When Sears went swirling down the drain a decade or so again, I don’t recall shedding any tears.  I mean I shopped at Sears, more for something to do than anything else, but I had no real attachment to the place, even though I’d been around since it was Simpson’s, then Simpson-Sears.

I have to admit that Eatons hurt a little more when the doors closed, probably because it was a high-end department store and the place I used to get my Simon Chiang dress shirts, back when Simon Chiang used to make me dress shirts.  And Eaton’s, like Simpsons, was one of the Big-Two department stores that boasted a catalogue that would arrive quarterly, including the Christmas catalogue that kids from my generation would remember well.  They weren’t

wrong when they called it the Christmas Wish Book, because that’s exactly what it was, a book of Christmas wishes.

Plus the models were pretty.

Continue reading “THE STRIPES OF HBC” →