The following is a copy of a letter that I once sent to Sears Roebuck when the local retail store wouldn’t give me a copy of their new catalog. Needless to say, it was only a few days later that the same store called to advise us that we should come in to pick up our new catalog.
2489 Cresthaven Drive
Orange City, Florida 32763
March 18, 1992
Sears Roebuck & Co.
Customer Relations Dept.
Chicago, Illinois, 60684
As I remember, one of the first things that we bought, after our wedding, more than fifty years ago, was a combination wood and coal burning cook stove, from Sears and Roebuck on what was then a Revolving Charge Account.
I didn’t keep track of such things at that time, but I am sure that there never was a time, during the next twenty five or thirty years, that our “Time Payment Account” was completely closed out. We always needed something, and it seemed like the Sears Catalog was the best place to find the things that we wanted. I think that it is still a good place to shop, if we just had the catalog that displayed the items that we need.
When I was a kid this catalog situation was no problem. We always had a Sears Catalog, in fact we always had at least two of them. One of them was always diminishing in size, because of it’s constant use for purposes other than the purchase of Plow Points, Horse Collars, Spring Tooth Drags, Salted Cod Fish and many of the other things needed to operate a farm.
It seems like that most every time that we are looking for something in the “Big Book”, and finally finding the index, we are advised that the item is either in one of the Sears Specialogs or it is in the Annual Home, Hardware and Leisure Catalog, which we do not have.
When we asked for the “Big Book”, at the Retail Catalog Store, we were told that we apparently had not bought enough, during the last year, to warrant the ownership of such a volume, or one would have been sent to us.
I had no way of showing the lady how much money we had spent with Sears, over the past fifty years, and even though I could see twenty five or thirty of the catalogs that I needed, behind the counter, I was sent home without one.
Now, an obstruction, such as this, is not going to keep us from shopping from Mail Order Catalogs, that is, if we can find what we want, in the catalogs that we have.
If someone, in your massive empire, is able to convince the proper authority that we are eligible to receive the 1992 ANNUAL ETC. Catalog, we will again feel like we are living a normal life.
If you are able to pull off this caper, I will promise you that in the event that either Mrs. Beck or I, ever re-marry, the very first thing that we will buy, to furnish our new home, will be another Wood and Coal Burning Cook Stove from Sears, on a Revolving Charge Account.