No, I’m not old enough to refer to the Sears catalog the way my grandparents did.

The catalog had many functions and gave a whole new meaning to the word “recycling”” If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you aren’t old enough either and you didn’t have grandparents who had outdoor plumbing.

I used to hear those stories and I had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea. I mean, those shiny, slick pages of that catalog; why in the world would anyone want to take that to the outhouse with them?  Later, I found out that the earlier catalogs had “tissue like” pages in them. Oh, OK.

My first memories of catalogs were of my mother and grandmother getting them in the mail or picking them up at the local Sears store. If my memory is correct, they came around this time every year.  Or maybe earlier. I don’t recall when the push to start Christmas so early started up, so maybe they actually came in the fall.

Unimportant.

There was great fanfare, it seemed, when the new catalog came out. I don’t know why, exactly. It wasn’t as if anyone we knew was made of money.  There were many things in that catalog that were unattainable.  Sure, there were plenty of practical things anybody could afford and order. However, there were also fabulous things in there that one could only dream about. Maybe the dreaming was what caused the fanfare. I mean, you could hardly have fanfare over towels, sheets and a new coat.

I still contend I could have survived as a kid on building blocks and matchbox cars.

Those things were my favorite toys. I played with cars all the time, building roads and parking them just so. I have always wondered why little boys like to line up their toys. My boys did it and so did I. I remember lining up every car I had, just to rearrange them and line them up again.

My dad had a fascination with a good car deal, and on any errand or day out with him, we would invariably take a drive through the used car lots in town. In those days, you could sit on your parent’s lap while they drove. I remember tooling through the lots, checking out the makes and models. When I was very little, I could tell you the make of the car by just looking at the tail end of the car.  Those memories are some of the fondest of Dad, even though I know he spent too much money on cars throughout his life.  Thankfully, he’s at the point now where he has lost the urge to snatch up a good deal.

Perhaps those early perusals of the car lots are the reason I lined up my matchbox cars.  However, I can’t think that all little boys had the same experience. I digress.

My love of matchbox cars always led me to the “car” pages in the Sears catalog. The first few pages of that section would be devoted to the larger styles; your Tonka trucks and semis, which I also had. As you turned the pages, you’d eventually get to the matchbox section. All of the new models of matchbox cars were there, along with deluxe and not so deluxe carrying cases.

The best part of the car section, however, would be at the very end; these would be the pages most little kids just dreamed about. I remember large racetracks and fantastic car garages with elevators and car wash capabilities. There were roadways with loops and turns that could be assembled and stretched for miles across the huge houses that kids who got these toys must have had.  There would be semi-trucks with car carriers on the back.  We spent hours thumbing through those pages; dreaming.

Were we deprived children? Heck no. We had plenty of toys; too many, most likely. But you know kids; they always want the biggest and the shiniest, no matter what values were taught to them. We were no different.

Yep, I’d still like to get a hold of those garages I used to look at. I’m pretty sure they would be considered “antique toys” by now.