Shopping "Out of Town"

Do you remember a time before Amazon? I personally try to do my shopping at home, but sometimes we just think we need something we cannot find in our small community.

With the media and politicians making noise about Amazon and others, it brought to mind that we have always shopped “out of town.” I remember as a child sitting at the kitchen table paging through the catalogs. The Alden’s catalog comes to mind.

Why Alden’s when we lived within 60 miles of a Sears and Montgomery Wards, I have no clue. I am sure that catalog shopping was for the sheer convenience of it—Dad didn’t have to drive us to the city to go shopping.

As school kids we were given a dollar amount we could spend on our back-to-school clothes. Catalog shopping made it easier to give lots of thought to our purchases and add or subtract to our non-essential items. I must admit, returning items to those catalog stores wasn’t near as convenient as returning items to the present online stores.

I personally like browsing the aisle of our hardware stores. That way I know what is available to me in case I have one of those “I can fix it myself” moments.

Happy Shopping!