Magic Sock and a Visit to the Dime Store

I want to use my magic sock to travel back to Shorts’ 5 & 10 in the Heights.

Mom told me that when I was eight months old, I started walking.

As long as I clutched my magic sock.

Somewhere there’s a black-and-white photo of a baby in a white dress holding a tiny sock and taking steps.

My imagination was alive and well from babyhood.

On a family trip to Milwaukee, she looked back to see me, from my car seat, pulling something invisible from the window and tucking it into my palm, over and over. “Strange,” she said, but thought no more about it until, a week later, on our way home and at the same location, I opened my hand and tossed something invisible at the window, again and again.

In kindergarten, my teacher called her and insisted I stick to “show” for show-and-tell, since I was frightening my classmates with scary stories.

I was meant to be a storywriter.

I traded my magic sock for a pen years ago, and it’s this pen (or keyboard) that transports me back in time to places that exist only in our memories.

Like the dime store downtown in the Heights.

Shorts’ 5 & 10 carried everything a child could imagine, including gift ideas for Mother’s Day.

Next door was Thomas Variety, usually beyond my price range, but with scrumptious clothing and handbags. One year, my great-grandma bought me a blouse for my birthday from Thomas Variety, and I treasured it for years.

My friend Kay embroidered flowers and puppies on pre-drawn fabric, and would invite me to ride to the Heights with her while she shopped for colored threads, new hoops, and needles.

I’d feast my eyes on toys, candies, stationery, school supplies, colognes—we bought Mom “Evening in Paris” every year because of the fancy bottle—doilies, dishtowels, pet supplies…the list was endless.

Of course, our family was familiar with Kresge’s dime stores. I thought the store downtown Pontiac was the height of elegance, and loved the lunch counter-soda fountain with the red vinyl pedestal stools, especially when I worked, after graduation, downtown Pontiac.

Originally, dime stores earned the name because everything in the store sold for a nickel or a dime.

S. S. (Sebastian Spering) Kresge (July 1867-October 1966) opened his Detroit dime store in 1899. The “five and dime” reality lasted until 1917 when Kresge’s had to raise prices to fifteen cents because of WWI inflation.

I remember when Kresge stores disappeared, replaced by Kmart. The first Kmart store opened in Garden City, Michigan in 1962. By 1977, S. S. Kresge Corporation became Kmart Corporation. (In 2005, Sears Holding Corporation owned Kmart and Sears, both now gone.)

But dime stores went on supplying household goods at reasonable prices for years. I don’t recall when Shorts and Thomas Variety disappeared. They were an important part of my childhood in the Heights, and a source for gifts and babysitting money for years.

I wish I could clutch my magic sock and walk through the door of Shorts’ 5 & 10, wander up and down the aisles admiring wares and treats, and ride my bike back home with Kay, while she planned her next embroidery picture, and I thought about our next trip to the Heights’ downtown.

All those stores are gone now, along with penny candy and nickel candy bars. I’d cherish an afternoon browsing downtown Auburn Heights in the 60’s.

But even my magic sock can’t manage that.