Only four catalogs in the mail today. Probably because the mailman messed up. Or somebody stole them out of EmBee. Fine with me. I've had my fill of catalogs.
Remember when the only catalogs you got were Sears. JC Penney. Perhaps Mongomery Ward? Yeah. I remember those days. When little Val couldn't wait for the arrival of the Sears Wish Book. And not because she had taken a particularly robust constitutional, and needed the pages. No sirree, Bob!
Little Val loved flopping down on the floor and flipping to the toy section. Yep. It's a wonder that Wish Book wasn't plumb wore out by the time actual Christmas shopping season rolled around.
Later, when intermediate Val found that toys had lost their allure, she still eagerly awaited the arrival of the Sears Wish Book. Because Val's mom declared a free-for-all on candy. CANDY! Each family member was allowed to choose one candy item from the Wish Book. Mom liked jelly candies. Chocolate covered, or that weird white stuff, didn't matter. Dad was partial to bridge mix. My sister the future ex-mayor's wife preferred nonpareils as her poison. And Val? Val had eclectic tastes. Sometimes pecan bark. Sometimes licorice. But most often, Val fudged on the candy technicality and asked for petit fours. YUM!
Oh, c'mon. You don't think Val grew up on alfalfa sprouts and wheatgrass juice, do you?
Sears and Val go way back. Oh, the exotic items that could be found in the regular catalog! Tents! Trusses! Tools! Tea towels! Val has even been known to browse through automobile tires. Those were the days! Like the internet, on paper.
Let the record show that high school Val did not believe her cohorts in the cafeteria who insisted that a model in the men's underwear section had let it all hang out.
Yeah. Those were the days. When catalogs were catalogs. And men were men.
I used to hate the Christmas season for just one reason. Ribbon Candy. That stuff could crack the enamel on your bicuspids like nothing else.
ReplyDeleteThe early Sears catalogs are very interesting. Some items are crazy cheap, like a hammer for 50 cents, some crazy expensive like a comb for $5.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget using them as booster seats, weights to hold glued things until they dried. And the educational value. Weird products beyond imagination!
ReplyDeleteYour sister and I would have fought over the nonpareils.
ReplyDeleteCatalyst,
ReplyDeleteMy grandma kept a big bowl of ribbon candy on her coffee table. At the big Christmas Eve get-together, my cousins and I made a beeline for the candy. I always thought it would be delicious, so pretty and curly and shiny. But it never was. I couldn't even recognize a flavor, no matter what color stripe I chose. Even more horrifying was when we took one of those little pillow candies with a filling inside. YUCK! Adults really don't know how to choose good candy.
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joeh,
Must have been more laborers than Little Lord Fauntleroys.
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Leenie,
OH! I forgot about putting them on a kitchen chair as a booster seat. That's because I was always tall for my age, and never needed a booster. We also used the heavy tome to press flowers between layers of Handi-Wrap.
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Stephen,
My sister would have fought anyone for anything. She doesn't fly that red hair as a truce flag. A regular spitfire, she was. And is. I thought we might come to blows over the leftover Thanksgiving ham. Then she laughed maniacally and declared that her harsh warning was nothing.
God, I remember the ribbon candy, and the marshmallow "peanuts." Yikes!
ReplyDeleteSioux,
ReplyDeleteWell, no wonder you did not fully enjoy the marshmallow "peanuts." They were made for Halloween. So if you were eating them at Christmas, they must have been petrified. Not like "scared out of their wits." Like "a piece of wood that has turned to stone."