Christmas 1958, A Sears Blunder Creates a Holiday Extravaganza.

By Mike Fak

[June 10, 2011]  Ten years old is a pretty good age to be. At least it was for me back in 1958. I had finally mastered my multiplication tables and could spell most normal words, so school was starting to be less trying, especially when I showed up for it

I was also at an age where toys were still important but I had shucked the simple "kiddy" toys and was now into the serious "good stuff" kind of toys that just came on the market in 1958.

At ten I knew that I still wasn't expected to buy much of anything for my parents, or God knows my little sister Mary Ellen just yet. Oh, I had Herald American and Chicago Daily News paper routes but the eight bucks a month went just so far when a kid had bills to pay such as baseball cards and those comic books that had just gone up to 12 cents apiece.

Being ten, I was now old enough to ask for those super toys like a wood burning set that carried stories of kids burning their fingers and that new, metal Alamo play set that all the stories were saying were cutting the fingers off of youngsters. I was still young enough however to not realize my decision to be a major league baseball player was a long shot at best. Like I said, ten years old was a great age to be.

I recall sitting on the floor as mom and dad went through the Sears catalogue picking out things for my five-year-old sister as the holiday neared. From time to time I would pop up and show them something really neat that if they could afford it would make a great gift for me. No doubt I jumped up a few dozen times that night.

The Sears book was the way millions of Americans did their holiday shopping back then. Just pick out what you need, call in the order and answer the door when the Sears delivery man showed up.

As with all Christmases before or after 1958, my dad had his way with me. Every time I mentioned something I could really use, he replied I wasn't getting crap for Christmas. It came to be that when dad said those words I could chalk that toy up as a given under the Christmas tree that year.

Little did I know that this Christmas, because of a blunder by Sears I was about to have the all-time best Christmas in the history of ten-year-olds.

After mom and dad decided what stuff to buy my sister and me for Christmas, mom ordered it all the next day on the phone as I was at school. No doubt a real person operator told my mom it would be arriving on or before the 22nd of December.

Mom never could keep a secret and although I had to promise not to look in the shipping boxes, I was told the delivery of my materialistic Yule-tide cheer was coming on the 22nd of December. I recall waiting for the truck to pull up to the apartment building on Sheffield and for a Sears delivery man to bounce extreme tonnage of toys up the three flights of stairs. Nothing happened all day.

School was now out for the holiday and I recall sitting on the front steps with my friends the next day telling them I didn't want to stray too far less I wasn't there to "buzz" the Sears man in with my plethora of toys. No one came that day either.

I recall that night my mom and dad expressing concern about the failure of the arrival of all the stuff they had ordered and mom got on the phone and called Sears. I remember mom going uhhu, uhhu, over and over again and then hanging up the phone with a look on her face like she just found out a family member died. I recall her taking dad quietly into the next room to relay her conversation with Sears and I distinctly recall my father yelling out in that grandiose vocabulary he had mastered about things not being exactly the way they should be.

Without a pause, my dad put on his coat and promising out loud to never use Sears again, left the apartment as mom came back to tell me the terrible news.

It seems Sears had lost or misplaced a truck load of deliveries and the one for us was included in this debacle. Mom explained dad had gone out to see what he could find to replace all the good stuff they had ordered for me and Mary Ellen.

I remember a not very happy father coming back later that night with armfuls of packages but he wasn't pleased with his purchases. "The stores don't have s--- left" dad yelled at mom. I knew with those words the Alamo set was history as well as the wood burner set and the Wilson A2000 baseball mitt.
 

Dad told me at dinner he was sorry but many of the things I had asked for were sold out and he did the best he could. Although young and far too materialistic I remember telling dad I understood and that it wasn't his or mom's fault that I was going to have a miserable Christmas.

That all changed about 5:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve when the apartment buzzer rang. Pressing the buzzer, I went to the door as mom was busy in the kitchen. To my elation, a young man in a blue Sears' delivery uniform was banging a wheeled cart full of presents up the stairs.

Yelling at mom to come quick and that a miracle had happened, I saw my mom pensively look at the young man. It hadn't dawned on my young mind that my parents couldn't afford two batches of toys for their kids. As my mom explained to the young man she had already purchased alternative items, he shook his head and told my mom not to worry and that the packages were being sent without charge. Something about Sears valuing their customers and wanting to make amends for a shipment lost and then found meant the boxes carried no demand for C.O.D. With that news, mom whisked the young man into the apartment and gave him a cup of hot cocoa.

Yes that was a very special Christmas in 1958. I not only got the all metal Alamo play set and a wood burning set but I got last years hot toy, the all-metal Fort Apache as well and a whole bunch of trivial toys that were just heaped in a pile as I worked furiously to open and play with my double dose of Christmas materialism.

I recall with fondness going back to school with blisters on two fingers and band aids protecting cuts on the other eight. Yes, ten years old was a great age to be. Thanks to a blunder by Sears.
 

[MIKE FAK]

Archived columns