SFR Sears, Roebuck and Co

Sorta fishing-related
Since other stores besides Sears have been mentioned, did anyone else get to experience seeing Ivan the gorilla at the B & I back in the day?
Much more fun as a kid than the Kmart blue light special. πŸ˜‰
SF
 
Mark Yoshida said:
Loved Sears as a kid. Still have some of dads tools from them.
We also went to Tubby and Chubby’s.
Click to expand...
Nice stories here.

My Dad's job was evaluating the broken tools that were returned to his Seattle store. It must have been for information to the higher ups as the customer was going to get a new tool regardless. Or as I think about it the larger items might be repaired & send back out to customer or sent down to the bargain basement.

Anyway in remembering visiting his workshop on the 4th floor once, he had a constant stream of other workers coming in to see all the damaged equipment & get a laugh or two at Dads commentary on it.

He showed me a table saw that had a broken deck, he would visualize how the customer had broken it. In this case he figured that someone was using the deck as a workbench beating on an item, the cast iron deck couldn't take it and snapped off. He laughed " I bet that surprised him when it let go!"

Then he showed me a long shafted slot head screwdriver with a 70` bend in it, he said "this joker used it as a pry bar, I should include the add for one in with his new screwdriver!"

The good thing for me he had every tool imaginable at home and taught me to use the correct tool for the job at hand.
 
I remember we had a couple different neighbors who were career sears dept store workers and they could afford a home in North Seattle Haller Lake area and had two cars.

Near Sears in Shoreline at 145th and Greenwood (now a diva coffee house) use to be a great little hardware store. Forget the name, but I want to say Winklemann’s) The little bald guy could almost always find you the part you needed or work out a solution to get whatever you had working again. Some people will never know what a good hardware store really is…. They only know HD and Lowe’s types. πŸ˜”
 
Stonedfish said:
seeing Ivan the gorilla at the B & I back in the day?
Click to expand...
When I worked in Bremerton back in the 70's I stopped by the B&I on occasion. One time a couple nuns were squiring a group of grade school kids on an Ivan visit. Ivan evidently was "excited" by all the attention & became somewhat distastefully "animated." The nuns were shocked & frantically herded their charges out of there quick, fast and in a hurry.


Porter2 said:
The little bald guy could almost always find you the part you needed or work out a solution to get whatever you had working again. Some people will never know what a good hardware store really is….
Click to expand...
When my former neighbor retired, he went to work at a locally-owned hardware store when he became bored with retirement. I stopped by to see him one day & asked if he was enjoying himself. Jake said: "I'm like the old guy you used to see in old-time stores who knew where everything was, had a wealth of experience & was full of ideas that worked and had a story for every situation.
 
My Sears & Roebuck story goes back to when I was kid. We had a book closet at home and in there was (to me as kid) a really old S&R catalog. Any other catalogs would get thrown out after the year or season they were for, but this one catalog stood the test of time. So, one day when I was about twelve I got around to asking my mom why we were saving that one catalog. My mom, all 5' 1" of her on a good day lead me down the hall to the closet to retrieve the catalog and we headed for living room to sit on a davenport. She opened the catalog to the petite section of the woman's apparel and there she was, a younger version of my mom at age 19.

Miss you mom.
 
VMP said:
Some pop up from time to time in Craigslist, this one looks pretty clean for $500:
seattle.craigslist.org

Sears Game Fisher - boats - by owner - marine sale - craigslist

Sears gameFisher aluminium boat. Great boat in used condition. Perfect for fishing small lakes and calm seas. This boat is in great shape, very stable for fishing and cruising around with a small...
seattle.craigslist.org seattle.craigslist.org
Click to expand...
My old 1964 Hewes Big Fisherman is on a Wards tilt trailer of the same vintage. I bet it was pretty state of the art in its day.
 
VMP said:
Some pop up from time to time in Craigslist, this one looks pretty clean for $500:
seattle.craigslist.org

Sears Game Fisher - boats - by owner - marine sale - craigslist

Sears gameFisher aluminium boat. Great boat in used condition. Perfect for fishing small lakes and calm seas. This boat is in great shape, very stable for fishing and cruising around with a small...
seattle.craigslist.org seattle.craigslist.org
Click to expand...

That is in pretty good shape and the grass around it isn’t tall at all. πŸ˜‰πŸ˜‚
SF
 
Stonedfish said:
That is in pretty good shape and the grass around it isn’t tall at all. πŸ˜‰πŸ˜‚
SF
Click to expand...
He weed whacked around it for the photo op.

A dwarf could sunbath on that front deck.
 
I loved going to sears on 1st avenue with Dad. It was usually for tools. Mom would bring us down there for cloths, and grandma for toys… clothes were boring, toys were fun and tools with dad was just plain cool.

I remember having a 14 foot game fisher Jon boat. One day dad and I put the ole 18 hp evenrude on it. Think we beat that boat to death.

One stone not mentioned was Warshalls. Love that store. In high school I’d get my photo development supplies from there. Where else could you buy sporting goods and photo supplies under the same roof?
 
I used to go hunting with my Sears shotgun for ducks and pheasants where Southcenter is currently located. Originally, developers wanted to build Southcenter Mall where GovMart was located. Burien did not allow 2 story buildings above ground so that put the kabash on that idea.
 
RCF said:
I used to go hunting with my Sears shotgun for ducks and pheasants where Southcenter is currently located. Originally, developers wanted to build Southcenter Mall.
Click to expand...


HA!

I had a buddy belly crawl up to a couple of Canadian honkers and blast them with his Remington model 1100 12 gauge, now that's in a part of Renton that is Fairwood GC now..

Honker it's what's for DINNER!


A "Karen" called him in to Fish & Game this is like 1978. A gamie found him & said he was well within his rights to do so. HA!
 
Joe H said:
I'd wear Toughskins and Jeepers today if still availible!
Click to expand...
Growing up I wore them, and at the time hated them because they weren’t β€œcool” like what some other richer kids wore.

But now I would love to have a pair as work outside pants because they had that super-reinforced knee area. I always wear out the knees of my work jeans from gardening, firewood cutting etc…

I looked online to see if anything like them was available but no luck.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top