D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
December
2008
Santa Cause
Our intrepid reporter goes holiday shopping, with a eye for gifts "Made in the USA."
By Jeff Berg
Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful. . . . Oh, hello! Sorry, just a bit carried away by the spirit of the season! Ho, ho, humbug.
I'm Jeff, your personal Christmas shopper, and I will be showing you the ins and outs of holiday shopping this year, by following a severely regimented routine with lots of rules and a small, number-free budget.
No longer will I be spending scads of money on flummoxed kinfolk I haven't seen in years, or stacking mounds of presents under the tree for my wife who is easily overwhelmed. Not that I ever did, anyway, but I wouldn't want anyone to think that I wasn't into gift giving.
This year is different — sort of.
This year, since no one wanted my writing services and I am almost broke, I am only buying presents for four people. My wife, my pseudo-stepmother, my fictitious Uncle Ebenezer and equally fake brother Klaus (the latter two for the purposes of adding some male recipients to this story — heck, I can keep the gifts I buy "for" them, and probably take everything off the taxes!) are the only two-leggeds I will adorn with gifts this year. Everyone else is O-U-T.
My budget is minimal: no local art or handicraft stuff, no coupons for a free housecleaning or 12 hours of lovemaking (although. . .), and I hope to get only things that are — believe it or not — made in the USA. My familia is not the sort that appreciates non-mainstream gift giving, so this might be tough.
I don't have any particular items in mind, except for the burro that my wife wants, so I will just be wandering around to see how my mood carries me.
A first stop is at the Mesilla Valley Mall. This Las Cruces conglomeration of shopping emporiums no longer looks like your typical mall, one that has any number of mid- and high-end franchise stores. Rather, it has begun to take on the look and feel of a flea market, with a proliferation of stores that carry items that are low-budget, gimmicky and/or pointless. The anchor stores — Dillard's, Sears and JC Penney, along with Barnes and Noble — help retain any integrity this place may have once had. Not that any mall has any integrity to begin with, but you know what I mean.
I wander into Boot Barn, which recently took the place of the Corral West franchise that operated in this spot for many years. Boot Barn is in the process of remodeling and retooling.
Hmmm, think I, perhaps I can make this a one-stop shopping trip: Make all of my receivees into cowpersons. I pointedly shuffle around the place while the help completely ignores me, probably because I am not wearing any items that have anything to do with the world of cows or horses. Perhaps they know that I am wearing shoes from a manufacturer in England that produces "vegetarian" shoes, my belt is from Moo Shoes of NYC, another place that handles clothing and accessories for those who don't want to use leather, and my wallet is tattered hemp, which completes my self-designed designer ensemble.
Alas, they do not know that I am a BIG fan of WAH MAKER shirts, a company that harkens its line of clothes back to the Old West. Using patterns, fabrics (cotton, silk and wool, not polyester) and designs that were popular back when New Mexico still allowed people to (legally) shoot one another on the street, WAH MAKER is one of the few clothiers that make band-collar shirts, a personal favorite, when they are not in style.
My goal now is to dress "Uncle Eb" in a WAH MAKER shirt, instead of that old topcoat and stovepipe hat, since WAH has always constructed its shirts, pants, vests, blouses and coats in the good ol' USA. The tags verify that rumor.
Some nice patterns invade my visual space, and some nice designs, too. Wow, this is going to be easier than I thought! Did I mention that Eb has never missed a meal and is in need of an XXXXL? Gift buying for him is not going to happen here! Uncle Eb looks like a teepee with legs.
I do settle for a gambler-style shirt for fictional brother Klaus, knowing that he will barely acknowledge it, ask for a receipt, and return it to Boot Barn for a full refund. From there, he will adjourn to the nearest tavern that serves micro-brewed beer, and quaff down some holiday spirit, perhaps something like Fruitcake Ale.
So, one down, three to go. Time to bid adieu to Boot Barn and try someplace else.
An errand requires me to go to Target, to buy a bunch of the on-sale American-made diet soft drink that my wife has IV'ed into her arm every day. While there, even knowing the expected results, I mosey through the ladies' wear. (Not the ladies' dainties, perv — this is for my 80-year-old stepmother. She'd think a thong was a slingshot.) I become briefly obsessed with looking at clothing tags, searching for anything that is not made in Asia by people receiving slave wages and treatment.
I receive a mini-tour of every eastern country on the map: Macao, China, Indonesia, India. Nothing even remotely close to New Mexico.
This brings to mind a thought I have a lot when I do shop for something. I have in recent years done my best to disqualify any product that I need or care to give to someone that is (probably) made in conditions that benefit only a few, and requires gawd knows how much fuel to transport from places such as Indonesia to New Mexico. Nothing against the people of Indonesia, but this outsourcing concept, based on greed and numbers, brings a lot to a few and nothing to many.
Anyway, back to the mission at hand.
After failing to find a gift at Target, but succeeding in getting a year's supply of on-sale diet soft drinks, I head over to the NMSU campus for another errand.
Twice a year or so, the NMSU Bookstore folks push a lot of their merchandise into the hallway in front of the store and offer it at discount prices. Now, usually, with this kind of sale, as with coupons, the reduced price can give you a fair idea of how much the mark-up is on this stuff.
I am engulfed by a sea of cell-phone yapping, butt-crack and cleavage-revealing, backpack-carrying students determined to find the right piece of Aggie propaganda-wear for Maw, Paw and little Tiffany back home in Clovis.
I flee to the interior of the store, noting that for the third month they haven't ordered the pens or small padded envelopes that I use (Las Cruces is awash with merchants who have no idea what the word "inventory" means). I espy several racks of Aggie wear and descend upon them to check the labels.
As expected, no political correctness on this campus, which just this semester got around to starting a more serious recycling program: India, Indonesia, Macao, Vietnam, another travelogue of the Far East.
Discouraged, I head toward the door, but happen to look up as I pass a display set up for NMSU alumni. All things that alumni of any age could use are here: golf shirts, Depends, checkbook covers, shot glasses, pennants and, ta-dah, golf balls! A set of three of these beauties, made in the USA, is soon going to go into someone's Christmas stocking, even though none of my giftees plays golf. But who cares? It's the thought that counts, right?
I am doing better than I expected playing Santa. The next stop is Las Cruces' most unique gift shop (and cafe), Spirit Winds.
Here, owner Richard Parra houses all sorts of worldly goods, sustainable and imported, fun and serious. Now out of the used CD business, Parra and his staff have moved everything around, creating a more open space, and stocking more trinkets of the fun variety. It is here where I bend the rules a little, and find a skirt for my wife, a charming flowing, silky piece that is made in India. But with that purchase comes reassurance that it was not made under Wal-Mart-type conditions. On a return visit, a casual admiration of a neat little wood-and-bead bracelet finds that it has ended up in my sweaty palm, after striking a pleasant bargain with Parra.
This will go in my wife's dainty stocking which will be hung with care near the double-queen-size pantyhose that I post. Not to worry about her knowing what she is getting, since she never reads my stories anyway.
I next check the big-name franchise bookstore, always a ready source of gift-giving ideas. But when I read the frontispiece of several selections, including the newest one by my favorite author, Charles Bowden, I find the familiar "PRINTED IN CHINA" note. Curious, since the Bowden tome, a collaboration with noted Mexican photographer Julian Cardona, is about the issue of illegal immigration on the border. I decide to again break my own rules and purchase it (but not at the big bookstore) for myself for Christmas.
By now, I am a bit tired of roaming through stores, and am thankful I am not one of those who does so once the "season" officially starts, the day after Thanksgiving. A woefully misnamed holiday, Thanksgiving is slowly being turned into another merchandising day by the tyrants who go wallet-mining for any loose change you might have. No holiday is immune to this marketing; I noted an ad in the local daily fish wrap, offering 11 percent off for all veterans in honor of Veteran's Day. I remember a few years ago when the El Paso Times ran a banner front page headline on the day after turkey day, proclaiming, "THANKSGIVING'S OVER. . . IT'S TIME TO SHOP!!!" "Shop" was in italics, just in case you missed the message.
Anyway, I head home for lunch and an online gift search.
Only the golf balls and WAH MAKER shirt have become unique finds in my search for truth, justice and the American way. But here, I am able to save a lot of time and gas, if not much money, since the dreaded and unregulated shipping and handling charges tend to add up to about as much as you would spend on gas. Nonetheless, it is easier as long as hackers don't intervene, and I immediately find a Web site, www.madeinusaforever.com, which offers "hundreds of products, all made in the USA!"
Well, that is true, and there are a variety of small things — tools, various pieces of clothing, flags (!!), toys and lots of socks. If you need socks, then they have the listings for you. Certainly worthy efforts, but nothing that will bring American industry and manufacturing to the high point it reached in the 1950s.
I also check my personal new source for jeans, All American Jeans, which offers a great pair o' blues, union made, and in my size. No need to endlessly look for the elusive waist size that Levi Strauss offers only through special order (and, no, it is not 54). Even though the company appears to be under new ownership, it still offers about the same line of clothing that I remember from a year or so ago. No progress, but at least they are still at it.
Other mediocre Web sites offer any number of minor US-made items, none of which plug in (try finding anything with an electrical cord that is made in the USA), and I decide that this is the wrong approach, after all.
Big-time retailers have bullied and gouged the public for years, and I am sure that as I write this, many of them are sweating over how this year's holiday shopping frenzy will turn out. Consumers will have considerably fewer choices, with the demise of any number of corporate biggies, but maybe, in some way, that will be good for small businesses or folks who make and sell their work, such as those who live for and by the arts.
And we all know that there is not a charitable organization in the land that could not use your help, or the help of my king-size Uncle Eb, who will now unknowingly be making a contribution to the charity of my choice: As soon as I return brother Klaus' shirt and the golf balls and that thong (made in USA out of rubber) I bought for my stepmother, that money will go to the charity of their choice.
The skirt and bracelet stay, but a few bucks will go to someone needier than I ever hope to be, in my wife's name.
And for the rest of you, here is my gift for you — this piece of advice from writer and humorist Oren Arnold:
"Holiday gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect."
Senior writer Jeff Berg watches the moths escape every time
he opens
his tattered hemp wallet in Las Cruces.
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