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Nostalgia in downtown Fayetteville: Sears history lessons
- Details
- Tuesday, 13 August 2024
- Written by Pitt Dickey
Once upon a time, long, long, ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a magnificent Sears store on Hay Street. It was the anchor of downtown Fayetteville's business district. I first encountered the many wonders of Sears in the late 1950s.
As seen in the photograph above this column, the most amazing thing there was the giant mural of 82nd Airborne paratroopers jumping into the friendly skies at Fort Bragg.
The mural was proudly displayed on the wall above the steps from the second floor to the shoe department on the first floor. Take a moment to marvel at the uniforms and the people in the picture. It is classic Fort Bragg.
As best I can tell, credit for the photograph goes to the late Bill Belch who was a long time Fayetteville photographer. If you know otherwise, let me know, and credit will be given to whom credit is due.
Like the Overlook Hotel in "The Shining," a lot of things happened in Sears and not all of them were good. At the bottom of the stairway lay the shoe department where I got my first pairs of PF Flyers, Hushpuppies, and Penny loafers. I was a fashion plate in elementary school.
Back in the dark ages of the 1950s and '60s, Hay Street had several first-run movie theaters- the Miracle, the Carolina, and the Colony. The Broadway theater was where angels feared to tread. It had excessively sticky floors and second-run flicks of dubious extraction.
As kids, we were frequently dropped off downtown on Saturday mornings to watch westerns and horror movies. After the movies, we usually went across the street to Sears to x-ray our feet in the shoe department. After considerable foot radiation, it's a minor miracle I still have feet.
The coolest thing in the shoe department was the fluoroscope machine used to fit your shoes to your feet. When trying on shoes, you stuck your feet into the machine, wiggled your toes, and admired the bones in your feet.
Mr. Google reports these machines were sold under the brand names X-Ray Shoe Fitter, or Foot-o-Scope. They were sold in the US from the 1920s until the 1970s when they were taken off the market due to some Sorehead's concerns about radiating children's feet.
Although there could be some adverse medical issues from multiple foot X-rays, the good news was that I could read comic books under my bedspread at night with the light emitting from my metatarsals.
Fortunately for Sears the statute of limitations has run on injury claims for irradiated feet.
The shoe department also had White and Colored drinking fountains. The White fountain was fancy with chilled water and the Colored water fountain was bare bones with room temperature water.
As kids, we did not know any better and assumed this was the way things were everywhere. Does a fish realize it is in water? Who knows? Ask the fish.
On a happier note, the Shoe Department also had a pony ride and a rocket ship ride which for a dime would take little buckaroos and buckarettes out to the Wild West and outer space.
The land at the top of the Sears stairs was equally enchanting. The second floor was home to the record section and appliances. On Saturdays, Sears' manager Wilbur Smith would cook a ham on a rotisserie grill which filled the upstairs with the beautiful smell of bacon.
Very little could compare with the joys of x-raying your feet, riding a rocket ship, then going upstairs to smell the bacon, while you flipped through the record bins looking for the latest Elvis records.
It didn't get much better than this.
What have we learned today? Once again, nothing of any practical use. But I can still smell the aroma of cooking ham. Take a sniff, you might too. As Elvis would say: "Thank ya verra much."
(Photo: Paratroopers jump at Fort Bragg in this photo Pitt Dickey reckons was photographed by Bill Belch, a long time photographer in the Fayetteville area. The photograph was on display at the Sears in downtown.)
