Every January and February, my wife and I find ourselves keeping a rhythm we’ve practiced since the first days of our marriage. And no, I’m not talking about some sacred tradition or religious observance. I’m talking about allowing my better half to drag me into Dillard’s during the best sales of the entire year. This is the season when she presses me—firmly, lovingly—to supplement my wardrobe.
“An extra pair of slacks for only $20. This Gold Label shirt for $22. Honey, these pants are $15.”
Now, sales usually make me uneasy. When someone tells me they saved $200, I feel a knot form in my stomach. I know what that often means. They spent far more than they should have, but the receipt has been carefully crafted to emphasize the savings rather than the expenditure.
Still, when those bold red signs over the clothing racks read “65% off,” even I’m willing to concede that something real is happening. I tell myself this: my calling requires pressed pants and shirts most days of the year, and I don’t want my wife cycling endlessly through trying to wash and iron the same small handful of clothing sets. Once I find a few outfits that work, I tend to wear them consistently until she informs me that something has grown too threadbare to keep—or that the dryer ate it.
Both have happened recently.
Of all the clothing stores one might endure, the men’s section of Dillard’s is the least hated. That’s not saying much, I know. I don’t merely dislike shopping. I experience an inward abhorrence—a kind of low-grade revulsion that can feel suspiciously like torture. But Dillard’s here in our town is different.
It feels pleasantly antiquated, stuck in a better past. Quiet. Dignified. Clean. Unhurried. And over the years, it has become, strangely enough, a kind of tradition for us in the first months of the year. One of the unexpected blessings, besides great brands at astonishingly discounted prices, is the people who work there.
We’ve met many of them, but one in particular has been part of our lives for over twenty years. His name is Tommy.
Tommy is the consummate gentleman. Well-groomed, courteous, with a voice and manner that make conversation feel effortless. Every time I see him, he reminds me of his friendship with my brother Abraham, mentions how fond he is of Mike and Vicke from our church, and we exchange pleasantries that are no longer pleasantries at all, but the shorthand of friendship.
This time, I stood on the tailor’s platform, Tommy with a cloth tape measure draped around his neck, chalk in hand, carefully marking where my slacks would need to be shortened. As he worked, he reminisced about a chance meeting years ago at the hospital with my father and brother, shortly before my dad passed away.
And, as always, there was something both spoken and unspoken between us.
What is spoken is appreciation: his fondness for our church community, his friendship with so many of our folk. What remains unspoken is something larger: a shared belonging to a decades-long dance of scissors and chalk, slacks and handshakes, but also concerts and sing-alongs and festivals—dressing men for weddings and sometimes attending those weddings.
We belong to different churches. Different social circles. And yet a steady weaving over thirty-five years—a fabric of familiarity and trust, a background sense of place and people that life would be poorer without.
Tommy understands that.
As my wife rummaged through her purse for an unused gift card and I handed over the remaining balance in cash, he ventured beyond our usual conversation. He told us about the senior choir he now sings with. There is not a cynical bone in his body. His appreciation for his fellow singers, for the director, for the sheer privilege of singing at his age shone through every word.
His hair is completely white. I suspect he could have retired years ago, but I don’t think it’s the paycheck that keeps him measuring hems and wielding scissors. I think it’s the friendships, the interactions, a way of life that is ultimately about people, not pants and shirts and ties, not numbers and dollars.
Then, carefully, Tommy added, “You know, I write poetry.”
As a novice poet myself—someone who’s been writing songs, or trying to, since my late teens—I gave him all the encouragement he needed to share.
So Beck and I stood there, the transaction complete, and listened as Tommy recited a poem. It was about garden tools—a rake, a hoe—handed down from generation to generation. Simple words. Plain stanzas. But shining through them was a love of family and rootedness in land.
Tommy has often told us about growing up as one of nine children on a dairy farm in East Texas, milking by hand. Yet his poem said nothing of drudgery or hardship. It spoke of honor. Of respect. Of generational continuity and the careful stewardship of ordinary tools.
Encouraged, he offered another poem—this one about his mother. Then another about his father and what he taught him.
As we listened, we heard not only the poetry of his words, but the poetry of the moment itself: a white-haired man, radiant with joy in his later years, tenderly revealing the secret loves of father and mother, of land and tradition, of friendship and craft.
He came out from behind the wooden desk—from behind the commerce that had occasioned the friendship—and grasped my hand. His eyes filled with tears as he thanked us. I told him he had made our day. He protested that we had made his. He embraced Beck and thanked us again.
We walked out of Dillard’s with more than a bargain purchase. And we found ourselves asking, “What exactly did we do for him?” He had given the deal. He had tailored the slacks. He had told the stories and offered the poems.
And then it was clear.
We had listened.
We had made space.
We had reflected back to him a sense of worth, an affirmation of a life and way of being increasingly disregarded in our modern world.
The world will be a crueler place when the white-haired clerks at Dillard’s can no longer recite thirty-five years of shared memory—of community, families, friendships, stories, and poems.
Something in me wishes I could take my fourteen-year-old son into that store to see it—to see him—before this way of life vanishes from our experience. The craft. The pattern. The presence. Perhaps soon to be replaced.
I am grateful to be part of a community determined to build an economy that places a premium on people, not just prices—small shops, human hands, stories and memory, the snip-snip of scissors, and the poetry of a life offered across a desk where a purchase is made.
Yes, AI will make everything cheaper . . . including friendships and moments that make life rich. But will we more often walk away with fragments of fabric and efficiency, having missed the beauty of the stories and people that make our lives whole? Those unmarketable, unforgettable moments where hands clasp across generations?
That is the brave new world toward which we are heading. And it will take a brave new community—determined, rooted, and intentional—to resist it, to choose an economy of community over an economy of exploitation.
So this morning, I thank God for Tommy and for all those who speak for his way of life—for the memories we share, and for a world that still has room for the uncommodifiable grace of clerks and craftsmen like him.
The Road Ahead
Venture slowly—slowly—down the road ahead.
Progress calls us, calls us on,
toward an unnamed and faceless end.
So much lies behind us—behind us still—
what we most love, our loved ones:
furrows and plowed courses,
farmers and horses,
fertile fields of fathers and sons,
sunflowers turned toward the light.
Venture slowly—slowly—down the road ahead.
Listen closely to the land we pass,
to what the voiceless have already said.
Venture slowly—slowly—down the road ahead,
until the past teaches us how to begin—
and we learn the old beginning was ours to tend.