ready for the relationship I thought I wanted, and absolutely the most mature.  But I knew how to play games, too, and wounded him so deeply that I will regret the way I treated him for the rest of my life.  This remorse is still so raw that when I came upon his notes, I recycled every one of them.  Perhaps because the friendship happened around the time I attended Clown College, I found my first circus contract in the same packet. The gig paid $175 per week, and now I remember that I thought I was going to be rich.      
 
Then I found two plastic containers with lime green lids, both involving my daughter.
 
The first was from her time in Daisy, the Girl Scouts group for kindergarteners.  There was the uniform, a blue apron neatly folded and replete with eight iron-on flower petals in the center.  Snuggled beside it was a green vest with badges for marching in a parade; visiting a children’s museum, and being a responsible pet owner.  On top of it all was a certificate welcoming her to the next age level of scouting.  But we never made that tier because we moved away.     
 
This box is hers.  She can do whatever she wants with it, but I hope she’ll save the contents for the children she may have, maybe for them to play dress-up games.   
 
The other lime topped case held the happiest discovery of all.
 
There were my girl’s first stuffed animals—a pastel pink and blue plaid bear, and a yellow and red kitten, both sewn
by hand from the softest of fabrics.  Neither have buttons nor plastic, since I had been warned that babies could pick those off, put them in their tiny mouths, and choke.  A tightly tied up plastic bag was underneath, and that’s where
​the clothes were. 
 
It’s not just any outfit.
 
Here was the ensemble my daughter had on when she was first handed to me in a cramped hotel lobby in China.  Included were the tiniest of red fabric shoes with white rubber soles; crotchless yellow leggings, and two tops, one fuzzy and pink, the other a mock turtle neck with frolicking baby pandas.
 
This box belongs to my daughter, too.
 
But along with the childhood sketches, love letters and circus agreement, I’ll be keeping it. 
 

I don’t wear jeans anymore.    
 
This realization hit the other day while sorting laundry.    
 
There were sweatshirts and tees that I wear for tops, as well as half a dozen pairs of solid color leggings.  Plus, there was a pile of my new favorite pants—patterned drawstring pajamas just right for yoga. Khakis, one black and the other olive green, already hung in the closet.    
 
But there wasn’t any denim. 
 
Those who didn’t come of age in the 1960s probably can’t know how odd it is to not own a single pair of jeans.
 
I was a teenager in the middle and latter part of that decade, and almost until its end, girls could wear only dresses and skirts at school.  But in ninth grade, the dress code loosened: we were allowed pants on Fridays.  Still, jeans weren’t in the mix—they were considered low brow and not appropriate student apparel.     
 
That changed in just a couple of years.
 
A photo in my high school yearbook for my junior year has a class president striding toward the camera in bell bottom jeans and a denim work shirt.  I got my first grown-up jeans around the same time, basic Levi's that were the darkest of indigo, retrieved from a neat stack at a discount department store.  Wearing them in class, they made me seem way cooler than I was, and somehow, officially part of a new generation determined to bend tradition.     
 
I’m sure I had more than a few pairs of jeans while clowning on the road and in college, first at UCLA and then San Jose State, but mostly I remember the long jeans skirt bought at a flea market in Alameda, across the bay from San Francisco.  It boasted a triangle cutaway in front with a Technicolor cartoon drawing of Dopey, one of the seven dwarfs from the classic Disney movie.  I loved that skirt.       
 
My other friends mostly wore plain jeans; they were cheap and lasted for years.  I’m sure that none of us knew this college uniform was invented neither for fashion nor protest.  Instead, jeans were designed for purely utilitarian purposes:  California gold rush miners in 1850 needed the sturdiest of pants that could withstand hard work, ground-in dirt and very little chance of tearing.  Thus, denim trousers were born.      
 
But by the time I graduated from college, in 1979, jeans were high fashion.   
 
I’d moved to New York City that year to be a magazine writer, and women there wore the wildly popular Jordache brand, made of thinner fabric than my first jeans, and costing an outrageous $50 per pair. 
 
Started by the four Naccache brothers in Manhattan a year earlier, these siblings had taken notice of the European denim market, where jeans were worn not for work, but for fashion. The brothers’ timing was on target: at the height of Jordache’s success, during the 1980s, the company was raking in an annual $300 million in wholesale income.    
 
But what I recall most about my jeans then was the absolute necessity of having perfect straight creases down the middle—two in front and two in back. 
 
My best friend Jeanette taught me how, using large sheets of damp newspaper and a hot iron.  I did this so often that my ironing board was on permanent display in my Brooklyn apartment.
 
The decades passed, which included returning to California and finding a career in Hollywood—writer for a public relations outfit whose biggest client was the Cannes Film Festival; reporting for the West Coast bureau of a British movie trade publication, and becoming a producer for a variety of reality television shows about ghosts, unsolved murders and UFOs.  I worked long hours at all of these jobs, and found myself wearing jeans less and less.
 
Perhaps this was because I was growing more contented in my skin, and to that end, found that comfort was now the main dictate for my clothing choices.  I was especially weary of those jeans that saw me sucking in my stomach and holding my breath to get them on.  Wearing airy drawstring pants and loose skirts was just easier. 
 
Last year, the end finally arrived.
 
I donated the one pair of jeans in my closet—which I hadn’t put on in more than five years—to a thrift store. 
 
These days, the closest I come to wearing denim are jeggings, which hug my body in all the right places, but are also comfy and stretchy.    
 
One should never say never.  But I’m happy to report that the denim train has departed from this Girl Clown station—and most likely, isn’t going to return.   
 
Do you remember your first pair of jeans?  

Long before hundreds of television channels, cheap air fares and the Internet, there was the View-Master.
 
A modern version of a stereoscope (a device first invented in the 1800s, it was used to look at early photos in 3D), this particular model was marketed to post World War II baby boomers, and their parents, as a way to see the wonders of the world without ever leaving home.
 
And, in the years before the phrase “educational toy” existed, it was that as well. 
 
Like millions of other 1950s households, we had a View-Master.
 
Dark brown and made of Bakelite, the device was lightweight; resembled a Brownie camera, and was nearly impossible to break.  Clicking its single lever down with my thumb, I spent many afternoons peering at the dozens of View-Master “reels” (actually, cardboard discs inserted into the top of the viewer, one at a time, which then rotated with each click) in our collection.   
 
Each disc had a set of 14 slides, all in life-like 3D. The colors were also spectacular because each picture had been shot with Kodachrome. Sometimes a disc told a story from beginning to end, like a Woody Woodpecker cartoon. More often, they were touristy images of exciting and exotic places—Natural Habitats of Africa; The Oregon Caves, and Garden Isle of Hawaii.   
 
I recently discovered our View-Master in my garage.   There were also 35 reels, most with a date of 1955, and each one was still carefully tucked in its own blue and white envelope.  Everything was manufactured by Sawyer’s of Portland, Oregon, whose owners introduced their creation at the 1939 World Fair in New York City, and patented the device that year. 
 
I’d forgotten that I’d found the same box before, in another garage at another house.  I wasn’t ready to give it up then.  This toy had been an important part of my childhood: it gave me the fuel that let me dream about corners of the world that I knew our family could never afford to see in person.
 
I’ve done a good bit of traveling since my little girl self sat in a cramped living room, enthralled with our View-Master. 
 
Journeys have included crisscrossing the country as a professional circus clown, which included driving to every gig in my Datsun 710 sedan.  In the rear seat directly behind me were my costumes, makeup and props.  Next to me, the front passenger seat had been torn out to make room for a long plywood board and air mattress.  In this way, the car doubled as my bed, and after I made curtains for the windows, it wasn’t half bad.   
 
There have been other far-flung escapades.  I can still recall strolling down the greenest of hills in Switzerland, right next to cows wearing leather collars with bells on them, clanging with every step they took.  I’ve seen old-fashioned windmills turning in The Netherlands, and gazed up at Mount Fuji in Japan.  I brought my tiny baby girl home from China, and spent time in the former Republic of Georgia making a documentary film.  This past February, I went to Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, one of the most beautiful bodies of water on the planet.   
 
Each of these adventures has given me a perspective on the world that has helped shape me into the curious and questioning reporter that I am today.
 
But now, it’s time to pack up the View-Master and the reels.   
 
They’ll be in good hands, going to a friend on the East Coast who collects vintage toys.  As it turns out, he hasn’t been to nearly as many places as I’ve been lucky enough to see. 
 
But maybe the View-Master will change that.    

​I miss cafeterias.
 
I don’t mean the ones in school lunchrooms, but those that used to be in just about every city across America in the 1950s and ‘60s.
 
I loved the food, of course.  But the next best thing was how I got the food—pointing to exactly what I wanted, with each choice then handed to me by a female worker (never a man) wearing a starched white uniform with sensible shoes. 

​The line itself was both precise and artistic.  
. 
After grabbing a tray, the first stop was looking at the tiny white bowls of salads, all propped up on a narrow island of crushed ice.  Should I get coleslaw, or cottage cheese with a maraschino cherry on top, or sliced peaches?  Usually, I’d pick my favorite—strawberry Jell-O cut in identical, sparkly cubes. 
 
Under heat lamps and in the center of the line were the entrees.  There was chicken pot pie, and roasted turkeys
and hams and roasts, all carved to order.  Alongside were steam tables, with sides including mashed potatoes,
fresh succotash and brown gravy.  Next came baked-that-day bread and rolls, and then, on a second bed of shaved
ice, juices and milk. After that were desserts—featuring tapioca and rice puddings topped with whipped cream,
and displayed in crystal cut glass parfait dishes.  Sitting alongside those were from-scratch slices of fruit pie,
and chocolate and vanilla cake, too.     
 
The last stop was the cashier’s station.  Here, my entire meal cost, at most, a few dollars.     
 
Where I grew up—in Long Beach, a coastal city about 25 miles from Los Angeles—not one of these places was part
of a chain. 
 
Instead, they were owned and managed by local families, and had names like Riley’s, Arnold’s, Crown and Royal.  Because they were not only cost efficient, but big and well-lit and noisy, lots of families ate there, too, giving off an ambiance of good cheer and wholesomeness.  
 
One exception was a small chain called Clifton’s, which in its heyday had eight locations.
 
The most famous of these was Brookdale, opened in 1935 in downtown Los Angeles.  The food was also great, and with a kitschy redwood forest theme, it was also the largest cafeteria in the world.  Here, guests could sit near a working waterfall that meandered through the entire dining area; animated toy raccoons and a giant stuffed bear holding a fishing pole sat on custom built perches above them.  During the Great Depression, and even later, customers who couldn’t afford a meal could eat at any Clifton's for free.   
 
With their homey food choices, lots of folks think that cafeterias took off in the Midwest. 

But California is where the cafeteria craze began.
 
It started in 1905, when a woman named Helen Mosher opened a small restaurant where customers selected their food at a long counter, and then carried their trays to a table.  She called her place the Cafeteria (the same name as a smorgasbord restaurant that had opened a decade earlier in Chicago); by the 1920s, there were so many similar establishments in Southern California that one writer dubbed Los Angeles “Sunny Cafeteria.”   
 
Brisk and breezy, they were marketed as the new and modern way to dine, a place where customers could choose as much, or as little, food as they wanted. And because the food sold on its looks, it was designed to be appealing.
 
As a kid, I never imagined that cafeterias might vanish by the time I became an adult.
 
In the last four decades, fast food conglomerates—big on advertising and cheap ingredients, small on fresh and healthy choices—have supplanted the mom and pop places that I had once taken for granted.  
 
Indeed, the cafeterias of today only provide food where people go to eat because they have to—schools, hospitals and prisons.   At best, the choices are bland and unappealing; at worst, they’re tasteless and made edible only because most of the food is packed with sodium and sugar.
 
I don’t know if the cafeterias I loved will ever come back.  
 
But I do know that I’ll never stop missing them.
  

I grew up without a car.
 
This isn't a big deal if you’re from New York City or Boston, or even San Francisco.  Actually, I have friends who don’t drive because they live in places where owning a vehicle is more bother than necessity.
 
I’m a native of Southern California.
 
So, for folks like me—baby boomers in Los Angeles in the 1960s—a car was essential.    
 
Getting to Disneyland or Knott’s Berry Farm or Universal Studios was nearly impossible without a car.  You also couldn’t go to Malibu or Zuma, where those glorious beach party movies were filmed.  On a mundane note, taking mass transit to my orthodontist for an early morning appointment, or arriving at Sunday school on time, was out of the question.  And movies were the worst; we went on weekends, when buses ran only once an hour.  This meant is that we always arrived at the theatre 20 minutes after the film had started.        
 
My brother and I were told there wasn’t money for a car.
 
I accepted this fact when I was small.  
 
As I grew, though, I saw that every kid in our working class neighborhood had at least one car in his driveway, and at least one parent who drove.  Sure, these vehicles were older than what we saw on television, and had more dents, but at least the families who had them didn’t have to take the bus everywhere.
 
Later, I learned that years before I was born, my father had attempted to drive. 
 
This was back in the day when there were tricky gear shifts and clutches and chokes.  The family story is that after my dad crashed into a mailbox, he was done trying.  My mother never wanted to drive, so our carless fate was sealed.   
 
Thus, and in A Very Large Way, our lives revolved around buses.
 
Indeed, I think one big reason my parents bought the house we lived in was because it was half a block from a city bus stop.  The route here also stopped in front of my father’s workplace; another bus would take us downtown to shop.  In high school, a yellow school bus picked us up at the same corner.
 
When a bus couldn’t get us to our destination, my mother got creative. 
 
A family friend on his way to work dropped us off at the orthodontist; from there, we could catch a city bus to school.  My mother did grocery shopping with a neighbor; once a week, she’d climb into the woman’s station wagon, armed with coupons and ads, and buy enough food to last us until the next trip.  Another acquaintance had a son who attended synagogue with us, so she would provide our way there. 
 
By the time I was a senior in high school, I was determined to master driving.
 
But probably because my parents didn’t know how to drive, getting behind the wheel didn’t come easily.
 
An uncle gave me my first lessons in a car with a stick shift.  That ended when I couldn’t figure out how to steer, and nearly careened onto a front yard lawn.  I also braked too hard; didn’t always look in the mirrors I was supposed to look in, and couldn’t change lanes smoothly.   I failed my first driving test.  But after more lessons from my best friend’s father, I passed on the second try.
 
It was then that my parents bought their first car, a sensible copper-colored compact.  It was just for me, and they allowed me to take it to school, or to use it to run errands for them. 
 
After that car died, a cousin gave me his, which I used to travel across the country in when I was a circus clown.  And then I bought another, and then another.  Except for the years I lived in New York City, I have always had wheels.   
 
I like to think that having to take a bus nearly everywhere in car-crazy Los Angeles left no scars.
 
But it did.
 
I began encouraging my daughter to drive a full year before she decided she was confident enough to learn.  I get to movies at least 15 minutes early.  I always get the oil changed on time, because I never want my car to break down.  When it is in the shop for more than one day, I’ve made sure, well in advance, that The Hubster or a handful of neighbors will help me get around. 
 
And occasionally, whenever I see a child or an older woman at a bus stop, alone and looking worried, I give them a ride.  
 
 
​

I’ve seen it coming for a while now, but I’m still sad about it.
 
Yup, just like wearing a wrist watch to see what time it is; learning cursive writing in third grade, and snapping
photos using a stand-alone camera, another take-it-for-granted experience of years past is ready to join the
Soon to Be Extinct file.
 
It’s something I couldn’t have imagined even a few decades ago, but it appears that shopping at a department store—a cherished memory from childhood—is about to bite the dust.
 
Once upon a time, this sort of leisurely activity was a necessary component to growing up, especially for those of the female gender. 
 
When I was very young, my mother and I would don dresses and white gloves, and head off to Buffums’, the fancy pants department store in our town, where the very air itself seemed rarified, smelling like new money and clean carpets.  It might have even been where I was fitted for my first brassiere, and it was definitely the place to get our pictures taken every Christmas with Santa Claus.
 
A short walk away was Walker’s, a lower rent affair, but also several stories tall.  Here, its sewing department—imagine, a section just for seamstresses!—sported not only aisles of fabric, but embroidery thread in every color of the
rainbow; pillow cases with stamped patterns, and the metal hoops needed for what became one of my most consuming high school hobbies.
 
A big outdoor shopping mall was one city over, and we’d go there, too, spending most of our money at its anchor store, The May Company.  I distinctly remember buying a neon orange mini skirt with matching belt, size three, for seventh grade there.  And, this was probably the same store where my mother found my first bell bottoms—black and white, boasting a zebra themed pattern. (Looking back, my clothing choices back then were a definite predecessor to my clowning career a few years later.)
 
But department stores are now slogging through what most of us know: the only real constant in life is change.
 
To that end, millions of people—and I’m one of them—no longer leave their front doors to go shopping.  Purchasing the
​e-commerce way absolutely doesn’t have the panache that browsing through The May Company once had.  But let’s face facts: it’s way easier to buy stuff sitting at a home computer.  Plus, you can eat dinner at the same time; never get out of your pajamas, and not wonder where the bathroom is.   
 
The latest statistics on the demise of the department store aren’t favorable.
 
According to a roundup article in the March 20 issue of The Week magazine, Macy’s quarterly profits fell by nearly 40 percent, with other major stores, including Nordstrom, Kohl’s and J.C. Penney also reporting strong declines in same-store sales.  In addition, an astounding 3,300 retail stores have closed just this year; employment at department stores has also fallen nearly 50 percent in the last 15 years.  In other awful news, analysists predict that by 2022, up to 25
percent of all shopping malls in the U.S. will permanently shutter their doors.
 
But here’s the good news.
 
First, retail sales in our country have actually been steadily climbing every year since the last decade.  So while shopping malls are seeing more empty parking spaces, it doesn’t mean that we’re shopping less.   We’re just making our purchases in a different way.
 
Plus, I don’t think brick and mortar stores will ever completely vanish.
 
Like millions, I’ve bought food and socks and sheets and books online, all with limited success. But the results have been disastrous when I’ve purchased dresses, shirts and pants the same way.  When these items get to me, the material is inevitably way thinner and shoddier than the web site pictures imply; also, the apparel just doesn’t fit properly.  Equally crazy making is that many online businesses charge for returning their stuff.  It’s like paying a department store fitting room attendant money for every garment that isn’t bought.    
 
Even Amazon—after Walmart and CVS, now the third largest retailer in the world—gets it.
 
Last month, the online giant opened its seventh you-can-walk-in-and-buy-something store, this time in New York City.  
The first store opened in Seattle only two years ago, with the company planning 13 physical stores by end of this year.  
 
And while Amazon executives admit that these locations represent a marginal part of its business, they also acknowledge that a physical store has benefits.  Besides the novelty experience of shopping in person, there’s a personal engagement with sales staff, along with the fact that consumers here can “test drive” Amazon’s tech products such as the
Kindle e-reader.
 
Yup, our love affair with department stores is fading fast.  
 
But I’m convinced that other ways of shopping will continue to evolve and take up the slack—which will ultimately give consumers more choices when it comes to the shopping experience.  When the dust does finally settle, this can only be
A Very Good Thing for consumers.
 
What are your memories of going to a department store?  I look forward to your stories and comments!   
 
P.S.  The Department Store Museum is a terrific online walk down memory lane.  Check it out here, at www.thedepartmentstoremuseum.org. 

​Of course it’s not spring, but never one to hold to tradition, I’ve been doing a ton of extra cleaning… recycling, re-purposing and re-imagining of stuff.   
 
This includes selling a very cool coffee table made with legs from a 1920s stove (we still have three other tables);
a complete cleanse of my file cabinet (where I discovered a forgotten letter from movie star Van Heflin), and free-cycling many yards of denim and corduroy fabric (new slipcovers involved here).  
 
Then there’s this other item. 
 
It’s hanging in my closet, but I haven’t put it on for at least five years.  Yeah, I’ve been saying goodbye to it for a while now, but now I’m almost there, almost ready to pass it on to its next owner.  
 
It’s my trench coat.  And if I seem pretty attached to it, I am. 
 
That’s because, for those who don’t know, owning such a coat once upon a time wasn’t just about owning sturdy 
outerwear for inclement weather. 
 
Nope.  It was part of the uniform that made me a journalist. 
 
After all, Edward R. Murrow—one of the most esteemed reporters of the last century—wore a trench coat while broadcasting dispatches from London during World War II.  It seemed that everyone on the 60 Minutes team had trench coats, too:  I remember watching the late Mike Wallace, Morley Safer and Bob Simon chasing down bad guys in theirs. They’ve also been essential to the wardrobes of famous female correspondents, a list that includes Barbara Walters,
Diane Sawyer and Lara Logan.
 
The trench coat has served fictional muckrakers as well.
 
Lou Grant, the gruff newspaper editor played to perfection by Ed Asner on television, had a trench coat, even in sunny Los Angeles.  And in the 1950s TV series Adventures of Superman, star George Reeves conveniently grabbed his trench coat out of Lois Lane’s car when, disguised as mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent, a bomb ripped his clothes off. 
 
I got mine—a woman’s model made by London Fog, beige and double breasted with a removable plaid liner—sometime in college and after the circus life. (Most recently, the Seattle based manufacturer became famous again in Mad Men.)  It was a mindful buy, made not long before I received my journalism degree and high-tailed it to New York City.  Given that this was long before the Internet and imported clothes from China, the purchase took place early one evening at Robinson’s department store in Beverly Hills, and was made in the United States.  I paid what was then considered a pretty penny for it, too, probably in the $75 range.    
 
Putting it on, I felt that I had arrived.
 
The coat traveled with me to Manhattan, where I did some freelance work (landing bylines in People, Working Mother and Ms.) while concurrently working as an intern for McCall’s magazine.  It then rode the subway with me to a small publishing house (in the same building as The New Yorker!), where I was employed as an editor. There were a handful of other writing gigs after that, but finally, it hung in my office at Columbine, the in-house publication at CBS; there; I was a staff writer.   
 
When I returned to California four years later, the trench coat was still in great shape.
 
It was beside me when I was hired to write a couple of lifestyle articles for a teen magazine on the Sunset Strip, and next for a movie-oriented public relations firm.  It then accompanied me to the West Coast bureau of Screen International, a British film trade magazine, where I did a whole lot of interviews in the field, as well as attending hundreds of sneak screenings and more than a few press conferences. 
 
After a stint with a syndicated entertainment columnist, then a move to a tabloid magazine, the trench coat and I stumbled into television production.  There, both of us spent nearly a decade at Unsolved Mysteries.  (Come to think of it, host Robert Stack was fond of wearing his trench coat on camera.)  
 
From the department of You Can Learn Something New Every Day, it wasn’t until I began researching this post that I learned it wasn’t reporters who made the trench coat so popular.
 
In fact, the coat was made for, duh, fighting in the trenches.
 
Designed as an efficient alternative to the heavy serge coats worn by British and French soldiers in World War I, its invention is claimed by both Burberry and Aquasctum, with the latter’s claim dating back to the 1850s.  As for Burberry, founder Thomas Burberry submitted a design for an Army officer’s raincoat to the United Kingdom War Office in 1901. 
 
Then, during what became known as The Great War, modifications were made: shoulder straps to attach epaulettes or other rank insignia, and a D-ring for fastening map cases, swords and perhaps hand grenades to the coat’s belt.  The advent of World War II only made the coats more popular.  British military personnel continued to wear them, but now other soldiers from other nations, notably the United States and Soviet Union, wore similar designs.  Many veterans returning to civilian life kept the coats, and made them fashionable for both men and women.  This, of course, included globe-trotting reporter Edward R. Murrow.  
 
So undeniably, the trench coat has a lineage that is noble and distinguished.   
 
But somewhere along the way, it stopped working for me. 
 
Some of this definitely had to do with becoming a mom; my daughter’s early years saw me in sensible sweat pants and hoodies.  These days, some of it has to do with living in a sweet beach town—a hard-boiled writer’s coat simply doesn’t fit in.  When I do need a coat, I’ll zip up my red or blue parka, even when I’m wearing the occasional dress.
 
And mostly, I don’t wear the trench coat anymore because I’m not the same kind of journalist anymore.   
 
My work now tends to be done at home, with pretty much everything I need waiting on the Internet, or with phone and email interviews.  The days of hopping a plane to chase down folks in person; rushing out the door to interview someone who’s in town for only a day, or traveling long distances for research is pretty much gone. 
 
Then why do I still have the coat? 
 
It’s because I don’t want to give it away to just anyone. 
 
In fact, I’m hoping to gift it to someone who still does, or is longing to do, the writing things I once did. 
 
Perhaps, like I once was, she’ll be a new journalism school grad ready to change a corner of a corner of the world, ready to slay the dragons that journalists need to do, now more than ever, and that the best ones do so well. 
 
I also want that someone to appreciate how much this singular piece of clothing once defined me—and how I hope it will do the same for her.
 
Until then, my trench coat (and the stories that go with it) will remain happily retired in my closet… waiting for a new, and I hope dazzling, set of adventures.       
 
Is there an article of clothing, or another object you own, with an interesting tale behind it?  I look forward to your stories and comments! 
 
P.S. Want to know more about the history of the trench coat?  Check out this detailed article from Smithsonian magazine, at www.smithsonianmag.com/history/trench-coat-made-its-mark-world-war-i-180955397/?no-ist.
 
P.S.S. Today’s celebrities love trench coats, too.  Take a look, at www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/trends/g2926/iconic-trench-coat-fashion/.

​(A note: free floating anxiety, fear mongering and violence.  In other words, it’s a  Presidential election year, also known as a scary rewind of the 1968 playbook.  So I’ve written this post, because I think we can all use a smile right about now.)
 
Once upon a time, when I lived in Brooklyn (way before it was hip) and worked in Manhattan (as a low caste secretary), a boss dispensed some advice. 
 
She was standing beside my desk, and in-between this girl clown’s IBM Selectric assignments, we were talking about collectibles.  Specifically, we were talking about her pig collection. This included ceramic, wood and glass figurines; all sorts of mugs, and of course, more than a few piggy banks.
 
She paused.  “So,” she asked, “what do you collect?”
 
I thought for a moment. 
 
“Nothing,” I replied.  
 
She was aghast. “You have to collect something!” she said.  “Everyone needs to collect something.”
 
She was absolutely right.   But it wasn’t until a few years later, when I was flusher (and not so coincidentally, no longer typing letters for a living), that I took her advice to heart.   Because really, it’s great for whatever reason to feel connected to a particular assemblage of stuff—whether an homage to a person, place or thing; an animal or mineral, or any mash-up of this combination—that can also make you smile.
 
My first big collage, no surprise here, was clown dolls.
 
Mostly bought at thrift stores, flea markets and garage sales, many were made out of wood or plastic; a handful were sewn almost entirely out of colorful fabric yo-yos, those little gathered circles of leftover material so popular among quilters. Later there were lavishly illustrated children’s books; rubber ducks, and those flowery old timey tablecloths favored by country magazines.  I’ve also amassed cookbook and Pyrex assortments, both of which I use on a regular basis.
 
To view any of these—I’ve culled over the years but most are displayed in some fashion—you’d have to visit my house.
 
But if you see me out and about, it’s easy to spot the one collection I always carry with me.
 
Welcome to my assemblage of wrist watches. 
 
Naturally, I wear just one at a time (pun intended), but if you hang out where I do for a month or so, you’re likely to see most of them.
 
Befitting a circus girl, the majority are supposed to be worn by kids, and to that end, have colorful easy-to-read faces. Two sport baby pink fabric bands (ballerinas and flowers), and there’s another band in the same color, but made of plastic, with raised yellow and pink flowers.  I also wear a sky blue timepiece featuring red airplanes and puffy clouds, and can’t forget the Swatch watch with bunny rabbits.  Of course, there’s also my cherry red Minnie Mouse watch. 
 
I’m capable of being an adult about all of this, too. 
 
To that end, there’s a proper black leather band watch with a classic rectangular face, as well as a 1980s Fossil model with a kind-of-sort-of mesh chain design.  And for those very special occasions, I’ll slip on the delicate vintage Bulova that The Hubster gave me when we had more wiggle room in the gift department.
 
I love every single one of them. 
 
As it turns out, wristwatches haven’t been around as long as one might think.
 
Patek Philippe and Company debuted the first one, in 1868, but it wasn’t until World War I that their popularity surged—mainly because soldiers quickly discovered that they couldn’t easily pull out a pocket watch while their hands were full.  The children’s watch was introduced by Ingersoll in 1933, and no big shocker here, featured Mickey Mouse. These days,
Timex and Flik Flak seem to have that market pretty well cornered (www.timex.com/node/6801 and
http://www.flikflak.com/en/watches/), but adults can have their fun, too, buying a Sprout
watch (http://www.sproutwatches.com/), or going for a major splurge like a super-luxe watch with diamonds (check out
Patek Philippe and Tag Heurer).  
 
Still, despite all of the innovative and beautiful choices and designs, and despite fitting every budget, it’s pretty obvious that wristwatches are fast becoming dinosaurs.
 
Indeed, even though it seems so much easier to glance at one’s arm for the time, The Teenage Daughter and the rest of her crew depend on their mobile phones for this information.  Maybe it’s because wearing a watch looks incredibly dorky to them, or maybe it’s because they can simultaneously get the weather, silly videos, and just about everything else with their cells.
 
Accordingly, if wearing a timepiece make me an old stick in the mud, so be it.  I use my cell phone a lot, but here’s to the wristwatch—and my growing collection of them.    
 
So, what do you collect?  I’d also love to hear about your first watch, and the story
behind it.
 
P.S.  If you’re of A Certain Age Younger Than Me, you may not know about the IBM Selectric, and its extraordinary impact on technology.  If this is you, here you go:  http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/selectric/. 
 

Tuberculosis has been right next to me for most of my life.   
 
Like a ghostly specter, it’s here, but not here, and seen, but not seen. 
 
Yet this frightening bacterial infection—once called “The Great White Plague,” it still claims more than one million lives around the world every single year—makes its presence known to me in more ways than one.
 
In fact, it will probably continue to do so until I take my last breath.
 
I was in first grade and had just turned five years old. 
 
Our ground level classroom boasted an entire wall of tiny windows that went all the way up to the ceiling, which allowed us to look out into the sunshine.  On other walls were posters with pictures of different professions. There were a lot more choices for boys, but I remember that we girls could pick three:  nurse, teacher or secretary.
 
Growing up to be a nurse featured a very cool cap, and also seemed the lesser of all of those evils.  So, I thought that’s what I would have to be (this is especially ironic since I’ve can’t stand the sight of blood, and have been both a darn good secretary and teacher’s aide).
 
But what I remember best about that sunny room was my teacher, Miss Kelly.
 
She was pretty and bubbly and seemed to like us. There was another thing that I really loved: the way she reacted, or rather, didn’t react, the morning she passed out writing paper, then instructed us to pick up our pencils in the hand that felt most comfortable to us.
 
I cradled mine in my left hand and started to scribble.   Looking up after a minute, I thought it odd that everyone near me was using their other hand.  But Miss Kelly never said a word, and because of that, I have never, ever, felt different because I was left handed.
 
Then one day, I started to cough.
 
This wasn’t a scratchy cold kind of cough.  It was intense and strong and significant, and came from a place buried deep inside my lungs.  And because I was a little slip of a girl, and because it wouldn’t stop—no matter how long I held my breath and imagined being on a bronco that was trying to buck me off—I was soon very weak, and very tired.
 
I have no memory of seeing a doctor and getting the diagnosis of tuberculosis.   My dad worked as a post office clerk, and there was no health insurance.  We went to our public health department instead, and that’s where I first heard that I “might have a slight case” of TB.   I was given little white pills that I had to learn to swallow.  
 
I still remember my mother showing me just the right way to get them down with a glass of water.  We were standing in our tiny galley kitchen, and she was calm and matter of fact.  But thinking about it now, she must have been scared to death, knowing that her only daughter absolutely had tuberculosis, and who knew what the coming weeks would bring? 
 
Those weeks brought a few changes. 
 
I was pulled out of Miss Kelly’s class, and I stayed at home, sleeping a lot, taking those tiny pills a few times every day, and getting a little stronger, too.  I also had my own dinner plate and glass and knife and fork and spoon, which were kept separate from everyone else’s place setting, and washed in the hottest of soapy water away from the other dishes. 
 
At one point, doctors needed a vial of blood. 
 
Being so skinny, it was difficult to find a vein.  I remember screaming and crying and then kicking; it was then that medical personnel surrounded me and pinned me down to the ground.  They eventually found a spot to put the needle,
but it was years before I could get blood taken without shaking.  There were also other trips to the health department, where I bravely stood high, took deep breaths, and received my first chest X-ray from a clanking machine taller
than me.    
 
I was a smart kid, so quickly caught up when I was allowed to return to school a few weeks later.  (Most folks with active TB who have had appropriate drug treatment for at least 14 days are no longer contagious.)
 
But I wasn’t out of the woods. 
 
I couldn’t give anyone tuberculosis now, but a skin test indicated that I was definitely TB positive. (Much like the chicken pox virus, this lurking evidence will stay with me for the rest of my life.)  Adding to the whole awful experience was that no one knew how I had picked up the infection.
 
Because it was all such a mystery, combined with the fact that my mother had had rheumatic fever at about the same age, first grade was also the beginning of my mom’s lifelong vigilance about my lungs.   
 
During the winters, I would have to wear the warmest of coats, no matter how ugly or ill-fitting.  I wasn’t allowed to leave the house until that garment was completely buttoned, all the way to the very top.  “Keep your chest covered!  Don’t let the wind blow on your chest!” she would bark. Now, too, she would drag me to a pediatrician whenever I got the least bit sick. It no doubt cost money we didn’t have, but she wasn’t about to take any chances.
 
The health department visits continued over the years as well. 
 
Indeed, I was mandated by the county to get an annual chest X-ray.  That finally ended when I was 12 years old.  My lungs had been clear for a straight seven years, and those ghostly pictures were no longer necessary.
 
But because the tuberculosis inside me will never go away, a flashback came rushing to the surface eight years ago. 
 
I had applied to work as a crossing guard at our neighborhood elementary school, and part of the requirement was getting a TB skin test.  I told the school secretary that that test would absolutely come out positive, and lucky for me, she understood.  A friend of hers was in the same boat, she said, so I could get a chest X-ray.  To do that, I had to visit the friendly health department in this county.
 
There, I told the head nurse the whole story.  She ordered that X-ray, but before I left, suggested a course of antibiotics for a full year. 

“Do you understand that this was more than 50 years ago?” I asked. 

She did, and said that while she highly recommended this action, she wasn’t going to require me to do so.
 
I didn’t, and the only chest X-ray I have ever had as an adult came out clean as a whistle. 
 
In more ways than one, I know I’m one of the lucky ones. 
 
But my lungs were permanently weakened—whenever I catch a cold, it almost always goes into my chest, where it rattles around for weeks.  I also make sure to never let myself get too tired; I was not one of those college students who pulled all-nighters because I knew it wasn’t an option.  I know, too, that I will never go where I might be of service, because thanks to overcrowding and poor ventilation, refugee camps and prisons and immigration centers are the perfect places to catch TB.  Likewise, you won’t see me booking a ticket to India, Africa or Pakistan anytime soon.  
 
Except for those few weeks so long ago, tuberculosis never has, and never will, define who I am.
 
But that scared first grader who couldn’t stop coughing? 
 
She is always there. 
 
Is there something from your childhood that has had a lasting effect on you as an adult?  I look forward to
​hearing your story!     

I’ve spent the last few months absolutely gorging myself on something delightful and delicious. 

And to be perfectly blunt, it won’t be ending anytime soon.

Pretty much everyone who knows me is mindful of the fact that I’ll never refuse a luxe milk chocolate bar or a bag of original Ruffles potato chips, especially when the latter is adjacent to a carton of sour cream. 

However, this binging has nothing to do with anything edible.   

Thanks to the wonder of the Internet, specifically YouTube, I’ve been watching—sometimes for more than a couple of hours at a time—the original What’s My Line television show.  

Making its debut on the CBS Television Network from New York City, on February 16, 1950, WML (as its devotees like to call it) was, like so many of the best things still around, based on a simple premise.  

It went like this.

A contestant came out to the stage and signed his name on a large blackboard. Then, depending on what year the show aired, he would shake hands with each of the four panelists, or later, as the seasons progressed, skip that step and sit next to the host. So everyone watching could play along, the guest’s occupation was next revealed via closed caption to both the studio audience and viewers at home.

After that, the game would begin in earnest.

Each panelist would attempt to figure out what the challenger did for a living—i.e. his “line”--by asking that person basic yes-or-no questions.  Once the guest answered 10 questions in the negative, the game ended, and he won a whopping $50.   The show was an unhurried affair with lots of wiggle room for conversation, so usually there were just two or three challengers per show, not counting the last participant.  (Check out this terrific clip, only a few years before this guest was instantly recognizable around the world, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk4Eq8IcQMk.)

The best part of WML was that final contestant (although sometimes that person came in the middle of the show).    

Panelists were instructed to put on eye masks, and then, “our mystery guest,” pretty much always someone famous, came waltzing out, often to wild applause.  Here, panelists had to determine the person’s identity, so these special challengers also disguised their voices, perhaps whistling, honking a horn, or speaking in an unusual accent. 

In a time when top movie stars hardly ever made it a habit to enter a lowly television studio, WML booked some of the biggest personalities of the day. 

There was Kirk Douglas, John Wayne and Frank Sinatra, who was once even a guest panelist.  Audiences were also thrilled to see Claudette Colbert, Kim Novak and Jane Fonda, who had just finished her first movie. (Here she is, just 22 years old, a bit awed and surprised that anyone would even recognize her, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM4BEskQeeY) 

Oh, did I mention that What’s My Line went on to become the longest-running game show in prime-time network television history?   

In fact, the series ran for 17 seasons on Sunday nights, always on CBS.  The network finally pulled the plug in 1967, but less than a year later, WML was resurrected as a syndicated program, and stayed around until 1975.  Many of its die hard fans, and I’m in this camp, were not exactly thrilled with the reboot, since the new What’s My Line now boasted silly skits and a good dose of slapstick.  

Still, how could a little game this simple (and frankly, painfully low budget) have entertained millions of television viewers for more than two decades?

The answer, I think, lies in its remarkable panel.

Each of those four members, with a big boost from host John Charles Daly, worked to create a unique atmosphere and chemistry that couldn’t help but make the show anything but witty, intelligent and sophisticated.  Indeed, it felt as if once the cameras were turned off , all would regroup at a swank Manhattan penthouse, where they would discuss world events while sipping martinis and sampling exotic hors d’oeuvres.

As a matter of fact, the first broadcast featured a Park Avenue psychiatrist, a poet and a former governor as panel members.  The fourth panelist that night, and the only woman, was popular radio hostess and newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, who stayed until her sudden passing in 1965.  (Read more about what some believe is Kilgallen’s mysterious death, at http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/death4.htm)   

The second female to join the group was radio and stage actress Arlene Francis, introduced on the show’s second telecast. She nearly always wore a diamond heart pendant, a gift from her husband, and was the only member who stayed on until the very end of WML.  Francis also wore gorgeous, Oscar worthy evening gowns, which were accessorized with matching clutch purses.  Complementing these two women was the 1951 appearance of dapper Bennett Cerf, a founder of Random House Books, who was also known for his compilations of jokes and (mostly terrible) puns. 

This trio became the WML regulars for 15 years, with a smattering of terrific guest panelists along the way that included radio superstar Fred Allen, a young Woody Allen and even, in his dreamboat phase, William Shatner. 

Host John Charles Daly also brought an urbane elegance to the proceedings.

For one thing, Daly treated each contestant with the utmost respect, always addressing the challenger by his or her last name.  Daly was hardly a typical game show emcee: he was a working journalist, having been a CBS Radio Network reporter and in that capacity, the first national correspondent to deliver the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

Indeed, Daly thought that What’s My Line would only be a postscript in his already distinguished career, having been told that the show couldn’t possibly last longer than six months.  But Daly ended up helming WML for the entire 17 years it was on CBS, and even became a vice president of what was then the fledgling ABC network during some of the same period.   

The 1950s has been called the Golden Age of Television, and for my money, WML falls squarely into that milieu.  I wasn’t even a gleam in my parents’ eyes when the show premiered, and I was barely out of nursery school when the decade that brought the Korean War, President Dwight Eisenhower and I Love Lucy ended. 

But I’m so happy that thanks to today’s technology, I can now watch The Very Best Game Show in the Whole Wide World pretty much whenever I want.  

For that, I am a most appreciative fan.

I’d love to hear about your favorite television shows, both past and present!  

p.s. The What’s My Line Facebook Group boasts nearly 2,500 members.  Check it out here, at www.facebook.com/groups/728471287199862/?fref=ts.