There’s more for your life

At some point during the horror show of 2020, I found myself actually getting wistful about the 80s – a decade of personal satisfaction and professional growth but culturally soulless and the start of a political shitstorm we’re still caught in. It was a great decade for football and basketball however, so I indulged my nostalgia watching DVDs of vintage pro football games.

During the original broadcast of the 1983 USFL championship game between the Philadelphia Stars and the Michigan Panthers, this commercial popped up:

Seems like a fun place, doesn’t it? Despite the looks of the models cast in the commercial, Sears was solidly blue collar. And practical. No kid ever looked forward to a visit to Sears during the Christmas season.

Just before we got married in 1983, we went with my mom to the Sears in Hackensack and bought a refrigerator for our apartment. I applied for my first Sears credit card and in time we found more for our life – generally all the big-ticket stuff like tires, a snowblower, a lawnmower, maybe our first washing machine and dryer, I don’t remember.

Fast forward to last August. Although we had nothing planned and nowhere to go, I took a week off from work. On one miserably depressing day, clammy, humid, an overcast sky spitting rain off and on, I went for a drive and ended up, as I inevitably sometimes do, back in Hackensack. Driving by Sears, with its art deco tower a city landmark since 1932, was a banner declaring, “Store Closing Sale.” Facemask on, I had to go in.

The smell of roasted nuts always greeted you at the Hackensack Sears; you could buy them there, along with weird candies that only old people ate, like Swedish fish and bridge mix, whatever that was.

There was nothing quite so welcoming this time. The place had the vibe of the last helicopter leaving Vietnam. Hispanic women rooted through racks of unwanted children’s clothes. Hangars were thrown on the floor. Every wall was bare, with one cash register open. I took a loop around the store, which now seemed small and wounded, and quickly left.

It was raining harder as I left and took off for home. This was one visit to the old turf that I truly regretted.

It might have been nice to get one last ride on the store’s escalator, but it was blocked off. Watching scenic footage shot by drones reminds me of riding escalators as a kid, rising silently above all the activity below. Looking over the railing, a panoramic view of the entire store, changing as you go higher and higher!

I’m reasonably sure that a psychiatrist would tell me that I keep going back to Hackensack because I’m looking for something that may not exist anymore. Maybe all I need to do is ride an escalator.