(I remember dressing up in hats and gloves to go to downtown Birmingham and watch the double feature at the movies while my parents shopped – fun times – Donna Causey)
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MEET UNDER THE CLOCK
by
Jean Butterworth
Every mid-November I start thinking, “I can’t believe it also most time to get ready for Christmas. Where has the time gone?” Time has gone the past year with the celebration of our favorite holidays, birthdays, vacations or attending work and school. But of course, I love Christmas and the time of year with cold crisp air and sometimes a little snow.
Pizitz Department store
In years past, Christmas shopping meant going to downtown Birmingham to Pizitz or Loveman’s. The huge clock on the corner of Loveman’s Department store was our starting point to begin shopping. At that time you dressed up in your Sunday best to shop downtown.
Loveman’s Clock
First, you had to stop and window shop at these huge department store windows with displays of Christmas fairylands. Children pushed their little noses to the cold window glass to gaze at the moving toy trains or tiny elves swinging through the Christmas trees lights. Children tugged on mom’s and dad’s hands as they rushed through the doors to find Santa and sit on his lap and whisper their wishes for him to bring them on Christmas Eve.
Loveman’s Department Store
In the middle of shopping at Loveman’s you always had to stop for a break and eat lunch in the tea room on the balcony of Loveman’s. After eating you continued your shopping over at Pizitz and wander through the “Enchanted Forrest.”
Mezzanine in Loveman’s
Shopping was a pleasure in downtown Birmingham and at the end of the day you had an arm full of Christmas presents wrapped in brightly colored paper with huge bows.
So, when you were through shopping you remembered you had told your friends to, “Meet me under the Clock at Loveman’s”………..the designated place to meet downtown after a Christmas shopping day.
Chinaberries and Other Memories of Alabama
by Jean Butterworth
Do you remember 4-H clubs? Eight-party lines? Fashion in the 1950s? Going to school during World War II?
In this collection of Alabama memories, Jean Butterworth takes readers on a nostalgic journey through growing up in Alabama during the Great Depression, World War II, and beyond. She pays homage to a time before the Internet, cell phones, and all of the distractions of modern life.
Readers of all ages will enjoy taking a step back in time and preserving these memories, which, like Chinaberry trees, may soon be hard to come by.
[…] station’s studio was moved to the radio department in the top floor of the Loveman, Joseph & Loeb Department Store in Birmingham with the antenna strung between two rooftop towers. The success of WSY forced […]
Been there and did all those things growing up in and near birmingham. The whole family would go and our parents would allow the older kids (10 or 11 yrs) to go separately to shop. There were not so many worries that something dreadful would happen to young people. If you have been there and done those things the memory stays forever fresh!
that’s true , everyone would meet under the clock. If the clock could talk.
Oh, just one more time…
My mother and father met each other for the first time under the Loveman’s clock in 1953. She was 20 years old and lived with two other young women who had all recently moved to Birmingham and worked together. They had ridden a bus downtown to attend the Veterans Day Parade and had been shopping and looking around afterward before waiting to catch the return bus outside Loveman’s.
As they waited for their bus, three soldiers, up from Fort Benning for the parade, walked by and began talking to them. Not long after they began talking the bus arrived and the women said goodbye and boarded the bus, only to discover the three guys got on behind them. The men said they were not going to leave unless the ladies agreed to go out with them sometime. My mother and her friends gave them a number to contact them at work and made them get off the bus so they wouldn’t miss their ride back to the base.
It wasn’t long before they were contacted by the guys and all agreed to meet for lunch a few weeks later in Birmingham. They continued to date whenever the men could come to Birmingham, and my parents and one of the other couples were married about a year later. They all stayed in touch over the years, during and after their military careers, and had many fond memories of times spent together, all because of a chance meeting under the clock at Loveman’s so long ago.
My mother and father met each other for the first time under the Loveman’s clock in 1953. She was 20 years old and lived with two other young women who had all recently moved to Birmingham and worked together. They had ridden a bus downtown to attend the Veterans Day Parade and had been shopping and looking around afterward before waiting to catch the return bus outside Loveman’s.
As they waited for their bus, three soldiers, up from Fort Benning for the parade, walked by and began talking to them. Not long after they began talking the bus arrived and the women said goodbye and boarded the bus, only to discover the three guys got on behind them. The men said they were not going to leave unless the ladies agreed to go out with them sometime. My mother and her friends gave them a number to contact them at work and made them get off the bus so they wouldn’t miss their ride back to the base.
It wasn’t long before they were contacted by the guys and all agreed to meet for lunch a few weeks later in Birmingham. They continued to date whenever the men could come to Birmingham, and my parents and one of the other couples were married about a year later. They all stayed in touch over the years during and after their military careers and had many fond memories of times spent together, all because of a chance meeting under the clock at Loveman’s so long ago.
Guess my favorite was Pizitz Bargain Basement!!!!
yes,the alabama theater was a meeting place for teens on weekends.lovemans and pizitz’s had christmas decorations in their windows.and brother bryan was in the roundabout.now there are dailly shootings and used syringes in the alleys.what has happened to our beautiful city?
We always met under the clock at loveman’s
My grandparents lived in Mulga, AL and we lived in Birmingham. Mother and I would ride the bus to downtown and meet my grandmother under this clock. Grandma would ride two buses to get to downtown Birmingham. Many young people don’t know the advantages (or in some cases, the disadvantages’!) of the interstates.
Then go to Joy Young’s for lunch . I Loved their duck.
For the privilege.
Surely that is the Loveman’s corner.