Wealthy Are Pawns of Oil Slump
Many of Houston pawn shop owner Jean Davis’ clients are the wealthy who are just a little down on their luck these days. So, to protect the sensibilities of his genteel--or just plain embarrassed--customers, Davis installed a drive-up window. Now business can be conducted from the privacy of a Rolls or Mercedes or, for the truly shy, Davis will send a limousine. “The first thing they tell you is that they’ve never been in a pawn shop before,” Davis says of his customers at Diamond Liquidators, many of whom have suffered sagging fortunes with the lower price of oil. “We have a lot of upper-class people with money problems, people who need to sell so1835343983quickly. We try to make them feel comfortable here.” One oilman hocked his Rolex President watch to make a late house payment to avoid foreclosure, Davis said. A middle-aged man in a Mercedes needed $1,000 in cash to take his sick child to the hospital, so he pawned a $35,000 bronze statue. Business has been brisk, and Davis said he is thinking of opening five new shops.
--Clara Mari had always looked young for her age, but her co-workers at a Buffalo, N.Y., department store didn’t realize how young until they gave her a retirement party. That’s when Mari decided it was safe to reveal to her colleagues at Sample Inc. that she isn’t really 65--she’s 81. The subterfuge began after Mari’s husband, a pastry chef, had died of heart disease and his medical bills had eaten up their savings. “I needed to work, to keep my home and not be a burden to my children,” Mari said. Then 61, she applied for a job at one store but was told that she was too old. When she saw an advertisement for a retail sales clerk at Sample, she decided to fudge. “I thought, what do I have to lose. The only thing I have to do now is lie. I had to lie because I needed the work, I wanted to keep my home. I don’t look my age, anyway.”
--Everywhere she’s gone on her trip in China, Queen Elizabeth II has been met with throngs of the curious, and Shanghai was no exception. Spectators jammed the narrow streets and clambered onto rooftops for a glimpse of the British monarch after her arrival from Peking and during her tour of a bazaar and a 400-year-old garden. Cheering shopkeepers and bystanders greeted the queen as she strolled down the lanes of the Yuyuan Bazaar, lined with tiny shops selling souvenirs, antiques, steamed crystal sugar dumplings, duck blood soup and thousands of other commodities. She then toured the walled Yuyuan Garden, which features the Chamber for Sweeping the Rain, Hall for Viewing the Grand Rockery and Pavilion for Viewing Frolicking Fish.
