Oldies but Goodies - Dangles

Last Saturday I told you a story about my friend and myself going to the local office supply store and buying sealing wax and stamps.
Today I'll tell you a story about one of our jewelry stores that took place around the same time, in the late 70s.
That store was called "Jewelry Chest" and, honestly, once I was grown up enough I felt a little sorry for the staff there. The "Jewelry Chest" had a sister store called "Jewelry Safe", an ordinary jewelry store. Ordinary at least to us teenagers. They sold the real stuff, gold, gemstones, watches, way out of our budget.

The "Jewelry Chest", however, had little trinkets and decorations, from small animals carved from quartz to what we would call boho jewelry today, affordable silver pieces and more. It was heaven for us teenagers. I'm surprised I never stuck to that window with my nose because I couldn't resist it. Of course we bought friendship rings there (there may be another Saturday story in there) or we went just in to browse a little which I can't remember ever being discouraged, by the way, no matter if we bought something or not.

One day I finally had the money to buy a special birthday gift for one of my friends, a pair of dangly earrings from sterling silver (much of the silver jewelry still was 835 instead of the 925 at that time) that cost me incredible 32 DM. That was a lot of money for me back then, but my friend's family had always been so nice to me. They even took me with them for a vacation once, so I wanted to show that I appreciated it.
I had been so excited about these earrings. I had to go there all the time to see if they were still there. I loved them so much that I couldn't imagine anyone else not loving them. There was one little silver ball with two more little silver balls dangling from it on chains. Nothing that unusual, you may think now, but apparently I have always had a thing for dangles!
To present them in style I knitted a doll with yellow yarn braids and stuck the earrings in the head at the spots where the ears would be.
The birthday came and guess what. My friend didn't seem excited at all. She barely even looked at them. I don't know why, I really don't remember anymore if that was a style of earrings she never wore and if I had simply chosen what I liked instead of what she might have wanted. Then again I was only 13 and not always very wise. Okay, I'm still not always very wise, but maybe a little more than 40 years ago.
I wasn't mad at her, by the way. Maybe I regretted that I couldn't take the earrings back to keep them myself, but I never forgot that feeling when I walked out of the store to look into the little paper bag, and it's a good memory.

So why have I told you that story at all? Kudos to you if you made it all the way through. Dangles were this week's topic at the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge, just what I like :-D
I hope you will, too.

1 and 8 The Crafty Chimp
2 and 7 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 and 5 MC Stoneworks
4 and 6 Cat's Wire