James McKew

“Shama, do you have any idea what this means?” I impatiently point to the 2015 Target Christmas Toy Catalog in my tight little fist.
Our seven year-old Haitian daughter shakes her head at me in a naive sort of way.
“It means that all your princess fantasies are about to come true …well, not really, but you can dream about it.”

Target’s latest offering is eighty pages of pure plastic imagination. I dig it, mostly because it’s a time machine that takes me back to when life was simple but not better …the 1970’s.
Anyone in that 45-55 age-bracket will probably join me in pledging our undying love of toy catalogs to the grand-daddy of them all …the Sears Christmas Wish Book.
I get this little thrill up my ten year-old spin remembering the details of each toy and fantasizing about the Planet of the Apes Command Center, and the Lincoln Log expansion set, and how I’ll be the envy of every kid on the bus when I show up wearing the combination NFL team jacket and knit cap. The commando raids will be epic with a new set of camouflage walkie-talkies, yes it’s all waiting right there between those slick pages for my sponge-like brain to absorb.

The no-name electric guitars and drums gave me a special thrill.
They sometimes had teenage models posing with the instruments. I put myself in their sequined shirts and bell bottoms, strumming away under the hot concert lights. My favorite fantasy, you ask? That’s easy …I’ve been asked to become the fifth member of KISS, I got my face painted and black spandex jump suit on. Strutting around on stage with my Sears guitar hanging about crotch high (bad-ass style), Gene Simmons breathes out a big ball of fire and gives me a knowing wink, teenage girls are screaming for me, and it all starts with that six-string copy of a Fender Stratocaster in sunburst red, whammy bar, Korean electronics and a massive 12 watt amplifier bundled together on page 395.
In 1975 it sells for $78.90 ($85.90 sold separately).
Yes indeed …they don’t call it a Wish Book for nothing.

The catalog was so popular in our house that Brian and I each had our own copy …with our names in marker across the top.
We each had pages and prices of our favorite toys memorized.
Brian might say;
“Hey … I want that wood burning set” and I’d answer back, “You mean the one on page 362 or the deluxe one on 363?”
We were like dueling preachers at a Bible verse contest.

You got to understand, this was rural Nevada in the 1970’s; entertainment came at a high price ….and our Grandparents were on a fixed budget. Our beige telephone was rotary dial, Walter Cronkite came through on bunny ears, he gave us the news at six o’clock every night (except Saturday and Sunday of course) and we only got two TV channels; CBS and NBC. If we lived in town then we could have joined the cool kids society in watching Welcome Back Kotter, Kung Fu and The Six Million Dollar Man, but by the time we got ABC, those shows were all defunct.

When it came to free entertainment though, the Wish Book had it all and we were its willing victims. If we wanted to see these toys in person …well good luck with that. It was sixty-five miles to Reno and there was no damn way our Grandparents we were ever going to the big city to shop for toys.

Researching this blog post I came across a website that should be given the Michael J. Fox – Back to the Future award: www.wishbookweb.com has put together a large collection of catalogs from the last century and is well worth a couple hours of reliving the bell-bottoms, lava lamps and Easy Bake Ovens of your childhood.