Trimming Windows

When I was about 15 or so, right toward the end of World War II., I along with my high school friend Ross, worked for my Dad at Davidson’s in Des Moines during that summer. I had helped my Dad over the years trim windows. Ross was a art student in high school. So my Dad decided we could do the minor window trimming duties. Davidson’s was a full blown department store. They had Women’s clothes, household and appliance department, furniture, sporting goods, jewelry, etc.

My friend Ross was kind of a jokester. He decided one day that we should get into one of the windows facing the main entrance and pretend to be mannequins. Well this happen to be a window displaying women’s dresses and suits. There were several mannequins as I remember and Ross and I took up positions facing these and pretended to be shaking hands.

We stood very still but turned ever so slightly so we could see the people going in and out of the store. Most of them walked on by without noticing us. Some would stop and look and then after a bit realize that a couple of the mannequins were men and then realize that they were ‘real’. The women especially would laugh and point at us and try to talk to us. Every so often we would turn our head and give a little wave which occasionally startled a passerby.

As I remember we kept that up for only a short time afraid of being caught by a store employee. We repeated this little game a couple of times that summer. The best though was standing in the sporting goods window with a fishing pole in hand. Very seldom did a man ever catch on. Or did my Dad that I knew of, or did the store ever catch on.















The trees in this window were real. After Christmas my Dad would go out and buy unsold Christmas trees and tie up all the branchs and stack them behind the hous and cover them with snow. Come spring he would use them in his sporting goods windows. Nobody else in Des Moines went to these lenghts.
















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