Sears: Store Closings & the Wish Book

New York (CNN Business) reported on 10/15:  “Landlords across America are cheering Sears’ bankruptcy…telling Sears: Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

I hated seeing that headline.  

The news of Sears decline and fall is not a surprise.  For years, the once great retail giant has been battling to be relevant, hold its market share, and failing on all fronts. The eye-catching banner is unpleasant not because I’m in real estate or in banking. Not because I have a stake in market exit strategies, bankruptcy negotiations or supplier payout plans. I’m depressed for nostalgic reasons. The demise of Sears tarnishes the pleasant memories I have from my childhood.

Sometime around Halloween, our mail carrier would drop the Sears Holiday Wish Book through the mail slot of our front door.  For my family of eight, there was a collective gasp and a rush to nab it for the first look. The inch thick, soft cover catalogue was really a collection of smaller catalogues.  In my youth, Sears sold everything to everyone: toys, clothes, shoes, housewares, tools and appliances.

Besides operating retail stores where it influenced fashion, Sears offered innovative concepts like phone ordering and parcel pickup/returns, and layaways.  For the burgeoning middle class, we flocked to the retailer for an alternative to our local ‘Mom ‘n Pop’ stores. Our desire to ‘be in’, current, hold onto our newly acquired status of the middle class, was at the heart of Sears popularity in the 60s, 70s.

The arrival of Sears’ holiday big book’s signaled the start of the holiday gift-giving season.  For a child, the Wish Book indicated it was time to dream, to hope, to desire something special.  When the Holiday Wish Book made its way into my busy childhood household, we clamored to put our wants on paper.  We knew that the sooner we handed our parents our Christmas gift suggestions, the sooner our requests could be ordered and fulfilled from the limited catalogue inventory. While we may have glanced through the Penney’s mailer, the Sears catalogue played the key role in the formulation of our Christmas lists.  

My five siblings and I each took our turns with ‘the book’.  We’d slide onto the stool at my mother’s kitchen desk, where the sole family, rotary dial telephone and its block-length curly cord occupied a substantial corner of the desktop’s real estate.  We’d dog-ear the pages that piqued our fancy, then revisit them and cull our desires. We’d fill a sheet of loose-leaf paper from our school pack with item descriptions and codes, corresponding page numbers. In the margins, five-point stars and pleas of “PLEASE, PLEASE” indicated how badly we thought we needed the item.  Operating with a number two pencil and an adequate eraser was key in crafting our lists. Cross-outs and scribble-overs only confused our harried mother/Santa.

If you weren’t the first with the Wish Book, the sections on toys or clothes would undoubtedly be decorated with suspicious stains. The texture and color of the stains signaled which sibling had perused ‘the book’ last.  Dark brown, the shade of chocolate pudding, meant one of my two brothers had been flipping the pages. A strawberry, sticky residue meant my younger sister had licked her lollipop while noting her wishes for Santa. The green slime of Dippity-Do and crimped edged tape that held curlers in place disclosed that my twin and me had studied the catalogue.

Regardless of who had perused the book and left their calling card, the result was the same. My mother was left with a monumental task. First she had to scrutinize our imagined desires and weigh those against the reserves in her household budget. Secondly, in between caring for my younger siblings and her roles of washwoman, car pooler, and short-order cook, she had to get through the eternally busy Sears order call-in lines. Undoubtedly when it was her turn to place the budget-buster orders, she’d discover items that would already be out of stock, on back order, or discontinued.  No wonder the cocktail hour began at five and included a dry vermouth Manhattan and a Scotch on the rocks.

While the bankers, debtors, real estate brokers, and financiers are clamoring about Sears exit from the retail marketplace, some of us are lamenting the inevitable downfall.  With the failure of Sears to remain competitive their leave-taking jostles the wellbeing of baby-boomers like me. I already miss the Sear’s Wish Book. I can’t help but wonder if there’s a decent copy floating around on E-bay. If I can locate one then my grandkids will know what life was like in the old days. While I’m at it, perhaps I’ll search for a rotary phone, too.  

Goodbye Sears.  It’s been nice knowing you.  I for one will remember you well.