The Sears Catalogue Was My Resource - Dr. Ed Iannuccilli
Monday, November 29, 2021
Unlike the teacher’s assignment of “What I Did on My Summer Vacation,” this one was different, and one I readily accepted. It was my own; to peruse The Sears Catalogue which had just arrived in time for Christmas. The bulky book would help me decide what might await me under the tree on Christmas morning.
The mailman dropped it with a thud through the mailbox on the first floor. Jumping three landings one at a time, I snatched and hoarded it, and headed back to our third-floor tenement, taking two stairs at a time. I took my usual place where I read the funnies every night, on my hands and knees, in front of our kitchen stove, the whirr of the nearby refrigerator my accompanying melody.
The catalogue reminded me of the monolithic Sears store near Fenway Park. As we passed it on our way to a game, Dad told me that Ted Williams, my hero, sold fishing equipment for Sears. “Dad. Let’s stop. Maybe we can see Ted.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“He’s never there, Edward, just in the catalog.” Well, that had to be good enough.
The catalogue was a part of many lives in those years, so it was not surprising that famous Americans like Roy Rogers and Ted, might be featured hawking their favorite products in its pages. It was packed with every kind of consumer good that anyone could imagine . . . electronics, entertainment, opticians’ kits, pills, poisons, toys, sports and hunting equipment, power tools, pocketknives, chickens, tombstones, fishing lures (Ted’s gig) and, of course, bicycles. You could buy a house that was shipped in thousands of boxes. Cool stuff.
R.W. Sears entered the retail business when he purchased a shipment of watches. He was joined in the venture by Alvah Roebuck and, in 1893, the Sears, Roebuck Co. was born. Targeting rural customers who had little access to many goods, especially those from the east, and offering decent prices, the company expanded the number of pages in its iconic annual collection. It was the cheapest supply house on earth.
But for me, the Sears Catalogue was about toys, bikes, and sports equipment, ripe for a Christmas morning. To turn the pages efficiently, I licked the index finger of one hand, making checkmarks along the way with my pen in the other, lingering at the enticing display of bicycles with my eye on a Schwinn or a Monarch Rocket Royal (I finally got one), more than a whole page of two-wheel candy.
Done, but just for this night, I closed the catalogue and whistled. By the time I suspected what I wanted, my elbows were sore, and my flushed cheeks were make-up-red from the heat of the stove. My secret stash of desirables continued, though my confusion waned.
The venerable retail giant has gone bankrupt after 132 years in business. The last Sears Catalogue was published in January 1993. Roy Rogers and Ted are gone also. And nowadays, getting on my hands and knees to read might not be so easy.
Dr. Ed Iannuccilli is the author of three popular memoirs, “Growing up Italian; Grandfather’s Fig Tree and Other Stories”, “What Ever Happened to Sunday Dinner” and “My Story Continues: From Neighborhood to Junior High.” Learn more HERE.
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