Wednesday Walk: Don't Label Me
Sears sleuthing, making vinegar, and another global strike
Welcome to Willoughby Hills!
Every Wednesday, I offer a few short ideas that I hope will inspire you to do some more reading, thinking, and exploring. Let’s take a little walk together and see where the path leads…
Another Strike
Even though I consider myself fairly well informed, I find that the modern media ecosystem makes it harder and harder for me to feel like I have any sense of what’s actually happening in the world.
If you feel that way too, I would forgive you for missing the worldwide strike that’s currently happening to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. Those who support Palestinians are being asked to only make necessary purchases like food, ideally with cash rather than through credit cards. If you’re able to stay home from work or school, please do.
Longtime readers have probably sensed my growing anti-consumptionism, so I think the strike is a good idea for many reasons.
If you’re able to, please participate.
More details can be found on Bisan Owda’s Instagram page, a reporter who has been covering Gaza on social media.
Throughout this conflict, I have been sharing resources for people who are interested in learning more about Gaza and Palestine. My wife requested the book We Are Palestinian: A Celebration of Culture and Tradition by Reem Kassis and illustrated by Noha Eilouti from our library. It came in yesterday and I picked it up.
The book is an illustrated book for older children, but my wife and I have been flipping through it and really learning a lot. It talks about important cities in Palestine, famous people, culinary traditions, native plants, and more.
If you’re looking for an accessible place to get started learning about Palestinian culture, this is a great place. Even though it’s officially a kid’s book, we both found it to be informative with beautiful illustrations too.
O Vinegar, O Vinegar
A few weeks ago, I interviewed Patric Richardson on the podcast about his amazing new book House Love, which offers ideas for cleaning and organizing our houses.
In the book, Patric warns about the dangers of commercially available cleaning products. Even the ones labelled as “natural” may contain harmful ingredients. His alternative is a few homemade remedies, including a 1:1 solution of white vinegar and water.
Because computers seem to know our every inner thought before we do, while I was reading Patric’s book, Instagram started serving me random posts from people I don’t follow about making infused vinegars. One of them involved using the branches of your used Christmas tree.
When we took down our tree earlier this month, I decided to give it a try. I cut several small branches off of our tree, placed them in a Mason jar, and covered with vinegar. The solution sat on my window sill for a week or two to let the scent from the fir tree infuse the vinegar.
I recently strained the vinegar, added water to dilute it, and placed the mixture in a spray bottle to make a household cleaner. I haven’t had a chance to clean much with it yet, but let me tell you, it smells AMAZING! It’s stronger and more potent than just the Christmas tree on its own was and the fir smell masks any of the unpleasantness of the vinegar.
Once I drained the vinegar, I was left with a Mason jar full of highly scented fir branches. Rather than simply discard them, I decided to leave the jar open in my bathroom to act as a natural air freshener.
I’ve heard that vinegars can also be infused with used citrus peels. I may try that next.
Have you ever tried making an infused vinegar? Would you? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
What’s in a Label?
If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a bit, you know that I spent most of the last year pledging not to buy any new clothes. That pledge officially expired last October, although I have kept the spirit of the challenge alive and can still tally only 1 new shirt and 5 used items since the challenge began about 15 months ago.
Ironically, half of the six items I purchased happened to be vintage Sears tops (one sweater and two short sleeve shirts). Sears clothing was unremarkable in its day, it was pretty middle of the road and middle class.
Frankly, most Sears clothing would probably still be unremarkable now were it not for the strange, slow death of the company, which went from hundreds of outlets in nearly every corner of the U.S. to just a handful today.
Last year, I visited the last Sears location in New England for this newsletter, and the store count hovers around a dozen locations remaining in the world. Unexpectedly, Sears recently reopened two shuttered stores, one in California and one in Washington, although nobody expects much of a comeback.
There’s something about the nostalgia of Sears that appeals to me, even if I wouldn’t have a reason to shop in their stores today. I suppose that’s why I was so taken with the vintage Sears shirts when I saw them in thrift stores.
One Sears item that I saw on a thrift store rack recently that did not come home with me was a leather jacket from The Leather Shop at Sears.
I have never owned a leather jacket and I don’t know the first thing about them, but I have to admit that I was intrigued. My rule for myself as been that every article of clothing I buy has to be unimpeachably good- good quality, good color, good fit. This jacket was at least a size too big and it didn’t feel that good on.
There was something charming to me about the tag, if nothing else.
If you’re interested in vintage clothes, I recently found the Vintage Fashion Guild, which is an amazing reference for helping to date old clothes based on their tags.
They have an entire page of Sears tags, which helped me date the shirts I have to the 1970s. They also made me want to buy a Sears Hawaiian shirt for the tag alone. I don’t even have to see the shirt to know it’s awesome!
Vintage Fashion Guild’s site has a lot to explore, including tag galleries for more than 1,000 fashion brands!
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Other Wednesday Walks
If you’ve missed past issues of this newsletter, they are available to read here.
Thanks for sharing the Fashion Guild. Really useful.