Evening star., 1945-12-16
By w. H. SHIPPEN, Jr.

season swung into the frantic home
stretch yesterday with stores run
ming out of almost everything except
cash customers and what-nots like
Western saddles. plated chess
sets, hill billy shirts or Tail Spin
perfume.
| In view Of the fact that there
were more hosiery runs than hosiery
on jam-packed F street yesterday
| it begins to look as If Santa Claus
will have to bring his own stockings
down Washington's chimneys' this
year. If the housewives have any
left, they won't want them filled
with things like lollypops, not this
Christmas anyhow.
A 1945 tear-jerker could be built
around that ancient empty stocking
theme. While our heroine wasn't
exactly clad in rags, her mink coat
was rumpled, her alligator bag was
spilling bits of currency she hadn't
been able to spend, her legs dis
played goose pimples where nylons
should have been, and there was a
wistful, baffled gleam in her eye.
Stockings for Mother
1--WE got to get some stockings for
mother" she kept muttering. Sud-
denly she snapped out of her trance
and nudged a Wave ahead of her:
What's this line for?"
mot Nylons, dearie," the Wave re-
piled, - sheets; you know, bed
sheets! You sleep in them"
The little lady's chin was quiver-
ing as she turned away. I've got to
get stockings for mother" she kept
saying, q" = I've just got to!"
Returning servicemen, eager to
lose their CT shirts. pants. blouses
and the like in the Christmas shuttle
around haberdashery counters
learned they can't yet outfit them
selves as white collar guys. Some
rugged characters, however, man.
aged to emerge from the welter
bearing faint resemblance to lum-
berjacks, yachtsmen, hill billies, cow
boys or Senators of the old school.
Old Friend Desses Up.
Where the going was toughest
on the F street front yesterday, a
reporter met an old friend.
The last time the reporter saw
him was on an Okinawa fighter
strip. He then was wearing GI
shorts, a bandage around his ears
and little else except atabrin yellow
sun tan and stains from the exhaust
Of his bulldozer.
This time he was really showing
them under" as he put it. He had
on d Texas Oklahoma "10-gallon'
hat, a checkerboard lumber jack
windbreaker, slacks which should
have decorated a yacht regatta and
a baby blue necktie hand-painted
with fetching nude "I may not
get the Purple Heart for it," he said
"but I bought every stitch in Wash
ington. You ought to see my prize
fighter shorts just what
needed"
The veteran said he was out for.
aging for some pfetties for the wife
and kids. He spoke of lingerie al
SIS. ~
Toys Out of This World.
"Toys for the kids are out of this
world" he went on. They had a
few rubber mice on springs for Fide
to jump at, but we don't have a dog
He consoled himself for his lack
Of shopping success with the
thought he has a home to go back
to. Maybe I'm lucky at that" he
said.
1t was much the same story fol
a weary girl reporter who hoped
she could collect something for the
family in addition to statistics for
the paper when she set out to make
a round of the shops yesterday.
The brave, beautiful postwar
world" she sighed, lis rather sorry
sight for Christmas shoppers. The
only stockings could find were
rayons In a shop window. The girl
said she couldn't sell those as that
would spoil the display. Nylons. OF
course, were out of the question"
Plenty Of Foot Warmers.
She could have bought plenty OF
foot warmers and some odd-sized
slippers in lizard skin, but felt q
little silly asking for moderate
priced shoes with heels In them, let
alone toes.
In many stores she took . num-