Column -- A Trip Back in Time

We get a lot of catalogs this time of year. Most of them are flimsy and filled with clothes or overpriced housewares.

And, really, who needs catalogs when you can shop online with so little effort. Insolvency was never faster or easier.

Still, I find myself missing the big 'ol Christmas catalog.

I'm talking about those 5-pound, 4-inch-thick chunks of retail heaven that came in late summer from the likes of Montgomery Ward, Sears, etc.

The ones with everything from awful, boring ski sweaters to the Star Wars Death Star playset with working elevator, trash compactor and that big gun that could blow up planets. Whole planets, folks.

At a catalog's arrival, all after-school activity ceased. It was hauled immediately to a couch or other comfortable locale and studied with a strict attention to detail befitting such a sacred dispatch. This was the declaration of toy dependence, a blueprint for the months of skillful Christmas begging that lay ahead.

By Thanksgiving, the once-proud, glossy catalogs were ripped, folded, creased and shredded.

Hopeful ballpoint pen circles swirled around coveted items.

Of special note was the catalog from Montgomery Ward, a proud old retailer that still exists as an online outlet. Wards had a catalog store in my hometown - a small storefront where orders could be made to a real human and picked up. It was sort of the giant company's official consulate in my small town.

In December, Santa would show up at the store to hear our wishes, which, we assumed, would then be passed on to the helpful order clerks behind the counter. We also received a paper sack filled with peanuts, a candy cane and a handful of that hard ribbon candy that everybody used to buy back in the day but nobody ever really ate.

For all its genius, the catalog-to Santa-to-underneath-my-tree system was not perfect. One Christmas, I asked for a Space Shuttle replica with a detachable external fuel tank and booster rockets.

NASA had just launched Columbia and I was pretty sure that astronaut was the career for me.

Sadly, Wards was fresh out of shuttles. As a replacement, they sent me a Dukes of Hazzard playset. I was a fan of the Duke boys, but the General Lee was no Space Shuttle. Do not question the wisdom of Wards.

Christmas catalogs do still exist in a less ambitious form. I ordered one from Sears. Still waiting.

But if you really want a trip back in time, there's wishbookweb.com, an online site where you can page through catalogs from the '30s through the '80s. Sorry, no ribbon candy.

» Contact the writer at (319) 398-8452 or todd. dorman@gazcomm.com