It is a Saturday morning, outside my window the greenery of the tree invites me to climb up and sit on its wet branches and sing with the birds I hear but cannot see. It is quiet. So quiet it gives off that high pitch yet subtle sound in your ears. I would think I woke up in a remote jungle if not for the low, steady sound of an airplane above, and the honks of a car a few blocks over.
The outside world holds a lot for me, most of which I doubt I know yet. I have thoughts of traveling to a new place, experiencing the food and the people, pretending that my flight back to my same ole same ole doesn't exist.
I had about 5 hours of sleep, I feel fine, something left over from my college days. My waking up and looking a bedding on Macy's is not.
You ever wonder who this Macy person is? Sounds like a white middle-class girl name from back in the day, sounds like she could very well be that girl who's so special but in an understated way, the girl who made it big but still has within her those small-town values.
In fact, Macy is a man. Rowland Hussey Macy, Sr. He was a small-town boy who made it big ... he opened his first retail store in Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1843 at the age of 21!
Side note: (I wonder who came up with the idea that college should be "normal" and so pricey... the ROI is currently based on a "you'll make more than those who didn't" mantra, but it seems that's because you'll be taking the job that were offered to those who didn't, not necessarily for a whole lot more in salary and not necessarily for a whole lot more in job prestige).
Haverhill was a temperance society, meaning they discouraged heavy drinking, and also had homes which were stops in the underground railroad. I can see how their values aligned with Macy's because he came from a Quaker family, and Quakers were also anti-slavery since they believed that God loved everyone no matter what. His stores there failed, but he moved up north to NYC to try again.
This time he succeeded, he was not close by any other stores that sold similar items. This was after the Market Revolution began, when work hours were long and pay was low. Macy's had an onsite factory to make clothes to fit people as they measured them, so it seems plausible that this was a distinct factor in success. He later moved the store to the 'Ladies Mile' on Broadway and 18th st, you can tell by the name that many women shopped there. Macy's is now on 34th st and broadway.
And I really did not mean to give Macy's: A history lesson.
But you see what I mean, I'm having college thoughts about post-college things. I suppose that was the purpose of going to college all along ...
