|
|
Welcome to the World of Pulitzer Prize Winning Political Cartoonist Michael P. Ramirez |
Sears 10-22-18
See Michael's latest cartoons .HERE
Pre-order Restoration Project for holiday gift givingClick on picture below for details on purchasing this very limited signed print.
Michael Overall: After Sears, Christmas in Tulsa will never be the same
By Michael Overall Tulsa World Oct. 21, 2018 The watch had a silver band and a tastefully understated analog face with a small digital read-out along the bottom and a not-so-tastefully understated Philadelphia Eagles logo at the top. I wasn’t a Philadelphia fan, and you could order the watch with any NFL team’s logo. But the catalogue photo had the Eagles’ badge. And I wanted that watch. Of course, I had no desire for any kind of watch at all before flipping through the Sears Wish Book, circa 1980. The catalogue wasn’t where you went to find what you wanted. It’s where you went to find out what you wanted. For generations of Americans, Tulsans included, the Wish Book’s arrival each fall marked the true beginning of the Christmas season. And it shaped expectations of what we would find under the tree. I became a Star Wars fan not at the movie theater, but in the pages of the Sears catalogue. A movie is just a movie until the Wish Book lets you have an X-wing fighter of your own. I learned to play chess after falling in love with a chess set. And developed a life-long fascination with aviation after staring for hours at model airplanes. Amazon is supposed to be the new Sears catalogue. But the experience will never be the same. You can find pretty much anything you want on Amazon, but it helps to want it first. You can’t exactly flip to the next page and discover a remote-control motorcycle that you never imagined before. That’s not how the search bar works. Sears stopped producing a full-size Christmas catalogue after 1993. And perhaps not incidentally, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week after a prolonged financial decline. Tulsa’s last Sears store will close by the end of the year. But at least I have an old watch to remember it by. read more at Tulsaworld.com |
Click HERE to activate a free subscription of Hillsdale's Imprimis magazine for yourself or a friend.
|