I was a child in the 1970s, and for the purposes of this wistful essay, know that I was a very young child and overseas in Germany midway through that decade. One of the things we did to keep a cultural link to the States while we were so far from home was to receive the Sears and JC Penney catalogs. I am not sure I can find words strong enough to express how much I loved those books. I pored over them as a little girl, daydreaming about spiffy school clothes or summer wear, feeling uncomfortable about those people photographed in their underwear, and best of all, studying every millimeter of the toy section like I was about to take a licensing exam on the contents thereof. This was my childhood version of window shopping, and I took it seriously. To this day, I still go through every page of the AAFES circulars that we still get, even though the nearest PX/BX is something like 50 miles away, and I'll flip through a stray Crate & Barrel or Harry & David catalog that ends up here with someone else's name on it, even though I have no intention of ordering a single item from them. As much fun as those all were and still are, nothing compares to the magic of getting the Sears and Penney's Wishbooks that would arrive in the fall, cover to cover full of every magical toy a little girl thousands of miles from her home country could possibly want. The toys sparkled in the photos. The children playing with them had enraptured smiles on surprised faces, as if Santa himself was handing over the LiteBrites and Easy Bake Ovens. Even the text was fascinating, with sizes, quantities, and prices, as if I had to total up my own purchases and write the checks for them. I envied those two dimensional kids in their Christmas themed footy-pajamas, sitting around artfully decorated artificial trees, pulling small toys out of stockings. It was the best version of childhood, and I stared at it like I could be transported through the pages.
I'm much older now, and my fantasies now revolve around getting rid of stuff, not collecting more. My daughter asked me for another sewing project (two, actually), and the bargain I made with her was to help me do some reorganizing and thinning of the amount of stuff I have in my house and garage. Once, years ago, I had a goal of donating or throwing away 1000 pounds of stuff before we moved away from Grand Forks. I told my daughter that I'd like to do the same thing now, even though I don't need to load up a U-Haul with what's left over this time. (When she added the second sewing request, she said, does this mean we have to get rid of 2000 lbs now, and I said yes.) But still, I look at those catalogs as if I am going to order waves and waves of gifts for others and toys and clothes for myself. We had to make an emergency run to Target this afternoon (long story short, I messed up a recipe and emptied our last container of half and half, and Target is the closest place that sells it by the half gallon), and while the Mr was paying for our haul, I noticed stacks of toy circulars at the end of each checkout lane. In a flash I was seven years old again, reading every page in a catalog fatter than two of my kid-sized fingers combined, trying to strategize what I would ask for and how likely I was to get it. You know, lots of places sell footy pajamas these days. People even wear them out in public all the time. Maybe I'll get a set of red and white striped ones like I used to have, and settle in with a catalog, and plan out my Christmas tactics this month, so I'm ready for action when the time is right.
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