Every month I get a plaintive email from Sears reminding me that I have a zero balance on my Sears card, and wouldn’t I like to buy something?
Sure. As far as I can tell, the closest Sears store to me is Orlando, Fla. Give me a time machine and I’ll go back 10 years to when they still had a store where I could shop. The one at Penn Center in Wilkins Twp. is now a self-storage place; the one at Century III Mall is slowly being demolished; the stores in East Liberty and Allegheny Center Mall are fading memories.
Speaking of Sears, David Iskra on Threads commented that J.D. Vance sounds like a made-up Sears store brand:
JD Vance sounds like a clothing line from Sears that my mom would try to convince me to wear in 4th grade when everyone else had designer jeans. “How about this sweater for $9.99? It’s JD Vance. That sounds fancy.” (Cut to me getting beat up because of my JD Vance sweater.)
“Sure, we have the J.D. Vance sweaters, they’re between the Toughskins jeans and the Arnie Palmer ties. Thank you for shopping at Sears. Did you know we have a sale today on Diehard batteries and Sears Best paint?”
Some day I should write about my affection for Sears. When I was working as a mechanic for Kennywood as an 18-year-old, Sears, Roebuck & Co. was the only place that would give me a credit card to buy tools. When I needed to rent a car two years later, I wasn’t able to get one from Avis or Hertz because I was too young … but Sears Rent-a-Car was happy to rent me a new Dodge Intrepid on my same Sears card.
That engendered real loyalty from me. When I needed some good shirts for job interviews, I returned to Sears. When I bought a house and needed a new fridge, I went to Sears. When a storm brought down a tree in my back yard, I went to Sears and bought a chainsaw. When I ran out of space and needed a tool shed, I bought it from Sears.
Three years ago, I had to paint a couple of doors on our house. Digging around in the garage, I found a gallon of Sears Weatherbeater paint that we’d bought for another project and never used. It went on fine and looked great. We’ve since moved, but I’m sure the paint still looks good.
The wrecking of Sears by hedge-fund billionaire Eddie Lampert was positively criminal. The narrative that Amazon killed Sears isn’t accurate; Sears was murdered by its own CEO, who stripped it for parts and left the mess in a ditch for the bankruptcy courts to clean up … and then purchased back the carcass for pennies on the dollar!
Anyway, Sears, thanks for the reminder that you’re still alive … barely. It’s like getting an email from an old girlfriend and opening it to find out she’s a meth head.
Yes, there are still a few Sears stores; the aforementioned one in Orlando, and fewer than a dozen others around the United States. There is also a Sears website, but almost nothing on it is sold by Zombie Sears; instead, there are a bunch of no-name products sold by bottom-feeding third-party vendors, much like those that infest Amazon.
I recently needed a battery for a Sears Craftsman leaf-blower. I couldn’t get it from the Sears website. I had to buy it from Lowe’s.
Ah well. How about memories from a happier time in Sears’ history? When my dad passed away, I inherited his Sears Craftsman table saw, which was almost as old as he was.
I stripped it down, cleaned it, greased it, put a new belt on it, rewired the motor, added a splitter and guard, and connected it to a safety cut-off switch. I also had to replace the miter gauge; luckily, Sears sold about 15 billion of these saws, and the gauge was readily available on eBay.
Here it is, running, to see if the vibrations of the belt or motor will knock over a nickel standing on its edge:
Truthfully, I need a table saw maybe twice a year. But having this in the garage almost makes me want to saw more lumber.
Yes, you could buy almost anything from Sears, Roebuck & Co., from infant underpants to a table saw that’s still running after 75 years.
As it turns out, there was only one thing they didn’t sell, as Dorothy Shay lamented in 1949:
Dear Mister Sears and Mister Roebuck:
I been checkin’ your supplies for tennis courts.
There is somethin’ I should get—
Not a racket or a net—
But I sure could use that rascal in the shorts.
Dear Mister Sears and Mister Roebuck:
Your canoe on page one-hundred forty-three—
Now that’s the type that I would pick,
But I’m up a diff’rent crick.
Can’t you send a feller here to paddle me?
I don’t want a bath
Soapy water makes me howl
Don’t the folks in your ads ever mind it?
I can’t use a bath. You can keep your Turkish towel;
Only ship me the sheikh from behind it.
Don’t mean to fuss, poor Mister Roebuck,
But you’ll never fill my order, it appears.
If the shortage is acute,
I’m an easy girl to suit.
I’ll shut up if you will send me Mister Sears (if he ain’t taken!)
I’ll shut up if you will send me Mister Sears.