Here is a very short narrative journalism piece I wrote for class. It was graded well so I thought it might be safe to share.
It is raining, hard. I enjoy cold, rainy days but it makes it difficult to get around, and there’s always that part of your backpack that sticks out beyond the umbrella’s protective shield.
There is that great moment though, when you step out of the rain, shake your umbrella and you are completely aware of your sudden dry surroundings. I’m appreciative that I’m not that woman across the road, shoving stuff into her trunk. I’m standing in the doorway of ‘Fremont Vintage Mall’, like many of Fremont’s attractions, it’s an escape from the present. It’s a neighbourhood determined to maintain its quirks, striving to create an alternative world.
Down the single stair case lies a melting pot of era’s. Collectables, clothing, furniture, toys, records, jewellery; it’s around 80 years of history thrown together only for you to pick apart. The first thing that catches my eye is a pair of 1970′s white roller skates, I pick them up to check the size, seven, they wouldn’t fit. But I don’t think I couldn’t use them anyway, they are bricks on wheels. I make a left, past woven lampshades and a “Jesus, guide me as I pass this way” broach sitting under a photo of a provocative Betty Page, and head down another flight of stairs where they keep the furniture. Past the scarves and necklaces, there’s a faded red Special Cruiser leaning against a pale green refurbished end table that is topped with an old Super 8 camera. It’s a huge bike, almost a caricature of what bike really looks like. Its handles are undersized limbs attached to a chunky skeleton that bears the weight of a seat that is the width of a regular chair. It could use a good clean up, the white seat is torn exposing the aging yellow foam beneath, but it is still a beautiful looking bike. “They don’t make them like that anymore!” rings in my head as something my dad would say if he saw it.
On a dresser a little further down are a bunch on telephones, rotary dials and buttons, in black, white and red. Up and across from it, above my head, are working traffic lights leaning against the wall. Both the red and green lights are lit; I wonder if that’s the reason it no longer sits above peak hour traffic. Then below it is a basket of old toys. What is so striking about them is not that they are cute, but the complete opposite. They’re horrifying. There is a squeaky animal thing lying hopelessly on it’s aged back, it looks like a rabbit, maybe. But it has the ears of a bear. And the face of a child. There’s a pair of overweight babies sitting on their tubby bums with cheeky smiles. Then there’s another weird animal, a donkey? A horse? They’re a far cry from the flashing, spinning, noisy, mechanic, automated, battery operated toys of today. It’s a wonder how my parents generation turned out relatively normal.
Across the room I notice a couple of other people down here too, a mother showing her daughter around, she looked about seven or so. They were over near the stairs by the glass cases that housed a mixture of things from 1940′s jewellery to posters of Bowie and Prince. The way everything is displayed, the way we all look around at the many objects around us, we take the same care we would at a museum. The pots and pans, the claw foot bathtub, the laminex tables, they all share something about years past. I think that is what makes vintage shopping so appealing; we all go to find artefacts of lost years, something unique among the often monotonous objects that plague modern consumerism. It’s ironic really because at the time of objects popularity they were common place.
We are on a quest to find some connection to a past that isn’t ours, well not mine at least; an idealistic ‘simpler’ time. Though that’s what is so deceiving about nostalgia, it’s an idealistic recollection where we pick and choose and the parts we like.
Back upstairs sifting through 1950′s dresses it is so easy to get lost in thoughts of living every day looking incredibly feminine in my a-line dress, but reject every negative aspect of that era when the reality is that it was probably worse.
Over by the clothes racks a boyfriend is playing with his cell phone while his girlfriend flicks through some petite 1960′s blouses, I decide it’s time to leave this warped time machine and go home. Back outside the rain has eased, Starbucks is still on the corner and another SUV drives by while I head home thinking of how cute I would look in a crinoline.
