Here's another one that brings back memories: Free Spirit bicycles. Sears sold this line and I remember them back when we got new bikes as kids. We always got Free Spirit bikes because Sears always gave my father credit and he was in debt to them forever. When I finally 'graduated' from the banana-seat muscle bike to the ten-speed English Racer was a glorious time. I rode wheelies all over the place on that bike.
I remember when my dad needed money, he would go and buy a $100 gift certificate on his Sears card, then use that certificate for something small, like shoelaces, just to get the $90-some-odd dollars in change. I never knew how he survived financially with five kids, but Sears Credit is how he got through. Remember when it meant you were someone special if you were able to get a Sears Card? They would deny everyone back in the day, and then if you got one you learned quickly that you didn't want it, but if you had one it meant you could get other credit cards: Sears was the staple - if you didn't have credit with Sears, you weren't worthy. I remember the legal battle they went through where they started reporting everyone late on their payments, creating a frenzy with their customers in the 1980s. I was one of those people, and they had started reporting me as 30+ days late and my credit score was affected. I called and asked them why, showing that my check cleared my bank two days before the Due Date, and they actually told me that the "Due date" was 30 days late, and by the time my bank paid on the check it was at 31 days (Holiday weekend). I argued with them over that. They were bastards when it came to credit and how they handled their accounts, then straightened up when they started getting into legal trouble for it.
Sears was the place we went for everything: Toughskin jeans is another line I remember getting - we hated them because they would rub our inside thighs raw until they finally softened up after a few washings. Christmas toys all came from Sears, everyone's clothing, and of course gasoline. We had a huge Sears parking lot at White Oak (Maryland) and the gas line would sometimes get to be about 80-90 cars long. It spanned across the Sears lot and down a side access road, we'd all throw frisbees, play catch, people would juggle and converse, and when the line moved everyone just pushed the cars forward... no anger, no animosity... it was like a trip to the park: Hey, let's go get in line for gas at Sears today and meet some new people! lol
I think the only thing we never got at Sears was shoes - which we got from another American icon: Kinney Shoes, which owned Franks Casuals and Footlocker at one time.
A funny side story about Kinney's:
As mentioned, I had four siblings, and one year while we were getting shoes my dad was doing the routine "Matt, sit down. Marc, pick out a shoe. Michael, you can't have those. Marty, stay in this section here." yes, my parents named all us boys with 'M', and my mom was pregnant at the time with my (unbeknown) sister. In the next aisle over, my father heard a guy saying: "Michael, get back over here. Martin, sit down and try these on. Mark, pick out a shoe. Matt stop looking at the expensive ones." My father was getting furious, tired of the guy in the next aisle mocking him.
Finally, dad had enough. So he walked around the corner to give that 'jerk' a piece of his mind, only to find a family in the next aisle with five boys: Mark, Mike, Matt, Marty, and Miles - which would have been my sister's name if she was born a boy. They had a good laugh, and the guy admitted that he, too, thought the guy in the next aisle was mocking him.
But I digress... I think when the 'family' concept that we all grew up with went away, so did the idea of big stores like Sears, Kinney Shoes, Monkey Wards, Hecht's (an East Coast department store that also began over a hundred years ago), etc. What memories!
