TIKI IT TO THE LIMIT
By: Richard von Busack

Centuries ago, dwellers on Rapanui, better known as Easter Island, carved the moai, towering stone heads that have made a tiny dot in the South Pacific world-famous. Some have suggested that these statues are gods; others say that they are the effigies of chiefs. No one knows how they were erected.
In the South Pacific, other carvings--from life-size figures on the Marquesas Islands to the fierce stone gods of Hawaii and the intricate greenstone charms of the Maoris of New Zealand--give evidence of art and religion spanning a trans-Pacific culture.
At the limits of that culture, in California, exists a civilization with its own ruins. Somehow, the art of these nations, thousands of miles apart, became slurped into a cultural Mix Master and poured over the United States for a brief period of cultural history, roughly 1945-65, known as "tiki," a word which literally translated means both "God" and "statue."

In the United States, tiki can refer to a whole range of popular ersatz exotica that some aficionados claim represents a form of suburban rebellion. Throughout the valley, look hard enough and you can find old bachelor apartments with names like The Palms and Moana Lei. These relics are adorned with features that turn up again and again: dead sockets that once held colored floodlights, surrounded by unkillable palms; the Tiki Rooms for cocktail parties; the peculiar lagoon-like curve of the kidney-shaped swimming pool.



Digging through local thrift stores for the wreckage of tiki style are members of a new cargo cult. They're searching for the decorated souvenir drink mugs the restaurants once gave away, delving through the piles of discarded records and reviving the "exotic" instrumental jazz of such heavy-marimba musicians as Martin "Quiet Village" Denny and Les Baxter. Through Web sites and tropical-music DJ nights at local clubs, conventions and the ubiquitous zines, and regular programs on college-radio, dedicated pop-culture anthropologists are unearthing relics of the tiki craze.



In California, tiki is thought to have something to do with nostalgia for the South Pacific by returning servicemen. This conjecture seems unlikely, as anyone who has read a memoir of the Pacific War (try William Manchester's Goodbye Darkness ) would attest, although the musical South Pacific-- which bore the same relation to the real war as TV's M*A*S*H did to Korea--helped spread the imagery of island paradises to countless landlubbers in the 1950s.

Still, even if the tiki style spread nationwide in the 1950s, Polynesian-theme restaurants existed in America as far back as the 1920s, if only as venues for then-popular Hawaiian music. Virtuosos of the slack key guitar made their mark on American pop during the next few decades, especially on Bob Wills-style western swing. Even today, performers such as Raymond Kane and Santa Cruz's Bob Brozman draw fans. Unfortunately, since the worst so often eclipses the best, when people hear about Hawaiian music, they think of that jaded reprobate Don Ho.

Both started a chain of imitators and established the basic elements of tiki style: high-octane rum drinks served in decorative ceramic tumblers, indoor waterfalls and flaming torches on the street outside. A healthy example is the Tonga Room in the San Francisco Fairmont Hotel, still visited for its indoor lagoon, complete with tropical

THRIFTING VINTAGE PURSES Interview with The Purse Diva By: Cookie

Whether you thrift vintage purses for resale or your own collection, it's a good idea to educate yourself on the basics about designers, styles, and the care and cleaning of your vintage handbags. The Purse Diva is willing to share her knowledge and photographs of beautiful handbags to help guide you in your vintage purse purchases.

THE NATIONAL THRIFTER: What kinds of purses get the highest dollar amounts in resale?
PURSE DIVA: For both vintage and current, I'd have to say the big three would be Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Gucci.
TNT: Can you name some purse designers to look for?
PD: Most definitely the same as above, Chanel, Vuitton, and Gucci, as well as Dior, Juicy Couture, Coach, Dooney & Bourke, Hermes (although I haven't been so lucky yet!), Fendi, and Prada, and if you're talking vintage, I'm always on the lookout for Whiting & Davis, my favorite company.

1950s steel beaded French handbag

Close up of French bag clasp

TNT: What methods do you use to find out what year a vintage purse was made?
D: A lot of it truly is years of experience. Certain styles/fabrics were more prevalent during certain eras. Books are also an excellent reference; I have several that I refer to. In fact, sometimes you can come across the same handbag you have featured in a reference book (for instance, I have a 1930s Whiting and Davis that is featured in a book). Google can be a great resource as well. If you're still stuck, I'd suggest simply asking for help. For instance, I have a wonderful group of people at Main Street with a huge wealth of information that I can turn to, as well as several purse afficiado message boards.

1930s/1940s Enamel Mesh Whiting & Davis bag

Juicy Couture fur evening bag

TNT: What do you look for in a purse you're buying for resale?
PD: Beyond a well-recognized brand name, I look for condition and "wearability" for today. If it's falling apart, most of the time it's not really going to be a good buy (unless you can fix it, i.e. replace/clean/stitch up damaged linings, etc., and then always disclose your fixes to your buyers). On the other hand, if it's a big name, falling apart is not really a consideration - however, you do have to realize that you're not going to get high dollars for it - unless it's an extremely rare piece. Another thing you must absolutely look for is - is it real?? There are thousands of fakes out there that one really has to watch for. Some of them are extremely well made and can really fool you if you're not careful. When inspecting a bag for authenticity, take a look at the stitching, it's often a good giveaway. High-end handbags have remarkable stitching. Is the stitching consistent throughout in color and spacing? Take a look at the materials it's constructed with - it's fairly rare for a high-end bag to be made of plastic or faux leather. A lot of the fakes are adding serial numbers and authenticity cards, so you can't necessarily go by that. With a lot of Dooney fakes, a dead giveaway is the leather (or faux leather, as the case may be). It'll often have an orangey-yellowy cast to it. And, if the bag in question has a tag inside saying "made in China" or "made in Japan", it's definitely not real. Let me tell you though, some of them are truly excellent, and they don't just limit themselves to handbags. I recently was fooled myself - I made a purchase from an extremely large, very well-known online company of a Versace leather coat, and when it got here, whew! Talk about fake!
My other tip would be - always buy it if you like it. If you don't, you might regret it later when you go back and it's gone. Also, if the item does not speak to you and you really don't care for it, I wouldn't recommend buying it. I only purchase something if I personally enjoy it. It's difficult to put across a good energy/vibe for an item if you really can't stand it. I heard a very good piece of advice from another vintage seller once, and I've always kept it in my mind while shopping - if I can't come up with a good, zippy title for the item right when I'm looking at it, it's probably not worth buying.

70s saddle bag

Fur Fendi multicolor Mamma Baguette

TNT: How often do you shop at thrift stores for vintage purses and what's your rate of success for finding great vintage purses?
PD: I'm always on the lookout for vintage purses. I shop at thrift stores quite often, but coming across a really great vintage bag at our local thrift stores is difficult. In other major cities the variety is super; we just do not have much here in our local area. Occasionally, however, I do get lucky. I've come across a few 20s mesh bags, and even a vintage Chanel once. I tend to have better luck, however, at estate sales.
TNT: Do you have any tips for the cleaning, care, and storage of vintage purses?
PD: I treat my bags like babies, myself J . Well, let's see, stuffing them with white tissue is a biggie, helps keep their shape, which is important. I always try to store them in sleeper bags, or some sort of very soft, flannel-type cloth. As for cleaning, on leather bags I prefer to use a moisturizing cleaner (Coach makes a great one), as well a leather conditioner - some of the best ones I've purchased, however, are not from the department stores, but from horse supply stores, sold as conditioners for leather saddles. On silver mesh handbags, if they appear a little tarnished or dirty you can very, very carefully clean them with a polishing cloth.

1950s/1960s pink Kelly Bag

1940s/1950s alligator bag

TNT: Anything else you want mention about vintage purses or thrift shopping?
D: The quality in most vintage handbags is just outstanding - if you think about it, they've been around for decades and are still intact, and most still wearable - how many items made today can you imagine being the same way in future years to come? I can't think of many, that's for sure. As for thrift shopping - it's just SUCH a fun way to spend a day.you never know what treasures you might find!

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When I lived in Arizona, I spent an inordinate amount of time in thrift stores buying a great deal of clothes for theoretical occasions that never actually materialized. Part of this was because I had too much free time, and part of this was the camaraderie that such shopping fostered with friends who were as eager as I was to earn "scoreboard" on the world by getting perfectly useful things for virtually nothing. "Scoreboard" is a term we borrowed from sports-talk radio that denotes the respect earned simply by virtue of winning, regardless of method or mitigating circumstances. It constitutes an ethical Occam's razor, a pitiless pragmatism that relentlessly transforms all situations into zero-sum clashes with clear winners and losers.
When we began using the term to recount our various clashes in the world - cutting someone off in traffic, getting out of jury duty or parking tickets, deceiving a boyfriend or girlfriend - a sense of irony was intended, a rueful recognition of how American society and its alleged "meritocracy" encourages us to see competition everywhere. But unfortunately, having a term for the phenomenon heightened our awareness, and led us to use the term to enact scoreboard rather than merely describe it. We in fact began to keep score.
Hence, the thrift store gentry: a phrase a friend coined to describe we bourgeois slummers parading our superior sense in proletarian strip malls, our pseudo-aristocratic class of inveterate bargain finders racking up an ersatz prestige by "beating the system", satisfied in our by and large unnecessary acquisitions. What inevitably happens is that you begin buying things you don't need because of the amount of scoreboard involved in buying them. Maybe you don't play golf, but how could you pass up a perfectly good set of clubs at $1 a piece? Maybe that's as good a reason as any to start playing golf, thinks the thrift store gentry. Name-brand suits for under $10, a perfectly good reason to start wearing suits everyday. Another good reason is to thumb one's nose at the bogus business casual favored out West, which means to disguise the formally rationalized office-place exploitation, the ability to dress informally being a one of the phony benefits corporations like to tout when detailing their "friendly work environments". Wear a suit in such an environment and it's amazing how much fear and respect you'll suddenly command.
When one is always shopping at thrift stores, one begins to feel a definite sense of self-righteous superiority. The ads that Savers, a west-coast thrift store chain, would air in their stores over the Public Announcement system between songs by the likes of America and James Taylor, played on this feeling, never failing to explain how the stores organized things for smart shoppers like ourselves, those who know a real bargain when we see one, and how we are helping to save the planet by recycling things rather than playing the destructive game of always trying to keep up with the trends. "Good taste never goes out of style", we were reminded while feeling comfortable in our own. Still, it's hard not to feel that these complimentary broadcasts offer a consolation prize to those too poor, too arrant, or too marginalized to play on the same field with the conspicuous consumers, the real champions, who preoccupy the mainstream media, whether they are celebrity consumers whose choices of the moment are dignified in tabloid weeklies or whether they are ordinary bedrock middle-class suburbanites, the rectitude of whose lifestyles are repeatedly reinforced everywhere from car commercials to presidential stump speeches (are these ultimately any different?). The thrift store shopper needs to turn a misfortune (an inability to keep up with the consumer lifestyle prescribed everywhere) into a virtue - I'm a conscientious non-conformist! - to find some precious, albeit illusory, scoreboard.
The strongest psychological appeal of thrift store shopping, if you are not a destitute mother trying to clothe her children on a minimum-wage paycheck, is just this: that you have the taste to find the good stuff in the midst of piles of garbage, without the aid of salespeople or contemporary fashion, you are able to see what's good

without referring to the current trend cycle for criteria. You can generate your own criteria for what's worth owning and displaying as some crucial element of your personality. Of course, you are still shopping as your primary means of self-expression, but you can pretend that it's an evolved, elitist kind of shopping with a herd-defying dignity to it (instead of lamenting how you're shut out from the real elite shopping arenas, the boutiques of Fifth Avenue, and the Neiman Marcuses and Bergdorf Goodmans of the world). All and all, its like most things in America; an ambiguous practice, half thwarting hegemonic consumerism, half validating it.

But what thrift store shopping does is much like what's so detestable in these Mötley Crüe facsimile shirts now being manufactured. I remember the originals from high school; Theatre of Pain and Shout at the Devil tour shirts. But now replicas of these shirts are being newly manufactured. I wondered at first who in their right mind would wear something so inauthentic? How could they justify the many levels of phoniness involved in donning such a shirt: not being into the Crüe; not having been at the concert where the shirt was sold; not spending the time to hunt down an authentic old tour shirt in a thrift store or vintage shop; not even actually wearing the shirt enough times to give it the worn-out patina? But then I realized that these questions of authenticity simply don't cross the fashionista's mind. Fashion revels in a kind of anti-experience, effacing the possible signs one might use to show that one has actually lived through something by systematically making them available to everyone.
Fashion, of course, supplants experience with appearances, thereby destroying history and replacing it with a treadmill of trends. A colleague of mine opined that fashionistas revel in the destruction of integrity. They delight in seeing a specific symbol, a signified (in linguistic jargon) that actually means a great deal to a select group of people, become detached from its signifier and deprived of its original significance in becoming an all-purpose signifier of youth or trendy up-to-dateness. Such appropriations make integrity impossible: With no particular integrity of their own, fashionistas don't hesitate to destroy the symbols other's use to try to advertise their integrity for others. (Sure, maybe people with real integrity feel no need to advertise their identity, but we all know that realistically people need to have their self-concept validated by others). Imagine you're a 35-year-old, unrepentant metal head, and you walk out in your Armored Saint tour T-shirt and suddenly the world sees you as a fashion-victim wannabe. (Except the fashion world, who has seen you as ripe to be cannibalized). Your identity has been co-opted. Think of the ubiquitous Che Guevara T; the people wearing these are gleefully destroying a once potent symbol of revolutionary power, happily doing the establishment's work while thinking there is something neat and rebellious in what they are wearing.

I always thought the phonies who buy the fake t-shirts would be full of a secret sense of shame, but the thought they might actually be gloating in their ignorance, and thriving on the way they are denaturing signs, chills me to the bone. They flaunt their power of emptiness and make our world progressively, cyclically, emptier and emptier. This is my theater of pain.

But as one of the thrift store gentry, I was no better. Thrift store shopping removes the commodity from its original context and replaces it with one that's a bit more contrived. What the facsimile Crüe shirt is trying to replicate and over for sale is not so much the aesthetic of the tour shirt but the satisfyingly kitschy experience of coming across one at the thrift store, and thinking it neat and unlikely. And then you buy the shirt, seeking to wear it to shift yourself out of context the same way, to be as neat and surprising and unlikely yourself when people come across you. Unless you are driven to the Salvation Army by necessity, every purchase you make there will be colored by the "I'm a clever shopper" context, or perhaps the "I'm a spelunker in the detritus of pop culture" context. You don't avoid that dimension of personal ego-boosting and achieve pure shopping for utility by heading to Goodwill. Sometimes this is what we pretended; our maximizing utility was the basis for our perceived scoreboard.
In our ironic majesty, my friends and I thought we were getting scoreboard on the world by refusing to play the status game, by rejecting a self fashioned out of invidious comparison with others, by seeing things for what they truly are, not what they are relative to what others think. But in thrift store shopping, the agonistic zero-sum scoreboard component inherent in all shopping is maximized, but not in terms of utility, which is only incidental to the competition. At the thrift store we were still doing what all shoppers do: looking for the commodity that will communicate who we think we are for us and save us the trouble of actually having to do anything unpleasant like getting to know strangers or participating earnestly in a group activity.
So shopping's not the open playing field that anyone can access and in which all can please themselves by participating. In other words, it's not necessarily the foolproof social palliative post-war economists and politicians have claimed consumerism is, where everyone can find goods in the market to self-actualize themselves. In fact, some will get these goods, and others will be late in coming and will suffer humiliation or deprivation as a consequence. In the case of thrift stores, latecomers are literally beaten to the object made unique and more precious by its random return to the marketplace. In retail stores, they are late to the trend and their adoption only affirms their status as a conformist, which, as Thomas Frank argued in The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism (University of Chicago Press, December 1998), is the worst sort of insult you can hurl at someone.
The shirt I'm wearing as I write is a linen shirt I must have bought at Savers for $5. I might have even got it for $2 using the $3-off coupons the company inserted in the University of Arizona schedule of classes and which we would hoard. My thoughts buying it were probably something along the lines of: "Hmmmm. Linen. I can spend five bucks for a linen shirt. If I don't feel like ironing it afterward I'll just chuck it." This must have been a much different consumer-decision process than the one that the original purchaser underwent. What I'm wondering is this: did that original person stake more of his dreams on this shirt when he bought it for $80 than I did when I bought it for $5? Am I wearing the relic of a disillusioned dream, someone else's fantasy gone awry, with all the complementary delight of schadenfreude mixed in? Or have I given that failed dream new life and somehow redeemed it?
That's what I think when I haul the bags of clothes back to the Salvation Army, mostly stuff I originally purchased at thrift stores, in more optimistic times, or at least in times when my concept of myself was more flexible, more open-ended, and I could dream up for myself more occasions for things like overcoats and three-piece suits and French-cuffed shirts. Maybe by affording someone else the chance to adopt my moribund dreams, I'm keeping that hope alive. And at the same time, I'm surrendering that kind of hope, the hope that I'll be somehow more than what I actually am, and I'm betting instead that a new sort of hope can animate me, based on what I can accomplish rather than what I can amass.
(The preceding article first appeared on PopMatters.com. To read more from Rob Horning, visit his blog at popmatters.com.)

REDESIGNING THRIFTED CLOTHES
By. Charlotte Self of Resurrection Rags

I am Charlotte Self of Resurrection Rags, and I deconstruct and reconstruct clothing and jewelry. I am also a collage artist, painter (acrylic on canvas), poet, and mom. I began redesigning clothes after my first son was born 22 years ago. I had a little extra weight, no extra money, and a wardrobe full of nice clothes which no longer fit from my former career as a hairdresser, so I decided to reconstruct what was available into wearable pieces. My first design was a "baby doll" style dress which consisted of an empire bodice "crazy patched" over an unbleached muslin shell. I used a vintage floral handkerchief, silk, and lace. The seams were covered with laces and ribbons. The attached skirt portion was made from three different cotton skirts, and the final piece was dyed all one color. The different materials produced a varied monochromatic effect. When I wore the first piece out, people asked me where I got it. I took orders immediately and went home to make them. I went into small-scale production and sold them at a local farmers markets, craft shows, and at Grateful Dead concerts, and now I am selling on eBay. I make baby doll dresses, sundresses, skirts, tops, vests, corselets, hats, small purses, and quilts.

Purple Top: bodice made from vintage burgundy satin and vintage lace panels. "Skirt" is made from very sheer, open weave cotton gauze from a vintage boho top from the ' 70s


Black skirt with corset details is made of black linen salvaged  from a maternity dress. The tiered layers are a black lace panel, vintage silk satin ruffle, followed by a tier of very sheer, open weave cotton gauze (same used on the purple top), over a layer of black cotton. The front is laced with vintage seam tape and embellished with vintage cotton crocheted  lace.


When I am on the hunt for fabrics at thrift stores, I look for velvet, silk, lace, satin, and embroidered pieces. Wedding dresses and bridesmaids dresses provide much to work

CHARITY SPOTLIGHT NOVA: Network of Victim Assistance

Located in Jamison, Pennsylvania, NOVA supports, counsels, and empowers crime victims and works to eliminate violence in Bucks County through advocacy, community education, and prevention programs. NOVA counsels victims of many different types of crimes, including acquaintance rape, child abuse, domestic violence, hate crimes, incest, stalking, and bullying. Thrift store manager Karen Corbett works hard to provide good quality merchandise in NOVA's thrift store, and the thrift store proceeds support NOVA's programs and benefit crime victims in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

THE NATIONAL THRIFTER: Can you tell me how the organization got started?
KAREN CORBETT: NOVA stands for Network of Victim Assistance, and it started in 1974 as WOAR, Women Organized Against Rape. It was a grassroots organization started in Bucks County to help rape victims. Since that time, they've expanded to help all crime victims in Bucks County.
TNT: Does your organization serve only Bucks County?
KC: This particular NOVA is Bucks County only. There is a national NOVA in Washington, D.C., but that actually stands for National Organization of Victim Assistance. So the one in Bucks County is Network of Victim Assistance, even though they're both NOVA.
TNT: I saw on your website that there's a training program for volunteers. Can you explain what that involves?
KC: There's actually two training processes. On the website they're talking about hotline volunteers. And if you're going to be a hotline volunteer for NOVA, you have to go through 60 hours of SAC training, which stands for sexual assault counselor, and it qualifies you to provide counseling over the phone. In the event that some court case would arise, you're protected as an actual counselor.
But as far as training for the thrift shop, if you're interested in volunteering here, we take your name and your phone number. And twice a month we have a little one-hour orientation where you learn just kind of basics of where things are in the shop and how we sort and what our criteria is for keeping things and how we put things on hangers and how the register works and where odd supplies are and that kind of thing.


TNT: Do any of the people that are helped your program end up being volunteers for the hotline?
KC: Yes. It's not uncommon for people who have gotten NOVA services to be grateful and want to give back on one level or another, and some of them do become hotline volunteers. It's very emotionally draining to be a hotline volunteer, and a lot of times it's very hard for someone who's been a victim to get that far entrenched. Working at the thrift store is a way to give back that's not quite so emotionally draining. It's a hard thing to generalize about because, yes, there are some, but there are others that want to, try to, but find that they can't.
TNT: Is the thrift store the only source of operating funds for the organization or do you get donations from other places?
KC: Well, we get grant money and we get some federal and state funding, although in recent years NOVA has been getting a lot less of the federal and state funding. That's really what prompted us five years ago open the thrift store and try to raise money on our own.
TNT: What is the most expensive or collectible item you've ever had donated there?
KC: We actually had a necklace donated one time that was appraised at $5,100. And we had a piece of original artwork that when I called the artist about it to see if he could help me with a price, he told me that it was valued at $2,500.
TNT: How much does the thrift store raise yearly for NOVA?
KC: Last year we made $115,000.

TNT: How big is your thrift store? Do you have room for eight couches, twenty couches?
KC: We take no upholstered furniture. In the state of Pennsylvania, anything with any stuffing in it has to be sprayed. It doesn't matter if it's a kitchen chair with a vinyl cover over it. If it's got any stuffing in it, it has to be sprayed and it's costly and you have to tag it, so we're really selective about the stuff that we'll take. And we don't have the room for upholstered furniture. Most of the volunteers are women, so if we get a couch in that's no good, how do we get it into the Dumpster and that kind of stuff? That's our hesitation and limitations. If we get a couch with fleas or bed bugs, then the whole store would be infested, and then what would I do? So I've always been really careful about that kind of thing. I have three good-sized rooms. I would say the main room is probably like 40 by 20, and we have two rooms that are maybe like 50 feet by 30 feet, and then I have two other smaller rooms. We have a room that we used to use just as storage because it didn't have any heat and it didn't have any electricity in it. I have a Eagle Scout who's working on fixing that, and we're going to expand a little bit into there, and that will mean the entire building is occupied.
We have two sheds out in the back where we put things that we can't use and, it gets forwarded on. One goes to St. Vincent de Paul, and the other one goes to a rag man, and he sends what he can to other agencies that can use them.

TNT: Do you rely on donations to stock your thrift store, or do you purchase merchandise in bulk form from charitable agencies?
KC: We don't purchase at all. When we started, we opened in September of 2001, and we were going to be a consignment store. I think we opened on the 28th of the September. When 9/11 happened, people were so altruistic and so wanting to give and give back and do things that donations just came in here at a speed that was just unbelievable. We very quickly changed to be a consignment and a thrift store, and we did that for a while. And then we found that a lot of the consignment things were competing with the donated things, and of course we could sell the donated things cheaper, and so what happened was the consignment things weren't selling at all. So we've kind of evolved over the five years to where we are now. And what we do now is we consign things, not clothing, that we think we can sell for at least $10.00. I always tell people that the rule of thumb is a quarter of retail. Something that originally cost at least $40.00 we could consign. So we do have consignment, but only of the higher-end things. We end up with furniture on consignment or crystal bowls or sometimes some pieces of artwork, but the vast majority of our stuff is donated.
The other thing that I wanted to tell you is that NOVA got a federal award for helping the Pennsylvania crime victims of 9/11. They've been really active with everything that happened in Schwenksville and the people who had loved ones in New York that lived in Pennsylvania. They've been doing that for the last five years. The grant is just now kind of drying up, but they've been very involved in that for quite some time.
TNT: Do you have a favorite story about someone who was helped through NOVA?
KC: There is one that Camilla tells our new volunteers. It's Birna's Story, and it's printed with permission.

BIRNA'S STORY

"Six years ago this month my husband went to practice with his band and never came home. He was beaten to death by a group of guys who were out to have some fun. Their fun left me a widow at 23 with a 13-month-old son. I was born and raised in Iceland, so I was afraid and confused by the justice system. NOVA appointed an advocate to help me through the process. She literally held my hand through the trial and explained everything that was happening, as well as making sure that I was aware of my rights as a victim. NOVA has always been there to guide me through my impact statement and to inform me of my rights to victim compensation as well as the filling of forms. Now, six years later, NOVA was there again when one of the murderers was trying to get parole. They let me know how to contact the parole board and helped me with my correspondence. My court advocate still calls me just to see how my son and I are doing. The agency, staff, and volunteers are truly a comfort to me at the worst time in my life. Now when I need time to reflect and to remember, I go to the arbor and gazebo at Core Creek Park where NOVA has planted a tree in honor of my husband. I can't even find words to say how much that means to me."
There is an arbor in Core Creek Park that the county commissioners donated to NOVA. They built an arbor and put in trees and benches, and the intention is to raise awareness in the community of the impact that crime has on victims and on the community and also to provide a place of comfort for victims.

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THRIFTER OF THE MONTH
Confessions of a Life-Long Thrifter
By: Jenn Thorson a.k.a. Thrift Shop Romantic

I wish I could claim my first steps onto the thrifting scene were ones spurred on by unbridled individualism, edgy rebellion, or blinding vision for truly great deals. But I was a child of enthusiastic thrifters. Thrifting was as normal in my house as Magnum PI and peanut butter.
The only catch was, we really didn't talk about it.
Today, yes, thrift stores are increasingly being seen as smart shopping resources. But as a teen in the mid-80s, if I didn't want to incite daily confrontations with my own personal Scut Farkas, thrifting had to remain my biggest little secret.
Through my high school years, I shopped to blend in, treading cautiously on the cusp of trends. And delighting in secondhand fashion finds like a paint-splotched tunic shirt, palm-tree-printed leggings, or a retina-burning, fluorescent pink cardigan.
In retrospect, I probably should have aimed for Unbridled Individualism.
Sometime after college, when money was tight and the job market was shaky, I started to appreciate the timelessness in Vintage. And thrift stores helped me along there, too. Where else could I get velvet, lace and well-worn denim all in the same place at a price I could actually afford?
This eventually extended to my home. So when a room needed those few extra touches, where did I go? The thrift store. Regular scouring produced everything from marble-top tables to beloved vintage lamps to the makings for gifts and crafts. Now, I'm the red-headed blur that speeds through the aisles on my lunch break, seizing a few moments from the office for urban treasure-hunting. It's a respite and a reward. But the thrift store is a lot like beach with strong coastal tides; I never know what's going to wash up there. The joy is in the surprise.
And it's ironic, really, because the one thing I never talked about while growing up, is the one thing I write about constantly now. Here in the forums of TheThriftshopper, on my website, and regularly to friends when the finds are too fun-or funny-not to share. And the more I talk about it, the more I realize-- there are a heckuva lot of us out there, we brave and merry thrifters. Our taste and treasures may vary, but the sentiments are much the same. Cheap is smart. Reuse is cool. And rejuvenation can be mighty good for the creative soul.
What else is left to say?

Aquarius

Pisces

Aries

Taurus

Try to maintain a balance between your ambitious networking and matters at home. Bring your partner along to a social occasion involving business and cover all your bases. It may be more difficult to make business connections later in the month, so give more attention to loved ones while you have the opportunity. You might find yourself unwillingly in the spotlight. Do your best to be gracious, helpful, and diplomatic, but if others ask you for advice, refer them to someone else as long as the spotlight continues to shine on you.

Gemini

Communicate your skills and achievements to others in the first week of February and it will pay off. You'll have some big ideas the following week, but it's best to communicate them on a practical level. If you don't resist the temptation to spout your philosophy of life, you could be in for some embarrassment. Try to let others do the talking and remind yourself to stay silent. The things you say after the first week of February might come back to haunt you, so this is a time to say less and listen more.

Cancer

If you're offered the choice between a deal or some cash, take the cash. Money issues will come into play this month, so use the cash to make sure you're caught up on all your bills. Double check your bookkeeping work, too. A short vacation might also be on the horizon if you can afford it. If not, curl up with a good book and unwind. Financial issues will probably continue to nag at you until the end of the month. Spend some time thrift shopping to relax and get your mind off things.

Leo

You won't be in the mood to compromise with demanding people when a situation presents itself this month, and this challenge will require some finesse to handle because it involves your partner. Being demanding in return won't help matters, so work on getting the other person to think clearly. You can take control of the situation. Spending extra time with your partner will solidify your relationship and restore harmony. Try to stay calm and rational while clearing up misunderstandings in issues that need to be rehashed.

Virgo

With your nose to the grindstone, you won't have time to focus on anything but attending to the details of daily life. You'll having a nagging feeling that you're forgetting something important. Talk to others about this problem and the answer might bubble up to the surface. Be patient when a misunderstanding arises with your partner. Neither one of you is hearing things clearly and you both need to repeat yourselves until the other has understood you. Get out of your rut and take a break at the end of the month.

Libra

A new endeavor will have you looking toward the future and anticipating rewards. A workplace flirtation might turn into romance, so start considering the possibilities. People are surprised by your innovative ideas, and you'll find that working out your dreams in a practical way will be difficult. Get advice from others and be prepared to work hard to achieve your goal. Jot down ideas and make detailed notes to yourself. Your dream is not impossible, but you'll have to do a great deal of thinking to make everything come together.

Scorpio

Home and family will be calling to you this month, but you're also in the mood to party. The obvious solution is to have a party at home, of course. Invent a theme for your party based on what you can find in thrift stores and decorate your house for the festivities. Once you've had your fun, get back to work quickly and stay on your toes. You'll begin to reach a balance between home life and work after mid month. A new beginning with old family issues is possible after you reconcile your need to make a living with your need for family.

Capricorn

THRIFT KITTEN TIPS

THRIFTED RECIPE

Crabmeat Cakes Italienne

1 pound fresh crabmeat
1 tsp. garlic, minced
1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1 tsp. parsley, chopped
2 whole eggs
salt and pepper
3 Tbs. olive oil

Mix together the crabmeat, Parmesan cheese, parsley, and minced garlic. Mix in 2 lightly beaten eggs, and form this mixture into small patties. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Heat the olive oil in a skillet, and when hot add the patties. Fry on each side until golden brown and serve hot.

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