Purses By Linda Stowe
One of the perks of being in a wheelchair is that I can carry with me everything I need when going on an outing. I have a small tote bag slung over one of the back handles that carries my wallet, phone, house key, garage door opener, even a cup to make it easier to drink water from a fountain. I never have to worry about forgetting something because I always keep it in the bag.
I thought of my mother’s handbag the other day as I dropped something into my tote bag. My mother’s handbag was utilitarian. It contained provisions to address just about any event one would encounter on an outing with a small child: tissues, cough drops, pen and paper, safety pins, band-aids, and the always fascinating collapsable cup. My grandmother’s handbag was another matter. It was the ultimate goody bag of things that would enchant even the most moody child. Keeping a child quiet during a long church service when it would not be appropriate to scold them is an artform, but Grandma was up to the task. She had pencils and paper to draw with, small books to read, little toys to play with, even rolls of Lifesavers if a small stomach began to growl.
Women don’t carry handbags out of vanity. We carry them to be prepared.
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Polly here.
I have several purses, but I don’t carry one much. And my purse doesn’t have much in it except for my wallet and a couple of other items. Most of the time, if I’m going somewhere, I just grab my wallet.
It seems that younger people barely carry purses either. Most of their little crossbody bags these days seem small in scale, barely big enough for an iPhone. I’ll have to start looking more at purses. I hadn’t thought about my mom’s purse in a long time, but it was packed to the hilt. If you needed something, it was probably in Mom’s purse. LOL. I don’t know what was in my grandmother’s purse. She kept to herself.
I’m not sure if I completely agree with Linda’s last statement. I think that women of older generations carried purses to be prepared. But these days, I think a lot of it is about vanity. The younger Gens care about how they look. How much they spend on a purse. If it matches. And so on.
Either way. I mainly wonder if purses are here to stay or if they will disappear like so many other things. Like phone booths. And encyclopedias. And fax machines.
Purses By Linda Stowe
