Naomi’s Christmas: Restorative Aloneness And A Childhood Spent In Retail

A Page From Bloom’s Camera 1950 Catalog

Ron left the house this morning before dawn, headed to Redmond, OR to spend Christmas with a range of Wallaces.  Time moves more slowly when I’m alone, and it’s a very rare treat.  Having a few days at home completely on my own hasn’t happened in years, in part because Ron was reluctant to leave me — and I was reluctant to be on my own — as my mobility problems grew worse, but I’m doing well enough now that he was able to go with a clear mind.  And I so needed this time alone.  I’ve got a lot to do, and it will get done, but it’s much more than that.

I’ve always been someone who needed time alone with her own thoughts, a very independent someone who has struggled with every bit of lost independence as my legs, really my whole body, fulfilled the diagnosis, staved off with real effort for several decades, that I had received in my late 30’s.  I’m so very grateful for the many extra years of good health I’ve enjoyed, for all that having a strong body has allowed me to do, and I’m determined to keep fighting the good fight.  But having a few days in which I decide when/if I want to do something without taking someone else’s needs/wants/schedule/etc. into consideration makes me feel young again, and it’s been far too long since I’ve had the freedom to do that.

I’ll get back to writing about my life after a career in HR tech on Tuesday, about the murders I’m encountering along the way (as in murder mysteries), and about my increasingly portfolio life style.  But first, let’s celebrate Christmas, a holiday which always takes me back to my childhood in the 1950’s for reasons which will become obvious.  The memories of those early years become more vivid rather than less so with the passage of time.  I can still taste the special foods prepared for each Jewish holiday, still remember the excitement of packing carefully labeled uniforms for each summer’s two months at Camp Mar-Lin, and still remember Bubbi Bloom’s incredibly sage and still applicable advice better than I can remember what I ate for lunch yesterday.  Aging hasn’t dimmed my memories; au contraire, it has sharpened up the important ones and blurred the trivial.

My education as a business woman began almost at birth.  I learned so much about business, absorbed it through my pores, as I worked at Bloom’s Camera (later, Bloom’s Photo Supply and then just Bloom’s, Inc.), lingered at my grandmother’s kitchen table after Friday night Shabbat meals where all the important decisions were made for that business, and was then apprenticed to all the other small businesses run by various relatives.  I went on buying trips to New York for the fancy ladies wear shop run by one aunt (they used to model the dresses at high end shops), learned the uniform business from another aunt, and was taught the basics of the Borscht Belt hospitality business by a great cousin.  By the time I got to my MBA program, cash flow, supply chain, human resource management and more were already baked into my world view.  So, with Christmas almost here, I thought you might enjoy a retail merchant’s Jewish child’s perspective on this holiday.

Bloom’s Photo Supply — The Great Wall

On Christmas Eve, my Dad’s retail camera shop closed early, and we knew we’d have him with us all that next day.  Really just with us, even if he were too tired for much conversation after working the very long hours of the retail Christmas season.  New Year’s Day was for taking inventory, and it was all hands, even my very small hands, to the wheel.  But Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were really special.

Time alone with my father (of blessed memory) Jack Bloom was rare and precious.  He ran a modest camera shop with his two brothers, Paul (who passed away in early January, 2015, just after his 99th birthday and who has entrusted me with finishing his memoir), and Herman (who also published several “romantic” novels under the name Harmon Bellamy).  Our cousin Elliot took over the family business as our fathers retired (he was our only male Bloom cousin so he was always the heir apparent), automated early and aggressively, built it up into several thriving divisions, and then sold at the absolute peak.  Well done Elliot!

When I was really young, my Dad left for work before dawn and rarely got home before I was put to bed.  Friday nights were usually spent having Shabbat dinner, with all my Bloom aunts/uncles/cousins and even great aunts/uncles (those without their own children), at my grandmother’s house.  After dinner,  Dad went off to Schul with his brothers.  On Saturday mornings, we were all off to Schul, but we were orthodox so my only male first cousin, Elliot got to sit with his Dad.  The store was open on Saturdays, so my Dad and his brothers, despite the Orthodox prohibition against working on Shabbat, went from schul to work on many Saturdays, especially if they were short-handed by employee illness or vacations.  Summer Sundays were for golf in the mornings and family time in the afternoons, often spent visiting family who lived far away.  For example, in those turnpike (yes, before there were highways, there were turnpikes) days, the trip to Hartford, less than thirty miles away, took well over an hour.

But on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we didn’t go visiting.  After working extra long hours during the run-up to Christmas, we stayed home so that Dad could rest.  That meant me sitting beside him as we watched TV (once we had one) or read from the World Book Encyclopedia.  My Dad was a great reader, something my sister and I have “inherited” from him, and every Jewish home in those days purchased an encyclopedia, volume by volume, convinced this was essential to their children’s education.

With everyone, including the mothers, working long hours, it was rare to see my Dad during December except when I was working at the store.  My cousin Ronni (of blessed memory) and I, from about age seven, ran the strange machine in the open mezzanine above the retail floor that took addresses on metal plates and transferred them to labels for the Christmas mailing of catalogues (like the one pictured above) and calendars.  Long before it was fashionable for small businesses, Bloom’s Photo Supply was into direct marketing, and we carefully collected the names and addresses of every customer and caller, all of which were entered in the perpetual address files that my Uncle Herman kept.

Sitting in the mezzanine, Ronni and I bickered over whose turn it was to load the metal plate (not fun), load the next item to be addressed (not bad), or turn the wheel (most fun) and discussed what we saw going on all around us.  Excess inventory, the bane of every retailer then and now, was a major topic, along with fanciful ways of getting rid of it profitably.  We also took careful note of anyone who appeared to be shoplifting, quickly reporting any irregularities with arranged signals to the salespeople on the floor, and our eyes and instincts were sharpened by those experiences.  Even today, on the rare occasions when I’m in a store, I can’t help but notice such behaviors.

While I can never be sure, I think those conversations with Ronni must have been the origin of my now famous story about the invention of Christmas as an inventory management scheme.  In that story, first told publicly in its entirely to my Wallace family when joining them for our first Christmas as a married couple, the wise men were retail merchants who saw in the humble birth of Mary and Joseph’s son a solution to the already age-old problem faced by retailers everywhere of how to ensure that the year ended without extraneous, highly unprofitable inventory.  This is one interpretation of the Christmas story that my Christian Wallace family had never heard until they met me.

For me, sitting in my usual place at the keyboard, Christmas Eve will always be special.  Years after my Dad retired and I had a business of my own, we talked daily, with me updating him on my business in response to his questions.  You can’t fail to hear the ghosts of a retailer’s Christmas past even as my very non-retail business thrived.  ”How’s business?” “Business is great Dad.” “Are your clients paying on time? “They sure are, Dad.” “And are their checks clearing the bank?” “Absolutely.”  This Christmas Eve, I’d give every one of those checks for another Christmas with my Dad.