Say Goodbye to the Fabric Store

(Begun on June 24, 2016)

The fabric store, as I used to know it, is no more: Hancock Fabrics is officially closed.

At least the Texarkana location is. I heard that the Hot Springs store may be open a little longer. At least until June 30 maybe. Don't know about Little Rock's two remaining stores or Fort Smith's. But they're all gone for good after this summer. After almost fifty years...

Why is this important, Younglings? Well, it just is.

I used to hate going to fabric stores as a kid. Memaw sewed a lot, especially for me because I was an extremely picky dresser. (A girly dress?? Really??) I thought the stores were boring. Except for Cloth World in Fort Smith. On Rogers Avenue, across from Saint Scholastica. It was a huge store with two levels and I would play around in the ostrich and maribou feathers. That building is a Harbor Freight now. All manly and stuff. Very different.

We would also go the Forth Smith Hancock's off Towson Ave near the Phoenix Village Mall. When malls were in their 70s and 80s heydeys. I remember that store more as an adult, when I eventually wanted to learn to sew. Sometime around '78 or '79, I think? Maybe even into the early '80s?

My first sewing attempt

Memaw didn't have to time to teach me by then because she was working at First National Bank, just before it became the first building in Mena to have an elevator. So Mamaw Lee taught me some. "I" made a pair of shorts and cropped button-up top, out of red bandanna material. The shorts were really cool; they were like "wrap" shorts. She did most of the work but I did try. That was also the first summer I really learned how to ride a bike. I think I was more interested in that.

Then in the late spring/early summer of 1985, (a really BIG year for me but most of that is in another soon-to-be-posted blog), Memaw and Mamaw Lee bought Ye Olde Fabric Shoppe from Alicia Hendershot's mom. On Sherwood Street right across from the depot. (The Friendship House coffee shop is there now.) I was kinda shocked at this venture, but I saw it as a cool opportunity to expand my wardrobe. (I wasn't as picky a dresser by that time, either.) 

The first shirt I ever made, and
can more or less still get it on. 

   

Look up any picture of Jon Bon Jovi
circa 1985 and he'll be wearing
a long duster coat.
So, I had to have one, too.

So...I "worked" there, too, earning my keep by sewing store samples that became said expanded wardrobe. I really learned how to sew then and made the majority of my own clothes all through my last two years of high school. I had the coolest threads in Mena and they weren't like anyone else's. Here were some of my creations:

I made the shirt on the left out of another wacky print Memaw 
had at the store. The first day I wore it was to school with 
a pair of jeans I had spotted with bleach so they'd looked 
ripped. Which is exactly what they did: I sat down in first 
period Journalism and the seat tore right out. Luckily the 
shirt was long enough to cover it. I had to call home 
and have someone bring me another pair of pants. I 
remember having the suit on the right, 
but can't remember what it looked like or what happened to it.

Yes, that's THE Applonia Kotero from Purple 
Rain.. I think my camisole was yellow, the 
skirt was purple, & the blazer was a print that 
incorporated those two colors. If memory 
serves, I made two other blazers with that 
pattern. One was a light blue satin, 
much like the Heart sisters were
 wearing in their videos at the time. 
I still have the pattern, but I cut the picture
 off the envelope and put it in my 
"Look Book", a 4-inch binder full of 
magazine and catalog photos from the 
late 80s to the early 2000s. 
I call it "Me Before Pinterest".

More Appolonia. I made the one with the longer
pants out of an aqua blue tropical print.

More random patterns. I think I used the one on the bottom left to
recreate Julia Robert's brown polka-dot polo game
dress from Pretty Woman, but those details are fuzzy.

I made the top dress, second from the right, out of blue denim. Wore it a lot in college. The bottom pattern is 
another one I obviously made but don't remember anything about.

Along with the duster coat, you had to have vests.
Memaw made the leopard print; I made
the black one a few years later.

I had an urge to make a caftan and
sit around my crappy first
apartment in Little Rock
pretending to be Elizabeth Taylor
I suppose. I was proud of the
gold trim on the color.

Random patterns again. Top right, made the top out of
red leopard print, and made several pairs of those 
stirrup pants, a premier staple of the 80s wardrobe. 
Bottom left made from three different 
types of black tropical print.

I kinda wish I still had some of these. They wouldn't fit me, but I'd still have them.


Fast Forward: 1993

Even though I had a Bachelor of Music Education and a K-12 teaching license, the band director job hunt wasn't going so well and I was working at Wal-Mart in Mena and back living at home. I'll boohoo about all that in another entry some day (maybe) but late that summer Memaw saw an ad in the Democrat-Gazette for a manager trainee for Hancock Fabrics in Little Rock. Desperate to get out of Mena again, I applied. And got it.

Hmmm....

This meant moving back to Little Rock, a town I totally despise. I like to visit but I hated living there. Both times. But at least this second jaunt would involve a better living arrangement, renting a room at a nice house in West Little Rock, owned by a fellow MHS graduate. And I had a real job that would pay better. I had saved $600 so I wasn't totally broke when I got there.

So...I went to work that first day at the Cantrell Road store, and not ten minutes in my first thought was:

This is the biggest mistake I think I have ever made in my entire life up to this point.

Seriously. Nothing that bad had even happened. The nice lady who worked the morning shift was kind to me, even though I found her a bit...sheltered? But it was a gut instinct. One of those Star Wars-inspired "I've got a bad feeling about this" moments. I think I even walked over to the Kroger across the street on my lunch break to use the payphone to call Memaw. 

"This was a bad idea. I just know it."

And I was soooo right. My boss, the evil-queen-trainer-from-Hell, Sue...somebody....I've blanked her last name out...had (I was told) a reputation for running off manager trainees. And THEY were soooo right. She was probably the bitchiest bitch I have ever run into my life. (Pardon the language, some of y'all are old enough by now.) She was worse than the self-proclaimed asshole I worked with at Wendy's three years prior to that. She was HORRIBLE!!!

One of items I made while I was working
at Hancock's. Copying Christina
Applegate's black halter dress at the
final party in Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.

I thought I could tough it out. Only six months of training and I'd have my own store. She found fault with EVERYTHING and never gave praise for the slightest good thing. I didn't think I sucked THAT bad. It's not rocket science running a fabric store; I watched my mom do it for eight years and she'd done a fine job. I did my best. It was NEVER good enough. I really thought I could do it. 

Meh...not so much. On top of that, I'd met this GUY....(not that guy. This was Pre-That Guy.)

Made the robe on the right while I lived at Memaw's (another movie copy)
and the towel and turban on the right while I was at Los Alamos. 
I lengthened the sleeves on the robe, making them more bell/kimono like.

There's no need to go into THAT. Let's just say that Fall of '93 was NOT one of my finer moments. Another straw that broke the manager trainee's back was when the nightmarish Regional Manager, a squat, bald, Danny Devito-ish kind of troll whose name I can't recall, demanded that I drive back to Little Rock from Mena through a snowstorm on Thanksgiving night so I could be there to inventory the other LR store the following Friday morning.

(In a Pontiac, no less...)

I made it there, somehow through the terrible weather. I was there to inventory the University store, with a lady who had no sense of smell (???), and later on we inventoried the North Little Rock store on JFK with the latest trainee whom they all thought was just greatest person ever. I roomed with that person, (again, I can't remember the name), when we traveled all the way to Cape Girardeau, Missouri to inventory their store.

The trip was fun, but I couldn't hang with the new "Pollyanna" of Hancock's. *grumble*

About two weeks later I was done with this fiasco. It was the only time in my life that I took Johnny Paycheck seriously and completely flaked out. I just...didn't show up to open the store one morning. I strolled in about two hours later wearing a Led Zeppelin t-shirt, a pair of ripped jeans, and my purple Chuck Taylors and said something like, "I overslept."

Translation: "I really don't give a sh*t."

I turned in my keys and quit/was fired. I truly have no regrets about that. #sorrynotsorry

The first thing I made for Poppa Don. He used to wear vests a lot,
and this actually took some work. I had also 
replaced the back of one of his older ones with 
some hemp material we got at a place in Taos.

This was another Los Alamos creation,
I believe. Out of a really neat wool plaid.
 I accidentally washed it and it shrank. A lot. 

Life went on after that, of course, as it most often does. The next two to three years are topics for another time, but I'll focus on the real point of this story and my future association with fabric stores.

Although I did sew quite a bit during the manager trainee days, with the sewing machine Memaw and Poppa got me for Christmas in 1992, I didn't really sew much again until Poppa Don and I moved to Los Alamos. He was gone a lot, doing shows, so I had to get creative with my time while Aunt Kaytea and Aunt Cassie were living with Nana. It was just me, Stormy, Bug, and Sonny at the duplex on 34th Street. I made this thing:

The "Cameleon": A combination dress-
shirt-hoodie-tent. One of those festival
hippie creations.

with a pattern Poppa Don bought at some festival, and a pink Japanese-style dress that ended up being too big. I made several other items, too. I have a lot of other projects I started there, but alas, they are still stowed away in the closet.

The first shirt I made for Poppa Don.
He wore Hawaiian shirts a lot, so...
I made him one, using the pattern on
the right.

Also created at Los Alamos, inspired by a
costume worn by Demi Moore from Striptease, 
though mine isn't quite as skimpy. 
I wore it as Ms Mac also.

The sewing machine went into storage during our years at Sanford and didn't come out again until the move to DeQueen in 2003. I made a dress for the Renaissance-themed Spring Fling at the college in 2004 and a few Ms Mac costumes. I bought fabric and notions at Walmart. I got several patterns from the flea market just east of town, where I also bought a lot of the books that are in library and two of those big fleece animal print blankets. I spent an entire afternoon going through every single pattern (there were hundreds) and came away with about twenty. I remember how fun pattern purges were at Memaw's store. You could keep the patterns but had to send in the envelopes in the beginning, and you got so much store credit for them.  

One of Ms Mac's Halloween costumes. I was
a variation of Lily Munster. We played a benefit for
Governor Mike Beebe at Senator Barbara Horn's house.
It rained, and we had to play on her front porch.

The Renaissance Spring Fling dress. Pattern
from the Flea Market. I crocheted a circular 
vest to go over it, which I also still have. 

One of Ms Mac's first costumes, for Valentine's Day at Caliente. It has heart-shaped symbols on it in pink foil. I wore it with a pair of bright red bell-bottom jeans I ordered from Newport News. There's a really cool enhanced digital photo of me at that show - it's...somewhere around here.

I don't know if anyone in this world will still be sewing at home when you read this, but when the time comes just give them to charity or even learn to sew. Poppa Don was trying to learn how when we first met. When the Zombie Apocalypse happens, you might at least have a decent wardrobe. 

Or something to start fires with. Patterns are good for that, too.

I do remember getting the sewing machine repaired at the place right next door to Boulevard Kennels and Wisdom Animal Clinic, but it still didn't come out of the closet much, because we got busy being Groovetones and Ms Mac didn't have time to make her own groovy look anymore. She mostly ordered it online. When we moved to The Plantation, the only time I dug out the machine was to hem the curtains for Poppa Don's stage. I think I sewed Velcro on some skirting, too. As of this writing, that was the last time I used it. 

When Poppa Don had one of the ladies at Hancock's sew the big staging skirt, I went in to pick it up. I had only been in the Texarkana store a couple of times before that, to look at pattern books one day, just because I hadn't done it in ages. I think I even bought a couple of small things. Buttons, maybe. Some thread? When I heard the company was closing for good, I thought, "Well. How about that. Han-CROCK's is done."

I'd put away my grievances about working there long ago, so I was kinda sad. It's always bad when businesses that have been around for decades have to close, for whatever reason. Sometimes it's technology - Kodak, Blockbuster - brought down by digital cameras and online streaming. Hancock's was in danger of dying out years ago, even when I was there. They used to just have fabric and notions, then they had to start selling more crafts and decorating items to compete with Michael's and Hobby Lobby, and of course...Walmart, which was always Memaw's nemesis. That's when I stopped going, I guess. It was too much like the other stores. And it got more expensive, which is another reason people DON'T sew anymore. They can buy clothes for less, and have them much quicker. I still know a lot of women who quilt, but that alone can't save the fabric industry.

I watched the signs go up in the last months: Store closing: 35-50% off. At first I dropped in to look around, and suddenly understood why they were going down. $65 for an accent lamp?? From a fabric store?? That was with the discount. A sewing box for $59? A plastic box covered with fabric? You could make one for less.

Hmmm....I opted to go back when the lady at the counter told me they would be open until the end of June.

So on Thursday, June 23, I had the day all to myself and that was my fourth stop after Goodwill, Sonic, and Excalibur (who was having their semi-annual sale!!). I was there for a good while, though I'd been in the night before to buy buttons for a pair of Poppa Don's camo pants. I'd also bought 3 yards of blue velour with gold stars, a can of Scotch guard, a rolled hem machine foot (always wanted one), and a heart-shaped green leopard print keychain. (Keychain? I told you they were trying to compete with the craft stores.) The store was pretty bare even by then. There was nothing in the back portion of the store except fixtures, and most of the designer fabric was gone. And the service was ssssllllooowwww.....even with two people on registers. But then again, why hurry?

During my daytime visit, I found some sweater knit material, and was still able to get 2 yards of Star Wars print flannel. Someone must have bought the entire bolt of the one with the First Order print on it. I got a skein of purple yarn and two different sizes of double-pointed needles. I wanted bigger ones but that was all that was left. (Hancock's got into knitting materials long after I was there.) I got a zipper to replace one that was broken in a dress I bought for 59 cents at Name Brand Clothing in Hot Springs last year.

My last haul ever from Hancock's Fabrics.

Then I sat down to look for patterns. Butterick and McCalls all $1 each. After I was asked to go out and move the StormCooper because they were working on the parking lot, I managed to find 12 patterns from the list I made. Some I picked out from the pattern book were sold out once I started shuffling through the drawers so that narrowed it down perfectly. I was primarily looking for things I could make for work for this new job. 

Like I'll have time to sew, but Poppa Don will be out on his Bad Motor Scooter a lot so I'll need to find something to do.

And yes, that's a Daenerys Targaryan, the Mother of Dragons, costume I found. As pricey as patterns are these days, these were a steal. Even See & Sew's aren't $1.99 anymore. All of this for less than $40. Without the 80%, 70%, 75% discounts, that probably would've ended up around $250. Some of the patterns were originally about $16 a piece.

I also met the aunt of an HSU classmate of mine (Sean Hill!). Very nice lady. I'm sorry she's out of a job. Her husband passed a while back and she came out of retirement to keep herself busy. It's a shame that she'll have to find something else. That's the other sad thing about store closings. People are out of work, unless the company is re-structuring. That's "kind of" what Hancock's is doing: They were bought up as part of Michael's and are still doing some online business. They still have a Facebook page and they still have a website:

Coming soon. Hmm...

When I was in Longview in July, their location was still open but selling out as fast as they could. I didn't have a chance to go in. (Like I needed to buy anything else.)

Here it is almost three months later, and my bag of goodies is still sitting on the floor in my closet. Maybe now that the first of the semester has died down and I'm more used to my new schedule, I'll reach into the bag and figure out what I want to do with all that stuff. I promise (....) to create something really great, and perhaps one day you'll have to chance to snatch it up for yourself. 

That's going to be a REALLY long time from now. ;)

That Guy

AUGUST 31, 2016

Twenty years ago today, I went on a date.

Well, actually, I went to a birthday party first. For two little girls I'd only seen maybe a couple of times before, at a house I'd never been to, which was, incidentally, just down the street from the first house I ever lived on Bethesda Road. I only stopped by there to say hello to that guy.

That guy was your Poppa Don. And that house was your Gramma and Papaw Riddle's. 

I felt a little awkward, because I didn't know a soul there, and had only been in that guy's presence only twice before. Aunt Kaytea and Aunt Cassie were celebrating their ninth and sixth birthdays respectively and the backyard was full of a bunch of little kids, back when a bunch of little kids REALLY made me kinda nervous. I was used to snarky, smart-alecky teenagers.

I'd only been teaching at McGehee High School for about three weeks...maybe. First full-time teaching job, ever, and it had been going pretty well until that first really ROTTEN day, the Wednesday before, which would have been August 28, 1996. I'd gotten home that afternoon and that's when I got the phone call. From Liana Sardhinas, the youth director at the First United Methodist Church in Mena at the time.

"I have someone here in my office who'd like to speak to you," she said, in her sing-songy South African accent.

Oh...great...

And instantly knew who she meant. That guy. With the two little girls. That I'd seen a couple of times on Communion Sundays when I made time to go to church and wasn't working at Madd-Ox. The one who I'd found playing my guitar at Vacation Bible School that previous month, who I'd met the very same day Bobby Ashley called to tell me I'd been hired for my first REAL job.

Fate has a way of crashing in us all at once. Just know that, Younglings.

Anyway, it was during that phone call that that guy first asked me out. I don't remember the full conversation, but he'd explained the joint birthday party on the following Saturday afternoon, and that we'd go to Hot Springs that evening. I also don't remember how I knew to stop by Gramma's house but I did do that. Then I had to worry about what I was going to wear. I hadn't been on a date in two years...

Let me backtrack a bit. Yes, there was the Bible School meeting. I was helping Liana with music and that guy was helping with recreation. He came in to the sanctuary and the first thing I noticed was...well, that he was relatively close to my age, and the smile. That big toothy grin and the crinkles around his eyes. Then there was the whole "playing my guitar" thing. Liana told him he could. I did not, but I wasn't there to protest at first. He played better than me, so...well. He tells this story somewhat differently, but does it really matter??

I went back to Memaw and Poppa Bill's house (where I lived at that time, but that was soon going to change) and Memaw asked, "What did you think of Mr. Riddle?"

"Who IS that guy??"

Keep in mind I was twenty-seven years old, with a Bachelor's Degree and working in a grocery store, sacking groceries and scrubbing the bathroom. I'd spent TWO YEARS trying to find a teaching job. Men shunned me because they thought I was...I don't know...some kind of freak...and I felt I'd be forever stuck in MENA, ARKANSAS. Things HAD to get better.

And they did. And it all started that week.

Liana, for all her matchmaking expertise, had tried to orchestrate this pairing twice before. One was somewhat successful, the other not so much. One morning, about a week, maybe (?), after the VBS encounter, she called and said she was taking some kids to Camp Tanako and would I like to come along for the ride. I wasn't working that day so I complied. Not thinking it was anything that special, I rolled out of bed, put on a wrinkled, flower-printed shirt that tied at the waist, a pair of rolled cut-offs, and most likely a pair of beat-up fake Birkenstocks. Hair in a ponytail. No makeup. 

Well, guess whose kid we're taking to Tanako??? That guy. Your Aunt Kaytea was going to Tanako, with Poppa Don and Aunt Cassie along for the ride, too. And a couple of other kids and their folks. One big happy group!

And me, dressed like a refugee from Woodstock.

Off to Hot Springs we went. I listened to musician road stories all the way there. The first time I heard the one about meeting Glenn Frey. Days of being a Coral Reefer. I was, of course, fascinated, being the frustrated musician I was at the time. After we left the camp, we went to the mall. I bought this pair of earrings:

From Claire's

And a manicure kit that had this mirror in it. 

From Dollar Tree

We had a late lunch at La Hacienda on Central Avenue. Still love their tomatillo sauce. I want to say Aunt Cassie spilled something. I could be wrong. I remember Poppa Don helping her out with the kid's menu. I did come away more curious about that guy, but I wasn't sure he was that impressed with me and my Salvation Army Chic wardrobe.

The next episode Liana instigated was a party at her house over on 8th Street, right across from Janssen Park. I was expecting that guy to be there and that was the only reason I went. I was in the middle of preparing my move to McGehee and didn't feel much like socializing even though I enjoyed the Sardhinas' company, but I went, dressed more appropriately this time: hair, makeup, the whole nine yards.

That guy didn't show. 

Bummer. I had a good time anyway, but no, he didn't show. Oh, well. Off to McGehee I would go. Another potential boyfriend scattered to the Four Winds, as usual.

Sidebar: Come to find out he'd made a date with someone else, but he ended up cancelling it. Couldn't find a babysitter, maybe? He'd also figured the rest of us were too young for him to hang out with, so, he didn't go. 

Anyway, back to the birthday party about six weeks later. Or after the birthday party, rather. I went home to prepare for the evening. Appropriate again, yet comfortable. I wore jeans and a blouse I'd bought at Penney's in the Greenville Mall when I went shopping for "teacher" clothes. He picked me up in that old gray Dodge pickup and again we were on the road to Hot Springs.

He asked where I'd like to have dinner, so I suggested Café New Orleans, downtown Central Avenue right across from the Arlington, where I'd worked years before. Only it wasn't Café New Orleans anymore. It was The Faded Rose. (As of this writing it's a Mexican place called Rolando's. Check out the picture, taken MANY years later). 

Outside Rolando's, used to be Faded Rose, used
to be Café New Orleans.

We sat at a tall table near the front window. I think we'd already been served our drink orders when Poppa Don pulled out his wallet and announced, "I have two older children," and proceeded to show me pictures of Uncle Dan and Aunt Tiffany.

I nearly fell off my stool.

Please remember that I had never been married or had children. I didn't really have any motherly instincts even pushing that close to age thirty. (Not really sure I have any at all, but we can save that discussion.) After the shock passed, we went on to have a lovely dinner. I should remember what I ate but I'm drawing a blank.

There wasn't really any place else to go, that I knew about, so we ended up spending the rest of the night at the bar at Applebee's, out by the mall. We talked and talked and talked, then drove back to Mena and talked some more. I remember thinking earlier in the day that if this didn't go well I wanted to be home in time to watch Mystery Science Theater 3000...luckily though, that wasn't necessary.

It went so well in fact that on the next night, he invited to dinner out at his house. He lived in a big log home out in Acorn, in the woods off County Road 76, and I was just glad I was able to find it. We had home-grilled ribs that night. More talking. No TV, or at least I don't remember there being a TV. He showed me around the house, and up the stairs to the loft area where his room was. The shelves along the side walls were lined with books, most of them science fiction and fantasy novels. I spotted some Star Wars...

Yep, I think this one's a keeper. 

The CD collection was rather sparse. Some country (Wade Hayes, Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks), but he had Greatest Hits by both Journey and The Eagles  And Cracked Rear View by Hottie & The Blowfish. That one ended up being played a lot in my presence. So I guess we can thank Darius Rucker for a successful beginning.

A fine, fine weekend. On Monday afternoon I drove back to McGehee, and just outside of Monticello, in the pouring rain, I topped a hill going too fast and drove my 1989 (?) gun-metal gray Pontiac Sunbird into this tree:

Large Tree

Good thing I hit the tree, because if I'd hit this pole:

Short Pole, made of steel

I probably wouldn't be telling you this story. 

I was okay. The car was toast. I couldn't go to work on Tuesday, and Mom had to drive over to check on me while I recovered. I don't remember if I called Poppa Don to tell him, or she did. The next weekend, that guy came over to McGehee to check on me. 

And the next weekend, and the weekend after that...mainly to teach me how to drive my new car, a Ford Ranger with a stick shift. I had no idea how to do that. He's pretty much been with me every weekend ever since. 

Twenty years is a long time, and there's a lot more to tell, which will be next year, when the wedding anniversary rolls around. So...you'll just have to wait for all those other details!