We give gifts at Christmas because we were given a gift.
My grandfather, John T. “Tyson” Daniel, opened Daniel’s Clothing in Tuskegee, Alabama on May 5, 1939. Originally, he moved to Tuskegee from Montgomery in 1931 at the age of 26 to open a Singer Sewing Machine store, and he was a door-to-door salesman in Tuskegee for the Singer Corporation. He opened Daniel’s Clothing in the larger space next door, but kept the old store as a stock room for the new clothing store. In the photo at the top of this article, you can see that door immediately to the left of the awning.
Daniel’s Clothing was always a family affair. My grandfather’s three sons (my father, Gerald Lee, and his two older brothers, J.T. and Floyd) worked there whenever they were needed and so did their spouses. Before my parents were married, my mother even worked there part-time as a teenager. As soon as J.T., Floyd, and Gerald Lee started having a family, all of us grand kids were expected to work at Daniel’s Clothing as well – a full dozen for forced labor. Summer might have been the time of year that was most convenient to our social lives for working at the store, but Christmas was the time that we were needed the most. The fiscal year depended heavily on Christmas and my grandfather didn’t want to lose a single sale. As soon as school was out in December, the cousins descended on Daniel’s Clothing to work for Christmas. It was not negotiable.
In 1972, my father bought the store from my grandfather, and my mother quit her job at Auburn University so they could work side by side. Once Daniel’s Clothing belonged to my parents, the working shifts for us kids changed a bit. Since he could only compel his own four kids to work there, my father welcomed any of our cousins that were willing to forego a Christmas vacation and work at the store to help out. His brother J.T. was vice-president at Alabama Exchange Bank, which was three doors down from Daniel’s Clothing on the square in downtown Tuskegee, but J.T.’s kids always seemed to prefer working at the clothing store instead of the bank. Unless you’re Scrooge McDuck, who wouldn’t?
The store was divided into a men’s side and a ladies’ side. At the front on both sides were suits and dresses, in the middle were casual clothes and accessories, and in the back were shoes. There were large mounted clothes racks along the outside walls, and a mixture of small racks and display cabinets in the middle. The office was in the center of the store, nestled between the middle section and the back. There were two large display windows (with mannequins) on either side of the doors, one for the ladies’ side and one for the men’s side. When I was little, the two male and two female mannequins in the front window were Caucasian, but when my father took over in 1972, he added African American mannequins, becoming one of the first proprietors in Alabama to do so. My father owned the building Daniel’s Clothing was in, plus the old Singer store to the left (which was the stockroom). Daddy built an additional stockroom in back of the store, then bought the empty building on the right side and expanded into it. The original store became all men’s clothes and the expanded side became all ladies’ clothes.
Daniel’s Clothing stopped selling children’s clothes and Buster Brown shoes in the mid-1960’s. At the midpoint along the side walls of the store, there was a floor-to-ceiling five-way mirror alcove and a nearby curtained dressing room. Every little kid accompanying their parents in the store bee-lined straight for that five-way mirror, and each would just stand there making faces, mesmerized that they could see the back of their own head.
My father was a long-distance runner, so Daniel’s Clothing snagged one of the first Nike franchises awarded anywhere in Alabama. Daniel’s Clothing even sold the first edition of Air Jordans when they came out, and I’ll never stop kicking myself for not keeping mine. People came from all over just to buy Nike’s from Daniel’s Clothing.
Our price tags were hand-written and they displayed two things – the retail price written normally and the wholesale price written in code, and our code word was CHAMBERPOT for 1234567890. For example, if you saw HBTT on a price tag, that meant the item cost Daniel’s Clothing $25.00 originally, and the retail price would obviously be higher than that. Daddy loved to barter and negotiate with customers, and the coded wholesale price told him how much wiggle room he had. He would accept trades for clothing quite frequently. For example, he would trade clothing purchases for gasoline purchases with the owner of a gas station. Clothes for groceries. Clothes for auto repair. Clothes for jewelry. Clothes for hardware. He would even accept household items in trade for clothing. He allowed people to have charge accounts, but he didn’t run credit scores or anything like that. If you charged something and didn’t pay for it later, you didn’t get to charge anything else after that. He allowed preferred customers to take clothing home “on approval.” That meant they got to take it home without paying and then try it on there. Afterwards, they either brought it back or kept it and paid for it later.
Daddy allowed hometown athletes attending Auburn, Alabama, Tuskegee, Alabama State, or Troy to have some clothes and shoes for free. As a former scholarship football player himself at Auburn, he understood what they were going through. Although the NCAA didn’t like what he was doing, they couldn’t really say anything because he equally helped athletes at all the area colleges without giving an unfair advantage to anyone.
Another thing for which Daddy was famous was always having a pot of coffee ready for any utility/maintenance workers assigned to the area. Gas company, power company, phone company, road crews, logging crews, and construction crews alike, they all knew they were welcome to come in the back door and help themselves to a cup of coffee. Daddy also kept a change of clothes for himself available at the store so that he could slip out and join a work crew if they were doing anything fun and challenging. Crew supervisors got a kick out of letting him put the young bucks on the job-sites to shame, because he could always outwork anybody at manual labor. It wasn’t even fair how strong and fit he was.
Many citizens of Tuskegee lived totally off government assistance, but they sadly weren’t capable of managing their finances. Therefore, they brought their checks to Daddy each month along with their bills, and he would cash their checks and use it to pay their bills for them. The remaining balance of cash returned to them came with detailed instructions from Daddy on how much they could spend on food, medicine, etc., each week for the rest of the month. If they followed his advice, they lived well. If they didn’t, they struggled.
So, what was it like to work at Daniel’s Clothing during a typical Christmas season? To begin with, we were BUSY! The store was full of customers throughout the day, and there was tons of work to do. Every morning, the floors were swept and the carpet was vacuumed. Merchandise was constantly re-stocked throughout the day. Racks and cases were “cleaned,” meaning they were sorted and items replaced where they were supposed to be. Customers were notorious for selecting items from one rack, changing their minds, and placing them back on the wrong rack. We made sure that was corrected throughout the day, and every customer should expect to find all items hanging in the proper places when it was their turn to browse. Customer service was a huge deal at Daniel’s Clothing, and it was never allowed for a customer to browse alone. Each employee was expected to be a personal helper for every single customer, and as soon as someone walked in the door, they were greeted with, “May I help you?” As employees, we were required to stay with that customer throughout their entire shopping experience and never leave them alone. The most unforgivable sin would be to lose a sale because a customer had no one to help them. We answered questions, made suggestions, and offered opinions on their shopping needs. We were expected to be honest and not simply try to talk someone into buying something for the purpose of making a sale because we wanted them to trust us enough to keep coming back. When the customer was finished choosing items, we accompanied them to the register where we called out their selections so my parents could either ring it all up for a cash sale or charge it to their account. While all that was going on, the more talented cousins/siblings would personally gift wrap any purchase that needed it. Gift wrapping was always personal and always free at Daniel’s Clothing. We had seemingly tons of empty boxes, tissue paper, wrapping paper, tape, scissors, bows, and name cards. On any given day during Christmas season, the checkout area looked and sounded like the pit in the New York Stock Exchange. Employees were calling out purchases from different sides of the store (I don’t know how my parents kept up) while other employees were reaching over, around, and through them to wrap the purchases. It was total organized chaos, and totally awesome! Finally, the items were bagged, and the customers were helped out the door while looking like Santa headed to his sleigh.
At some point, when the crush of customers made it too time-consuming to wrap packages, we resorted to using pre-wrapped boxes. In the months prior to Christmas, employees would fill up any down time by wrapping the tops and bottoms of boxes separately. Then, during the Christmas crush, you could “wrap” a purchase by placing it inside a pre-wrapped matching bottom and top, taping the two parts together, and sticking a bow on it. And speaking of bows, we had a bow machine. You loaded a button pin in the center, fed a spool of shiny colored ribbon into the wheel, and turned the crank. It went through a weird shifting figure-eight pattern and ended with an elaborate bow that stuck right to the box. I still have that bow machine.
My parents had Christmas music playing in the store during the holiday season on a radio connected to large speakers, and they selected mostly old-time standards. My brother, who worked there full-time, frequently switched the music to soul and R&B Christmas music. Therefore, half the time we listened to a standards station out of Montgomery, and the rest of the time we listened to the local station in Tuskegee, WBIL (“where We Believe In Love”). At that time, it was trendy for retail stores to play Muzak, which consisted of light pop covers of classical standards, but Daniel’s Clothing is the first store I can remember that featured a current blend of contemporary, fresh music.
Although there were a few places in Tuskegee to get a hot lunch in the middle of the day, Daddy hated to be caught short on employees during the Christmas rush. Therefore, he sent someone on a daily run to Krystal to get bags full of dozens of little Krystal burgers. That way, the employees could heat them up in the store’s break room, and (most importantly) not have to leave the store to grab a bite. Nobody got an actual “lunch break” during Christmas, as we just nibbled on Krystals all day whenever we got a minute. Nobody complained if they had to put down their burger and run out to help a customer, because they could always come back and grab a new one.
What about our customers? Tuskegee wasn’t a typical “town and gown” college community. Most of our customers came from the Tuskegee community and very few came from Tuskegee Institute. Although we might get a handful of students or faculty from campus to come in and browse, they usually walked in the door already convinced they weren’t going to like it. Since Tuskegee Institute was a very expensive private school, most of the student body came from affluent families, and they were used to a lot better than Tuskegee could offer. However, the community of Tuskegee was our lifeblood, and I don’t mind saying the feeling was mutual. For many people in Tuskegee, Daniel’s Clothing was simply the place to be during Christmas.
Customers could always count on being treated wonderfully, and they had a great time while shopping. When they walked in the door, we could tell that they had been really looking forward to their visit. Daniel’s Clothing was the greatest place to hang out and visit with friends and neighbors, and everyone was in on it. People who weren’t sure if they could get their own families through the Winter would gather together at Daniel’s Clothing to celebrate. All day long, it was “Merry Christmas,” and “Happy Holidays,” and “Seasons Greetings!” All day long, it was laughter and teasing. All day long, it was conviviality among the customers, and we were fortunate enough to be the facilitators.
Although the store technically closed at 6pm, Daddy never locked out a customer. If anybody showed up at 6:00 and wanted to shop, he let them in and we stayed until they were done. Once, he even re-opened the locked doors on Christmas Eve long after 6:00 for Ronald LaPread of The Commodores just so he could enjoy the tranquility of shopping for his family without being mobbed by fans. Whenever it was finally and officially time to close for the day, Daddy would call out, “Lock it up, Gerry,” to my brother. When you heard those words on a normal day, you got to go home tired, but anxious to do it all over again the next day. When you heard “Lock it up, Gerry,” at the end of the day during Christmas, you went home exhausted, spent, worn out, drained, hungry, sleepy, and very exhilarated.
The address for Daniel’s Clothing was originally 110 W. Northside, but changed to 104 W. Northside “on the square” in downtown Tuskegee, Alabama 36083. The phone number was 727-3240. We had three different slogans. The oldest one was “Dress right, you can’t afford not to,” and the newest one was “Where courtesy complements good taste.” My mother came up with the second one, and the spelling of “complements” was that way on purpose. The third slogan was “Quality wear for people who care,” and it only appeared on hanging garment bags. My parents retired in 1995 and Daniel’s Clothing permanently closed its doors the same week that Hurricane Opal came calling.
I suppose everyone with fond memories of Christmas has an iconic memory tucked away that will always represent Christmas to them. My most cherished Christmas memories aren’t of traveling, or opening gifts under the tree, or going to parties, or eating a huge family meal, or attending church, or driving around to look at lights. Every Christmas at Daniel’s Clothing, I was surrounded by warm and familiar decorations, Christmas music, loving family (parents, siblings, and cousins), fellow employees, laughter, Krystal burgers, downtown Tuskegee, and happy customers. A Daniel’s Clothing Christmas is what I will remember and cherish the most of all my Christmas memories.
