Category Archives: Retail

Dinosaurs of New York

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Back in the days of paper letters and postcards, not every correspondence I started ended up in the mail. I have an entire file of letters and a few postcards that I didn’t finish and didn’t mail.

Usually that was for ordinary reasons, such as forgetting to complete it for months, by which time the news was stale. Only on rare occasions did I write a letter and think better of sending it because of its content, though I have a few insolent work memos of that kind.

I wrote a large postcard to a friend of mine in Illinois on August 27, 1983, while I was still in New York City. I think it got lost among the papers I had with me a few days later when I went to Nashville, and all these years later, I still have it.

Note the missing piece. I got as far as stamping the thing, but later removed it for re-use.

The printed text of the card says:

ALLOSAURUS (foreground) was a large, meateating dinosaur that lived during the Jurassic period of earth history, about 140 million years ago. This aggressive reptile, which preyed upon other dinosaurs, was about 30 feet long and probably weighed several tons when it was alive. Several individuals of CAMPTOSAURUS, a small, inoffensive, plant-eating dinosaur, are shown in the background.

Painting on Display
THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
NEW YORK, U.S.A.

I wrote, in part:

Dear R—

I have come to New York to learn such oddities as “August is Bondage Month,” which a simple advertisement in the window of the Pink Pussycat Boutique told me. [Remarkably, the shop is still there; give the people what they want, I guess.]

Since the long line to pass through customs at JFK [returning from Europe], I’ve shuffled first to the P’s house in New Rochelle, then S’s house in Stamford, Conn. Since last Friday (the 19th), I have been at D’s apartment while she is on the Jersey shore with her parents. This is a good arrangement. I’ve become acquainted with the Village and various other parts of the city.

This card, for instance, is an accurate portrait of Brooklyn, by the East River.

Gas

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The grass is high and persistent rain over the last 24 hours will make it higher, except for the dandelions, which are temporarily beaten down. Once the lawn dries out, and I manage to buy some gas for the mower, I’ll cut it. Assuming the mower wakes from its hibernation.

I bought gas for my car on April 17 at a warehouse retailer. Almost no one was in line, which is rare. Around $1.75/gallon, I think, so just over $22 was enough to fill the tank completely. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done that. I also couldn’t remember the time I bought any gas before April 17, so I checked.

My handy bank records tell me it was March 16. That purchase took it up to 3/4 of a tank, roughly — which is more in line with my gas-buying habits — so in a month, I used only 1/2 a tank, and a fair portion of that was to drive some distance to attend to some business in Des Plaines shortly after the March 16 purchase.

As predicted, not much driving these days, mostly just forays to nearby parks. Guess the air’s a little cleaner for it and the roads a little safer. Still, if this goes on too long, I’ll start missing long drives. Not something I would have predicted before the crisis.

Adios, Gabuttø Burger

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Update: Gabuttø Burger is closed. At least the one in Rolling Meadows is, which used to be the only location. Maybe I should have mentioned that before, since we found that out one day in November (I think) when we dropped by for its fine sort-of-Japanese burgers and found it locked.

So the Yelpers are right. The place wasn’t a victim of the pandemic, though at times I wonder which of our favorite non-chain restaurants will not emerge from their current retail comas. On the other hand, a restaurant is always a high-wire act. No matter how good a joint is, it can still be the victim of regular retail churn.

Gone from Rolling Meadows, but Gabuttø Burger was planning to re-open in Elgin. Not as convenient for us, but we still would have gone occasionally. Unfortunately, word was it was supposed to open in March. I suspect that didn’t go too well.

I never did take a picture of one of its burgers. One time, however, I did take a picture at the Rolling Meadows Gabuttø Burger — of something arrayed like I’d never seen before.
More valuable than the restaurant or I realized at the time. I hope the proprietors remembered to take the supply of paper with them when they left.

Speaking of retail in peril, what about the fate of Buc-ee’s? If there ever was a place that encouraged the opposite of social distancing — that would be social cramming? — it would be Buc-ee’s, with its mass crowds in its massive stores.
Then again, such is the pull of Buc-ee’s that maybe it’s been deemed an essential operation in Texas.

Piggly Wiggly Sewing Kit

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Something new on the Weather Underground forecast page for my area this Maundy Thursday morning. A screen shot:

Obviously a day to stay in if you can, for a number of reasons. Back to posting on Easter Monday. A good Easter to all.

There are many oddities around the house. Why have it any other way? Such as a Piggly Wiggly sewing kit, or you could call it a needle kit. Scanned here open, with the back on the left and the front on the right. Or reverse and observe.

Inside the kit. Some needles still in place. A threader, too.My guess is that my grandmother picked it up at a San Antonio Piggly Wiggly in the 1950s, early ’60s at the latest. Most of the time I believe she shopped at the nearby Handy-Andy in Alamo Heights, but she must have occasionally patronized Piggly Wiggly, which existed in South Texas at the time (but no more: HEB is king in that part of the country).

At some point, maybe after grandma died, my mother removed it to her house; and now that’s what I’ve done. I can date it with some certainty to that decade because of a few details. Green Stamps don’t narrow it down that much, since they were around from the 1930s to the ’80s, but I smile at the mention of them anyway.

On the inside it says: Frank Kraus, Los Angeles 36, which puts it before zip codes and during postal zones (1943-63). Since the kit was made in West Germany, that puts it after the war, in fact after the formation of the BRD in 1949. Must have been a product of the postwar recovery, when West German industry was making whatever they could for whomever they could, just as Japanese industry did at the time.

As for Frank Kraus, I’d guess he was the importer. Possibly, but only possibly, this fellow. Or him, though he left California at some point. A little looking around, such as at Esty, reveals that Frank Kraus, whoever he was and wherever he rests now, had his name on other small sewing kits from West Germany.

Davis-Kidd Booksellers, Nashville & Squeezebox Books and Music, Evanston

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I have envelopes containing paper debris — keepsakes, if you’re in a generous mood — from various periods in my life. They aren’t quite rigorously organized, since that wouldn’t fit my temperament, but most of the items evoke a certain bit of the past.

Such as the pleasant times I spent at Davis-Kidd in Nashville in the mid-1980s. The store gave away bookmarks. I still have one.

Davis-Kidd Booksellers bookmark

There are few pleasures like browsing a bookstore, especially an independent, intelligently stocked one, as Davis-Kidd was. It wasn’t enough to browse, either. I also bought books there.

Of course I have to report that the store is gone. About nine years gone, at least the one in Nashville. Nine years ago, the betting money was on the complete disappearance of the independent bookstore. Fortunately, that hasn’t quite happened. I do my part when I can, though such bookstores, new or used, are thin on the ground in the suburbs around me.

But I still find them further away. Last summer, for instance, I chanced across Squeezebox Books and Music when I was in Evanston.

Squuzebox, Evanston

I like a shop that has non-English versions of Calvin & Hobbes for sale.

Squeezebox, Evanston

I didn’t buy any books there — I don’t buy as many as I used to, since I have so many — but I did buy postcards.

Watch the Reindeer Melt! Days of Fun

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Ann brought this to my attention earlier this month, at a crafts superstore I rarely go to, but from which she wanted something. On display was an item that seemed to be sold for Christmas, but which by January was at a deep discount.

One of the stranger holiday items I saw this season, or any holiday season, really. A reindeer figure. Build it! Watch it melt! Watch it melt? Watch it melt?

Walmart’s marketing text about the item is positively demented, which I guess is fitting: “Build the reindeer and watch it melt magically! Fun for days. Completely reusable. Keep building and watch it melt over and over! Perfect stocking stuffer! Miracle Melters! Reindeer! Build it and Watch it Melt!”

Sure enough, someone has made a video about this — toy. I can’t say that I watched all of it, skipping around some, but the point of the item still eludes me. Do reindeer melt in dark Sámi folktales?

Christmas Tree Shopping Over the Years

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Various sources said there was a full moon out there on Thursday the 12th, but clouds obscured it. Still, for December, the day was a warmish (40s F.) and Friday will be likewise, they say. Time to acquire a Christmas tree.

The tree-selling business where we’ve bought maybe a half dozen trees over the last decade has vanished. During the warm months, the lot featured a nursery, next to a private dwelling where the proprietors lived. In December, it had a large stock of Christmas trees. Got one there just last year.

But not quite every year during the 2010s. One year we went to a church lot some miles north of home; can’t remember why. Another year, we found a tree at a parking lot of a downmarket retail property. And yet another time, when I waited too long, a tree came from the last-resort expedient of a big DIY store.

That reminded me of the time in my youth, sometime in the early ’70s, when we didn’t get a tree until Dec. 23. Pickings were slim.

Then there was the time in London when we had no intention of getting a tree to decorate the flat we’d rented in East Ealing. A few days before Christmas, however, we were returning to the flat from the train station, and spotted a small tree abandoned and naked on the sidewalk. Maybe three feet tall. So we took it back and somehow made it stand up and decorated our serendipitous tree with something or other. Pieces of paper, ribbons, I forget what.

Now the lot we’ve shopped at over the years is empty and all of the accouterments of the nursery — the large shed, mostly — are gone. There are no Christmas trees for sale but a sign says the house is for sale. That’s that.

No Fond Memories of Record Hole

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I pinned this to the wall behind the front door today. It’ll be there until I will be obliged to take it down. Why there? Just a passing whim. I was tired of it lying around my office.
Record Hole bagIt’s a plastic bag and a relic of the 1970s or the ’80s at the latest. Not only that, a souvenir from San Antonio. At one time, Record Hole was a local chain of record stores in that city. Or so I believe.

The brand is long gone, and so far I’ve found only one trace of it online — a passing mention in an article about a different and surviving record store, as of 2016. Not that I’ve looked very hard. But Record Hole is so obscure that it didn’t even make in on this list of defunct retailers, which includes Record Bar, Record Town and Record World.

Some time ago, I picked up the bag at my mother’s house — again on a whim — and brought it back home. She’d been using it to store odds and ends. I might well have bought a record at a Record Hole and left it with her 40-odd years ago. I didn’t buy many records, but I did buy a few. Or maybe my brother Jim bought something there.

At one time, Record Hole was established enough to air local TV ads. I vaguely remember them, because they featured a primitive animated version of ’70s-record-listening dude.

record hole bagWho was sitting on a record on a turntable. Trippy, man. The store’s motto, which is also on the bag but upsidedown and backwards in my picture: Whatever music plays in your head, we can put in your hand.

Plastic bags, though they may last for centuries in landfills, are notoriously ephemeral when it comes to being saved elsewhere. Sure, it’s still worthless now, but some happy descendant of mine might make a fortune off the bag in, say, the 23rd century, when the notion of plastic bags and records are historic curiosities that excite collector interest.

Neon Santa

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Most of yesterday’s snow is gone. If winter were like that all the way through around here, that would suit me. Then again, that would also probably mean Texas-like summers and the melting of the Greenland ice sheet for starters, so never mind.

Christmas lights and decorations are sprouting rapidly in our neighborhood, some modest, some modestly gaudy. No one here goes for the full Griswold, or even a half or quarter Griswold.

As for Christmas in the stores, all that sprouted weeks ago. Still, sometimes I see new things. New to me, anyway. Like a Neon Santa.

Available at a warehouse store I visit sometimes. Could have been mine for about $30, but I passed on it. I also noticed that it isn’t actually neon. In our time, it’s an LED Santa.

The Ordinary Now, Retail Edition

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About two weeks ago, we visited a nearby regional mall. One thing I noticed was an enormous construction site where one of the anchor tenants used to be, a department store I can’t ever remember visiting. Later I read that the site will soon be a home to a store with no connection to the rest of the mall — none casual visitors can use, anyway. It’s a brand that will probably do well there.

Inside the mall, we witnessed the last gasp of another anchor.

Last 2 Days! We had to wander through. Still for sale: large rugs, some washing machines and refrigerators, store fixtures. I actually remember buying something at this location: a lawn mower a few years ago. A Craftsman. It’s held up pretty well.

A few days ago as I looked out my office window, I noticed a delivery truck. That isn’t at all unusual, not even this particular kind of truck, but I wanted to take a picture anyway. A small urge to document the ordinary now, since it won’t last.

The deliveryman was fast, though. By the time I got my camera (phone, that is), activated the camera function, unlocked the front door, stepped outside, pointed and pushed the button, he was on his way, so the image is of an e-commerce delivery truck in motion. Maybe that’s fitting: go-go-go.