Black Friday in “Olde Milford”™

I usually avoid Black Friday -- the day after Thanksgiving, the "official" beginning of the Christmas shopping season -- as if it were the Black Plague. (Recent news reports would justify this concern.) So it was actually refreshing to spend it in “Olde Milford” downtown. Quaint, huh? All the stores that used to sell things people actually needed are replaced by antique stores and fancy little bistros. (Well, almost all of them. This photo of the street in quieter days shows an appliance store, promoting such unglamorous items as vacuum cleaners, coincidentally where Rosenzweig's Department Store used to be.) Even the municipal building moved out of downtown, to a location with more room, if less of a heritage. Still, they have to keep up the ambiance. I can walk down the street and tell you where about half the old stores used to be; the Milford Hardware store, Hackmeister's Meat Market, the Post Office, the Corner Barber Shop, Diskete's Jewelers, even the old A & P Grocery Store which later became a Rexall Drug Store.

I bought a tree with all the decorations and lights on it from an antique dealer for $25.00. That was a steal. I'm leaving it for Mom and Dad to have in their room (a matter to be handled by my kid sister at an opportune moment). I also bought a bottle of dessert wine on sale from what once was the aforementioned barber shop. On the other hand, I didn't have any shoes that needed repairing, or I would have stopped by the one place which actually has never changed.

Thank goodness some things in this world are still sacred.