Blackburn + Sweetzer Has Moved

A page from JC Penney catalog circa 1975, from Jancee Dunn; click to expand

It’s the end of an era, people. WWD reports today that this year’s fall/winter edition of JC Penney’s biannual ‘big book’ catalog will be its last. Makes sense, of course, with online and ecommerce and, you know, killing all those trees.

It also makes me nostalgic. The husband and I always get a kick out of the fact that, as kids, he was in Eden, North Carolina and I was in Juneau, Alaska (before the big move to Redmond, Washington), watching the same infomercials and commercials, Grease for the hundredth time on TV, and thumbing through the same catalogs, marking all the things we wanted (such good little consumers from the start). I remember Sears and JC Penney being the biggies. My game was that I had to choose one thing from every page (these things ranged from 900-1,500 pages!), which I’d circle. You’d think I would’ve just circled anything once I got to men’s underwear or yard equipment, but I’d look carefully through and thoughtfully select what I thought was the best choice. Of course, it was all a big build up to get to the gleaming white roller skates…