The good things

"My mother got her sense of what was 'good' from her own mother. She loved to shop and patronised only the nicest stores, even though there was very little extra spending money for a family of five living on a policeman's salary. While my grandfather might be wearing a second hand camel hair coat, his two sons were dressed in Belgian linen suits and his daughter never wore a hand-me-down. 

In the thirties, Grandma Neylon's idea of a pleasant day off from her household duties was to take Mom to Marshall Field, which filled a twenty storey granite building covering a whole city block in downtown Chicago. Once inside this elegant store, Grandma would charge a half pound of fancy mixed nuts freshly scooped into a box and still warm. Then, pecans and cashews in hand, she and my mother would munch their way from department to department, admiring all the nicest merchandise. 

Her taste refined by all those hours of browsing, my grandmother scrimped and saved- and, sometimes, lived beyond her means- so she could buy sterling flatware (one piece at a time), Dresden compotes, oriental rugs, a nine foot mahogany dining table and other 'good things'. Things that would last beyond her lifetime, things she and her husband could leave to their two sons and daughter."

Alligators, Old Mink and New Money- Alison Houtte