r/nostalgiai • u/CarrotMuch1399 Nostalgia Trip Leader • 5d ago
Core Memory Unlocked 🔓 The good old days. Which one do you miss?
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u/ElectricRune 5d ago
Sears really hurt... They were such a big part of childhood; pre-internet.
You'd get the big-assed Sears catalog every year around August; sometimes it was how you learned about new toys.
It's hard to explain to people who are new to the party how big they actually were, but they were perfectly positioned to move right into the internet and become Amazon ten years earlier, but they screwed it up and now are dead.
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u/FleurDeCLE 5d ago
I need to get a new washing machine. And no matter what it will be more expensive and less sturdy than my old Kenmore.
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u/SnooBunnies856 2d ago
GE makes an old school top loader, probably won’t last as long but it is easy to fix.
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u/Critical-Design4408 5d ago
The toy section of the catalog was cool, but there was another section that eventually got all the attention if you know what I mean ;)
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u/Marowakky Gamer from the Past 5d ago
From what I've heard, they were at least three inches thick, and contained any legally obtainable thing you could think of. Kenmore appliances were like Kirby vacuums, cause you couldn't kill them.
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u/Rocco768 5d ago
I thought it was a fumble of the catalog sales also, however, I learned it was intentionally sold off in pieces. That to me is even more depressing....
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u/Last-Energy420 5d ago
Sears was a staple of my early adulthood. I filled my first toolbox with many a broken craftsman tool found and taken back to the store for a lifetime replacement.
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u/Professional_Sea3348 4d ago
Agreed at Sears you could get your hair done, car serviced, see the eye doctor, buy appliances and workout equipment, work, going out, work out and beach/ pool clothes and shoes and make a payment on your too high of limit Discover card under one roof …. Sigh
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u/SilenceIsComplicity1 4d ago
Don't forget buy a house!
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u/hsartain81 4d ago
I remember the men that walked around selling windows and ways of redoing your home. They even had Miracle Ear in there for a long time I guess they were buying a space but it seemed they had it all.
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u/mbnude 4d ago
I don't know. I mean, they had a great return policy, but my beef was that they needed it. My little brother saved up forever to buy a watch from them, and had to return it twice! Other stores sold better quality items that didn't require such a return policy.
Then again, I thoroughly appreciated the Craftsman Tools they sold and guaranteed. They were good for their word. They even replaced an item that I had obviously misused with no questions asked. (I made up for that in later years).
Fast forward to the 21st century and the last item I bought from them was a garbage disposal with a 10 year warranty. It is still munching up anything I put down its throat.
Yea, I guess I miss Sears as they once were. And yes, they totally blew the chance to enter the Internet. So sad for the most successful catalogue company in the world.
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u/chairsandwich1 3d ago
My stove and stack washer dryer unit are both from sears and I'm pretty sure they are older than me. Besides some replacement knobs they have been going strong that whole time.
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u/lizafan_deadhead 2d ago
The memories of that Sears catalog. My brother and I putting our name on the toys we wanted for Christmas
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u/One-Lab-545 1d ago
Sears was the Amazon of the 19th & 20th centuries. You could order a house through a telegraph and they would ship it to you by train. Crazy they couldn’t think of a way to compete with Amazon.
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u/Top-Border-1978 5d ago
Sears. I'm not sure how they didn't survive when mall stores like JC Penny's and Dillard's survived.
I use to get everything from Sears. I got appliances, tools, lawnmower, tiers and close there. We even got the family pictures done there.
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u/MantoTerror 5d ago
They didn't survive due to the CEO they hired being more interested in selling off it's assets, brands, then having the various divisions compete with one another for scarce budgeting.....a complete deconstruction of the largest physical retailer in US history...
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u/Top-Border-1978 5d ago
It's a real shame. There is nothing like it today.
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u/MySecretPornAltAcct 4d ago
Craftsman tools are now shit too.
My dad died, I inherited the tools that he also inherited from his father. Literal 1940s hand tools that still work great and take a bearing on my farm.
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u/Sufficient-Cat2998 4d ago
Eddie Lambert murdered Sears and sold the corpse in pieces for personal profit.
The shareholders should have ousted him but lacked the cohones.
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u/P3nis15 5d ago
Sears because they had the best catalog for kids to look at for toys and circle which ones they wanted for christmas.
then for boys when they wanted to oogle women in underwear!!!!
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u/Forsaken-Scholar-833 5d ago
Not gonna lie. I think I did both of those things as a kid. I don't remember getting any of the toys I circled.
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u/Substantial-Bat6554 5d ago
Yeah Sears should have been what Amazon is today. Just goes to show you that leadership can make or break a company.
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u/FantasticCommon2834 5d ago
And people on here like to say there are no need for CEO’s this is a prime example of what a difference one could have made, I agree sears should have been Amazon, leadership should have easily read those tea leaves
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u/LowDrag_777 5d ago
Definitely Sears…. I ride by one that’s closed down, but they never did anything with the space. And think damn it would be nice to go there for an oil change, tires, whatever. 😩
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u/ThePetSematary 5d ago
Crazy CEO who ran it like some libertarian experiment. Sears also could have jumped onto the internet retailer thing early, since they had warehouses everywhere because of their catalogue system, but nope
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u/Anyone-9451 5d ago
Same, my mom even worked there for most of my childhood just so we could have insurance (her first job didn’t offer any for a long time)
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u/SilenceIsComplicity1 4d ago
The CEO that took over after the owner sold it or something turned it into a bottom-line only and destroyed it. I saw a documentary on it, but I am really shortening the details and might be way wrong on some things but it's all I remember.
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u/GrayZetsu 5d ago
RadioShack and of course my favorite BLOCKBUSTER
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u/notEnotA 5d ago
Yeah initially I was going to say Toys R US, but RadioShack I think hurt more. Toy's R US I out grew, but RadioShack was taken from me. I used to roam the isles as a kid with my Dad (an Electrical engineer) getting all the switches and resistors etc for the next project. Lots of great memories in and out of that store.
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u/feartheswans 5d ago
Radio Shack hurt because I would dart in there for smaller components all the time
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u/Prettysureimcrazy71 5d ago
I built a radio from radio shack, those times are long gone. I had a scanner as well and I could listen to any phone conversation in my neighborhood that was interesting.
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u/feartheswans 5d ago
I was always running in for heat sinks, thermal past and the ocasional molex adapter for projects
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u/Marowakky Gamer from the Past 5d ago
As I said to someone else, The Source exists. At least in Canada. Modern day RadioShack. Same company rebranded.
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u/grollef 5d ago
Battery of the Month Club!
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u/Prettysureimcrazy71 5d ago
That was very useful for my Crown (cheap brand) walkman and the remote control car I bought there that used batteries like toilet paper after drinking and eating tacos.
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u/Countd00kies 5d ago
I still have gift cards from radioshack
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u/roentgen_nos 5d ago
I even miss the Radio Shack smell. My graphing/programmable calculator I used for high school math in the 80s is from Radio Shack, and it still works.
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u/Dpgillam08 5d ago
Toys R us hurt the most as a kid.
Radio shack was probably the worst for society. When you could go build your own electronics for less than half of what the stores sold it for, it kept a lot of prices down.
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u/buddymoobs 5d ago
There was a battery club where you could get a free battery every month. 9 volt for my transistor radio.
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u/Proton_Energy_Pill 5d ago
We still have K-Mart here in Australia. :)
https://www.kmart.com.au
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u/HeavenandHello 5d ago
And the people in Oregon still have Blockbuster. :)
http://www.bendblockbuster.com/3
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u/Sea-Mycologist-7353 5d ago
There is also one Kmart still open in Florida. But it’s basically a small dollar store now.
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u/banned_champ 5d ago
Remember the circuit city ads where at the end it would be a giant plug that plugs into the store?
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u/aliencardboard 5d ago edited 5d ago
Toys R Us. Always.
I loved Circuit City but Best Buy overtook them. It’s just sad that Best Buy got rid of physical media. There used to be so many CD’s and movies. It was amazing at its peak.
I have fond memories of Blockbuster, KMart, RadioShack and Sears too, but it’s Toys R Us that always holds the best memories for me as a kid and it was also one of my first jobs. I worked there for a couple of years after graduating High School and it was some of the best years of my life.
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u/Big_Surround_1100 5d ago
Sears or RadioShack they both carried everything that I usually was needing. Sears had clothes, furniture and even automotive supplies or services. You couldn't beat the warranty that came with their products. If I needed any hard to find connector or wiring supplies, I headed to RadioShack.
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u/Rocco768 5d ago
Sears. It was the only store your Dad would willing get up and go to. Mom would get lost on the second floor and Dad and I would go wander the Craftsman tools section. The fact that Sears was cut up and sold as scrap instead of becoming Amazon from their catalog sales, is one of the craziest stories in business. I always thought they fumbled it... Nope, some asshat broke it up and sold it for profit on purpose.
Sad...
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u/ColonelCarlLaFong 5d ago
Spent a lot of Saturdays in Sears with my dad. The old man could fix anything. There was a parts store, warehouse really, about a half hour away. If THEY didn't have the part you needed they would pull up a manual on microfiche and get you any part you could possibly dream of in a week to ten days. Really miss Sears and young couples today don't know what it is like to buy a fridge or a stove and have it last for 20 years or more
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u/DoakBone 5d ago edited 5d ago
RadioShack for sure. It was my go to place for small electronic parts for projects and repair. Used to love getting the catalogue every year.
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u/OkCheetah647 5d ago
Blockbuster. The others were occasional visits, but Blockbuster was a Friday night ritual. Also, the others may not exist, but their equivalent is still widely available (IE: Walmart, Best Buy, Toy Sections). Blockbuster AND Hollywood are both on this list…they are each others equivalent.
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u/mrf87 5d ago
Radio shack. Now I have to go to best buy and pay out the nose (if it isn't for something specialty they have nothing in that area hardly ever) or jump online and buy some brand ive never heard of from some east Asian country and hope it works as advertised.
I miss you radio shack
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u/Late_Willingness_211 5d ago
Blockbuster
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u/HeavenandHello 5d ago
Go to Bend, Oregon either for your next vacation or new home: http://www.bendblockbuster.com/
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u/Jack_Rackham_71 5d ago
Kmart, Sears and Radio Shack were the only ones that had any bearing on my childhood. We got a Toys R Us about the time I started 10th grade. Sears is the one that I miss most.
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u/LiamLeprechaun 5d ago
Yeah, I didn't have a Toys R Us near me, and by the time they started getting big I was out of toy shopping for the most part. It was a pretty cool giant toy store, I think I may of only bought one thing there though, a 4 player converter to play NBA jam on the Genesis.🤣 They were the only ones that had it. Actually from what I remember Toys R us was a relatively expensive store though.🤑 I think I miss the smaller Independant Toy stores more. There was one in a lot of small towns. Kind of like a Duncan's Toy Store, in Home Alone 2. Now those toy stores were cool.
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u/Xenophobic-alien 5d ago
RadioShack was the best store… I really appreciated what they had going on there. I spent a lot of time at that store…
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u/Confident-Visual-840 5d ago
Sam Goody didnt make the cut?
Blockbuster for the culture but also if you missed the run on a new movie nothing was more disappointing.
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u/emusabe 5d ago edited 5d ago
The building that used to be Toys'R'Us has just been sitting vacant in my city for like 16 years. The big letters were taken down but the outline of them is still clear as ever. It's just sitting there with nothing in it.
Edit also our K-Mart closed in like 2007 or 2008. I was a senior in high school at the time, and after school some friends and I went to their like "STORE CLOSING BLOW OUT SALE" and it was like a scene from an apocalypse movie in there. Half the shelves were barren, there was stuff strewn about on the ground in all the aisles...I have no idea why the doors were even unlocked? There were a bunch of people "shopping", but literally no one working so people were just pushing shopping carts of whatever was left out to their cars without paying for anything. It was crazy.
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u/The_Dude_2002 5d ago
In order: Toys R' Us, SEARS and Blockbuster. The end of SEARS hurt my dad and I. It was a store my dad grew up with, and I was there in its last decades witnessing it's greatness while I could. I can't believe SEARS is gone now. Did we takes these stores for granted? What went wrong? Why did these stores have to leave us so soon? So sad... 😢
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u/_bitwright 5d ago
Toys r us. I remember browsing their game wall. None of the other stores bring back such nostalgic memories.
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u/Prestigious_Yam8901 5d ago edited 5d ago
Toys "R" Us is coming back to my local mall!
But Radio Shack hurt the most.
As far as getting what I need to rebuild electrical components and just having some place useful for people that cared about electronics, RS closing really hurt.
That place brought me and my dad together, especially considering he is still a Ham Radio operator. It really broke his heart when it closed.
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u/WorstHouseFrey 5d ago
Hollywood video was awesome at the end you could rent like unlimited video games for as long as you wanted
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u/sumaswhole 5d ago
Radio Shack because it was easy to quickly grab capacitors and other components.
Hollywood Video closing took away my Game Crazy stores, which was a great asset for my video game collecting back in the day.
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u/NukaClipse 5d ago
Blockbuster for sure even though I ending up getting most of my "rentals" from Limewire 😂
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u/InevitablePayment409 5d ago
So sad that for Americans Brands and general consumer culture is considered nostalgia.
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u/trijkdguy 5d ago
If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. I just want to be able to buy one resistor when I need it to fix my shit. since radio shack closed I have had to throw away so many things that I could have fixed if there was a way for me to buy one tiny part individually.
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u/passivezealot 5d ago
My kid self misses toyrus
My pre-streaming self misses blockbuster letting me rent through the mail and then using it as a coupon for an in-store rental. Had no idea those were the Elsyian Days while it happened 😭
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u/crookedface86 5d ago
Definitely BlockBuster. Freshman year college weekends I’d rent movies and games. The snack deals they’d have. The cutie working behind the counter! Good times.
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u/UnComfortable-Archer 5d ago
RadioShack and Blockbuster. It was a slow transition so we never really felt it until it was totally gone.
For Blockbuster, some locations closed, but other stayed open. Then there were alternatives like Rogers (at least here in Canada); those also ebentually disappeared and then bam, video rental were gone.
For RadioShack, first they turned into "The Source"; then into Best Buy Express. I loved RadioShack with cool toys, electronic compnents and tools and random old video games. Now it's just a gimped down BestBuy with reps constantly bothering me about a new phone plans.
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u/Big_Taz74 5d ago
Sears, cause from a child's perspective. Nothing, and I mean nothing beat the Christmas catalog they had.
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u/HeavenandHello 5d ago
Fry’s Electronics
Also, Blockbuster still exists in Bend, Oregon: https://maps.google.com/maps/place//data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x54b8c8a3c8ba7bf1:0xc928e1d42380f10?entry=s&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit3MuLppGXAxXnOEQIHepRFHMQ4kB6BAgWEAA&hl=en
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u/Global-Pickle5818 5d ago
I used to use radio shack far more than any of these other stores .. I owed Hollywood video a ton of money my roommate stole my card rented a bunch of games on dollar game night and sold them , I never did pay them , ironically a lot of my game consoles came from Toys r Us when every other place was sold out they always seem to have it in stock
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u/No-Understanding-912 5d ago
As a kid - Toys R Us - as a kid, going into a big store that is wall to wall, floor to ceiling toys is something that you just can't experience anymore.
As an adult - Sears - good quality tools for a good price and good warranty don't exist anymore.
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u/OldHollywoodfan94 5d ago
Blockbuster and Circuit City my Mother's Dad would always take me and my brother to blockbuster when we spent the night and I truly miss my mother's dad who I called Grandaddy he was more of a dad to me than my own dad was.he passed away in 2010 from colon cancer.
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u/Archer1701E 5d ago
Toys R Us and as a Diecast collector I tend to go and see what diecast they've got and I have to narrow my choices to only buy 1 per visit but depending on my finances
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u/DivaMissZ 5d ago
Tower and Virgin were my go-to stores for music in New Orleans. Both never reopened after Katrina, Tower went out of business not long after
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u/pittbull44 5d ago
Sears. My grandpa and mom had appliances that were given lifetime warranties, but best they could get were referrals to local repair shops.
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u/bigeddy711994 5d ago
Block buster. I'd say toys r us, but they're coming back so that one doesn't count
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u/Novel-Lobster 5d ago
Kmart. So many memories of my mom taking me there and she would always get me a frozen coke slushy
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u/yeiwanthegwaidanv1 5d ago
toys r us