Wednesday Walk: Sharing Your Sears Memories
Readers share about Sears, Worrying about maple syrup, Shopping for local yarn
Welcome to Willoughby Hills!
In case you missed it, I rebranded Quarantine Creatives to provide a bigger umbrella for writing that is no longer just about the pandemic.
As is typical every Wednesday, today I’m bring you a smattering of topics that I hope will make you a bit more curious about the world around you and give you something to think about later.
If you enjoy what you’re reading, you can subscribe to have this newsletter delivered to your inbox twice per week (it’s free):
Not Quite Winter
It has been a strange winter so far here in Massachusetts with abnormally warm weather. Or at least abnormally warm relative to historic norms, although it seems that those norms are shifting every year.
We finally had a decent snowfall over the weekend. There was enough that my kids were able to spend Martin Luther King Jr. Day sledding down the small hill in our backyard, I had to shovel the driveway, and my dog happily stuffed his whole face in the snow all day. But then it warmed up again. At the moment, my yard is still a little white, but hints of green are peaking through everywhere.
This pattern of a day or two of light snow, followed by a week of warmth has been on repeat since December here and it has me worried about maple sugaring season.
If you’re new here (which the majority of my readers now are), during the pandemic, I began taping the sugar maples in my yard and boiling the sap into maple syrup. It’s become an annual tradition in our family now, and something that forces us to be outside more during the colder days of late winter.
Maple season in Massachusetts varies year to year, but it usually begins in late February or early March. A successful harvest requires temperatures fluctuating above and below freezing each day. Typically, a daytime temperature in the high 30s or low 40s and an overnight temperature in the 20s is preferable.
The only trouble is, we’ve been experiencing weather like that for most of January! Here’s the forecast for the remainder of this week- it’s perfect maple weather, just a month and a half too soon:
From what I’ve read, maple trees can be tapped anytime after the autumn leaves are gone, provided the weather conditions are right. Sap will flow for 4-6 weeks once tapped, as long as the tree is freezing and thawing daily. If a cold snap comes in for a few days, it can disrupt the flow. Once temperatures remain above freezing around the clock, the harvest is done.
Now the question is, do I tap way too early, hoping that the current weather patterns hold, or do I wait until closer to my usual time, assuming a big freeze may be just around the corner?
I am fortunate that I only sugar as a hobby, producing a few dozen bottles of finished syrup that I share with family and friends. But I have sympathy for the commercial producers out there that are trying to make sense of this unpredictable weather.
It’s another reminder that the items we take for granted on grocery store shelves actually have to come from somewhere. A natural product like maple syrup shouldn’t be taken for granted. A shift in the weather can knock out an entire season’s harvest.
To me, this little anecdote shows how climate change will affect all of our lives in some way, if it’s not already. In some places, this may mean extreme weather events, like the recent torrential rains in California. In others, it may be more subtle, like slightly warmers days that are only noticed by maple sugarers. Either way, it’s a change, and it felt worth noting.
Sears Memories and Further Reading
I really enjoyed reading all of your reactions to my piece on Sunday about visiting the last Sears in New England. A lot of people shared memories with me about shopping at Sears. Here’s a few reader comments that I thought were worth sharing:
From Steve on Twitter: “I would always park outside the lawn mower and tools section and walk into the mall from there. The smell of tires, the shiny tools... It was an experience!”
Linda commented on the article here on Substack: “Kenmore appliances were considered the best, my mother’s first automatic washer was a Kenmore. Later, in the ‘60 the brand had fallen to ‘the middle price range.’”
Joe on Twitter shared his memory of Sears in the 1960s-70s in Southern California: “Ours smelled like roasting nuts & warm candy. The huge candy counter was heaven as a kid. I loved the maple drops. Nowhere else had them.”
Discussing Sears houses resonated with Susan on Twitter: “There is a neighborhood in my small PA town filled with Sears houses. A friend lives in one and has the original blueprint from Sears framed on the wall. She loves her little house.”
Amelia also commented here on Substack: “It was always an event to go to Sears and my favorite part was always the electronics department where you could sample the latest video game systems and other home entertainment tech.”
Mike on Instagram mentioned that Sears used to have the best bicycles too, which sent me down the rabbit hole of searching Craigslist for Sears bikes. I’ve got to admit, I saw some nice looking ones that would put Pee Wee Herman to shame.
Andrew Wagner shared a piece that he had written for Tool Guyd back in 2018 when Craftsman was purchased by Stanley Black and Decker that may be worth a read for you tool nerds like me. Andrew’s analysis includes a look at how Craftsman under Sears’s ownership eroded customer trust by replacing their signature American made, high quality tools with lower quality versions from overseas:
“My biggest gripe wasn’t about the gimmicky tools. And it wasn’t about their outsourcing of tool production either. Specifically, it’s about the fact that Craftsman essentially thought consumers were too stupid to realize that despite the label, these were NOT the Craftsman tools their fathers and grandfathers had used for years, yet Sears still kept them at the USA-made price point thinking nobody would notice or care.”
One brand that did manage to escape the Sears orbit relatively unscathed is Lands’ End. The outdoor apparel brand was purchased by Sears in 2002, with the goal of bringing a Lands’ End “store within a store” concept to Sears, hopefully resulting in an uptick in traffic.
Lands’ End was spun off in 2014 and retreated from Sears stores entirely by 2018. According to an article from Caroline Jansen for Retail Dive in 2019, Lands’ End has been successful outside of Sears by smartly opening new stores, focusing efforts on both physical retail and digital sales, satisfying its core customer base, and attempting to attract younger clientele, among other things.
It didn’t occur to me until yesterday that my kids have several outfits and even reliable winter boots from Lands’ End , all from the post-Sears years. I wore a pair of Lands’ End pajamas to bed last night!
It seems that Lands’ End’s strategy may be working, and it’s nice to see that there’s life after Sears.
In assessing the future of Sears, and I suppose malls in general, I was very interested to learn that the mall where my grandpa used to work at Sears part-time is now being completely torn down and renovated into a mixed-use development. According to Cleveland’s NBC affiliate WKYC:
“The $260-million project includes 800 luxury apartments, and room for approximately 30 restaurants and retail businesses, along with green space, a resort-style swimming pool, and walking paths. The development would be anchored by a Meijer store.”
Reminiscing about Sears with readers has made me a bit wistful, but I’ve also been thinking of that old George Harrison adage that “all things must pass.”
#NoNewClothes- Week 14
If you’ve been following along with my No New Clothes challenge, inspired by a conversation with Amory Sivertson, you know that I’m trying to go for one year without buying anything new for my wardrobe.
Part of this challenge has been a desire to better understand where things come from and how they are made. I already have this understanding when it comes to food; I can easily rattle off the difference between natural, cage free, free range, and pastured eggs, for example. By virtue of dabbling in woodworking, I also have an understanding of how things like furniture and cooking implements are made.
But fashion of any kind is admittedly a bit of a blind spot for me. For a while now, I’ve had the desire to learn knitting, sewing, or some other practical skill like that. But I’ve also wanted to understand where the fibers I might use actually originate. Sure the craft store sells fabric and yarn, but so much of it is synthetic and just feels cheap. If I’m going to try to knit a scarf or hat or sweater someday, I want it to be made out of something high-quality that feels good and will last.
Which is why I’m very excited to attend the Wayland Winter Farmers Market “Farm Fiber Day” on Sunday, January 22 at Russell’s Garden Center in Wayland, MA. 40 local farm vendors will be on site. Here’s how Russell’s describes the event:
“Look for yarn, roving, fleeces, spinning fiber, finished items (socks, hats, woven scarves and table linens, felted objects). We will have visiting sheep and bunnies, vendors spinning on wheels and drop spindles, and sock making machine demonstrations.”
After staying at a few alpaca farms in our RV last summer, I have fallen in love with locally made fibers and am intrigued by the idea of being able to purchase high quality yarn or wearable objects from local businesses.
While the intent of the No New Clothes challenge is to not buy anything new all year, the spirit of it is to treasure high quality goods that will last and to be conscious of the sourcing methods. I may walk away with nothing more than inspiration to learn another handcraft, but I’ll be okay if I break my pledge in this special circumstance too and buy some clothing.
If you’re in the Boston area, I hope you can stop by! If you’re outside of Massachusetts, I hope you get inspired to seek out local clothing suppliers near you.
Thank you for reading! I always love hearing your thoughts, so please drop a line in the comments.
I publish new issues every Wednesday and Sunday. Sign up to always receive the latest issue and support my work:
Other Wednesday Walks
Please consider sharing this with a friend that you think might enjoy it or you can post it on social media.
If you’ve missed past issues of this newsletter, they are available to read here.
Stay Safe!
Heath
Another good one! I hope you get your syrup!
Meanwhile, my hometown Sears in Greensboro is probably only alive because in addition to taking on Lands End in its building, it carved out a fourth of it for Whole Foods in 2010. It looks just as sad and empty as others and the last one here in Maryland closed over the weekend.
And I crochet prolifically and I’m working on something in a chunky blended fiber to test proof of concept. I do have knitting needles, but crochet has gotten me where I want to go with sustainable fiber quicker and I still enjoy the local yarn culture (that yarn festival and those alpacas sound so dreamy!)And if you want to see all my work, I have a separate platform for it @Kristpattern. I need to crank my Substack for it up more, but on IG and building a Pinterest as I sell patterns. And want to do more of my urban yarn nights this year!
Thanks for including my thoughts on Sears in your Wednesday Walk this week!