Pairs, Penguins, Pickpockets

In about 1939, when I was five years old, Dad did something that was delightfully accepted by Mom with much admiration and love. He went out and for the December gift giving season, he bought Mom a special holiday gift. He bought her twelve pairs of silk stockings. Mom felt like she was given the gift of all gifts and laid them out one pair, and then the next pair spread out in the long dresser drawer. She did not wear any of them for weeks. She just gazed at them and the glow on her face was as if it was a drawer full of diamonds. We did not have a lot of money in those days, but Dad saved up and brought the most auspicious gift he could have picked out for her. Nylons at that time had just been invented and were presented at the World Trade Fair in New York City for the first time for the public to see. The word nylon was derived with the first two letters NY from the name of New York where they were shown. They were not available yet for the regular people and silk was a premium type of hosiery for women before nylons were invented. The silk hose must have sold for one dollar per pair and that was a lot of money in 1939. I can still see the happiness in Mom’s face when she opened her bedroom door and went immediately to the dresser piece of furniture and looked at the twelve pairs of silk hose all laid out in the drawer. Eventually, she washed one pair, waited for it to dry and wore it with much pride the day it was all hand dried. You did not put valuable items in a dryer, though we had no luxury of a clothes dryer then. Dad liked to do sweet things for us kids and Mom too. Once he went shopping to the big grocery chain then called Food Fare. When he brought in the two bags of our weekly groceries, he would lift each item out and put it away in the refrigerator or on the shelf, if it was a dry item. One evening at the end of this ritual with me standing watching him he said to me “look what I found for you my dear Elita, a book.” I was so happy to own another book. You see, we did not own many books because they cost lots of money and money was scarce. This book, I can still see it in my mind was all about Penguins and a story made up about them being a family of four birds, like we were four of us in our family. I loved this book and when I went to sleep that night, I put it under my pillow to keep it safe. I felt so fortunate to have such a dear Dad and Mom to care for my brother and me. It probably in about 1939 cost about fifty-nine cents or so. I never forgot that delightful feeling of surprise when Dad picked it out of the grocery bag and to me it was like a piece of gold. Gold knowledge in owning another book and Mom had her silk stockings and we were content. There is a saying that says “Today, let every word you speak to yourself or others be filled with kindness.” Can you believe how we would all feel with that happening? Sometimes when we get on an elevator and the elevator is filled with people you never saw before or were involved with before; do you ever wonder what is going to happen? My husband was pickpocketed four years ago on an elevator when it was him and several other people. All of them got off except him and the two remaining men. As they reached the final floor in the building, one of the two men acted like his hand was stuck in the door. My husband being the good soul he is tried to help him disengage his hand. While he was doing this, the second man who was a partner in thievery with the first man, pickpocketed my husband and my husband was not even aware of it. When he picked me up on the fifth floor where I was seeing a doctor and we got home; there was a call from a charge card company saying there was unusual activity on our credit card of twenty-five hundred dollars’ worth of merchandise, all in thirty minutes in a shopping center twenty miles from our home. Then he realized his wallet with his credit cards had been stolen and we had to call all the credit card facilities and other places we had cards from and tell them no more charges permitted on our cards. Then we had to get new cards, and everything you do when you lose your identity through the pickpocketing. The funny thing is not one of the four stores where they carried out the thievery asked anyone for identification or even verified the signatures on back of the cards. We were lucky the card used was rarely given by us for a transaction and that is why they got suspicious, because of such high charges in such a short period of time, all in one shopping mall. The moral of this story is no one should carry any more than one or two credit cards; men should keep their wallets or money in their front pocket instead of the back pocket where Jerry had them that day. It makes you feel violated that someone has your information, your name, your photos and your address and then he goes about using them, as if he is you and no one questions him on his identity. You are an older man; these men were more than half his age. When they signed his name for the purchase, one even had the chutzpah (gall) to buy a jewelry insurance policy from Sears on the diamond bracelet they purchased in Jerry’s name. Wow, no security by the store on a purchase just interested in the purchase and it seemed no one cared when I called the four stores to notify them of this event. One manager said thanks and I will look at the camera pictures of that time period. I never heard from them or the police department on a follow-up on this terrible violation of our lives. You feel as if they took your identity from you that you had for many decades, destroyed you and they became you for a few hours. Of course, after I found out what happened all credit cards were voided and so they could no longer go on a rampage and get merchandise stolen from us and that is how you feel. Even when you pull up the driveway into your home when this happens, for months you imagine they are watching you and knowing your business. You keep lights on all night in the front rooms of your house for many weeks and you are sad you lost some boyhood photos of yourself you had in the wallet. You know they invaded your space and you can take solace in thinking you stopped them because the credit card company noticed the unusual and quick amount of expensive purchases in thirty minutes of shopping time. How they got there which is about twenty minutes of travel from robbery time to buying time and we feel they must have had someone on the mall end ready with the merchandise picked out ahead of time and waiting for the credit card numbers. They got away with it, but no one will ever do that again to us because my husband was a Good Samaritan and helped someone whose hand was stuck in the elevator door. When we were in London in 1972, we were warned by the hotel to be watching our purses and pockets because there was a band of pickpockets at every bus stop and as the tourists got on the bus, many were pickpocketed as they rush to get on a strange bus in a foreign country. Others can take your possessions, but they cannot take your dignity, even though they may have pictures of your grandchildren, of your children, of you and your bride and photos of your younger life, you may be carrying. So to people who violate you and take your things away from you, let them realize that they are the ones who are the losers. They may feel that because they did not get caught, they are winners. They are losers in every meaning of the word and though they may be watching a television set they tried to charge to us, they may be wearing a diamond bracelet charged to us and they may be using items charged to us; in their hearts if they have them, they know it is wrong. The police came and took a report from us and we never heard from them again. I called once and they said the policewoman who had written up the report was at a different station and did not seem interested in pursuing it. We are still winners; people like Dad who worked hard to buy Mom a special gift of a dozen pair of silk hosiery and who bought a little five year old girl, a book on penguins, because he had a few spare dollars. He or we did not need to feel we had to pickpocket an elderly man who was helping them in an elevator to get their ‘stuck’ hand out of the door. We were and are decent, honest, hardworking folks who worked for our dollars and anything we bought or buy is because we did so. We are the champions and we ‘take home the gold’ as the saying quotes, because we earned it and therefore can enjoy and get pleasure from our bought items on our own credit cards. That makes us surely good people and honest and kind. We let every day be a fine day because every word we speak to others and to our self are true words of decency. We pair that with not doing anything mean towards others we know or strangers on an elevator. If we want silk stockings or a book on penguins or a television set or a diamond bracelet, we buy it our self, we do not take it from others. By pickpocketing someone or stealing from someone; they only steal their own dignity and it is sad they have no feelings of a decent heart. They steal, and ‘rob’ them self from ‘owning’ respect. elita sohmer clayman Fairfax Station Patch