One of the best things about being on the road, or just traveling in the United States are the Wal-Marts. If I am ever stuck for material for a book or story, it’s where I go. I recently found, then lost the bookmark for an internet site that’s all about the people who shop at Wal-Mart. It’s just a collection of people shopping in Wal-Mart. Like, these Elvis clones….or twins, or whatever. (taken from the site). If ever any demographic in the world shouted, “I did it my way,” it’s the folks who shop at Wal-Mart.

I’m not laughing at them, I’m laughing because of them. I didn’t get the difference until I was in the store with my mother, who is now in a nursing home with Alzheimers. She was in the early stages of the disease then, and would only wear her pink flannel sleeping gown, some leopard-skin leggings, a rabbit-fur vest, a baseball cap (also leopard skin), a pair of men’s boxer shorts over all that, and her over-sized leather purse. She looked like she dressed herself out of the Goodwill Donations rejections box, but she didn’t realize how she looked. Her hair was unkempt and even at night she kept a large pair of black sunglasses on. It was, she said, to keep people from mistaking her for Jackie Onassis. (which, when she was 25 or 30 - they did. But she was then 73 and Jackie had been dead for awhile.) In her mind, she was still in her 30’s.

“I can’t believe anyone would go out in public dressed like that - even to Wal-Mart,” she’d sniff, while hitching up her boxer shorts. I know the disease truly affected her perception, but to see her and to see the people she was judging, some much less flamboyant, amused me.

What is it about Wal-Mart that gives people the freedom to “come as they are,” in whatever they’re wearing and however they look? I don’t see these people at any other store - even K-Mart or Target. What is it about Wal-Mart that makes us feel like we’re “with family” - and can come in wearing our pajamas, our paint-stained clothes (guilty), our worst or best or in-between, and not care who sees us?

In a world where appearances matter, apparently they don’t really, at least in Wal-Mart. Fashion sense, decorum, it’s all on hold and the aisles become a sort of twilight zone where dysfunction, weirdness, love, family - all emerges. I once worked in Wal-Mart, as a photographer for their family portraits division back when I was looking for freelance work. So I spent hours people watching in Wal-Marts all over Kentucky. On hot summer days entire families would come in to Wal-Mart for a soda and to sit and stay cool. You can get your exercise, your window shopping, your free child’s portrait, and your body temperature stabilized all in a few hours, for free in the Hazard, KY Wal-Mart.

Say what you want about their hiring practices, their management, their treatment of employees - but praise them for one thing - They make people feel welcome, no matter what they’re wearing, how they look, or who they are. And in this day and age, there’s a lot to be said for that.