My Life Between the Dimensions

So Sears is in real trouble and is closing even more stores.  Any one that had a career with Sears and worked during the 70’s and the 80’s forward, saw this coming a long time ago.  The opinions expressed are my own, but I believe that they are the entrenched views of thousands of Sears associates, past and present. Before judgments are made as to personal bitterness or career disappointment, let me state at the beginning of this narrative, that I have had a 36 year career with Sears, and it has both enriched me, rewarded me, and fulfilled me.  I loved experiencing personal growth and milestones, developing incredible friendships with valued mentors, friends and associates, and having the reward of an income to raise my children and support my family with enough leftover to retire comfortably. But, I want to be definitive that my greatest joy in working for Sears, Roebuck, and CO. resided in the years 1969-1989, and again in 2000-2004. My own career with Sears...

Art from "Genesis for Normal People" by Pete Ennis, PHD During the course of my life, I often debated my belief system.  I am a white, middle class, American-born male child.  My generation was referred to as the generation of “war babies”, coming into existence during and immediately after World War II.  I am a Christian and lean decidedly Conservative in my political philosophy, as did my parents and grandparents, although there is no doubt that my standard of living and financial status is substantially improved over their own. What I especially debated in my spring and summer years, was my belief in the Creator and Christianity in general.  My father and mother were wonderful examples and role models, attending church every time the doors were open, tithing the 10% the church and biblical guidelines called for even though it meant having less food to eat for them and their two sons and made any kind of paid entertainment a luxury usually beyond their mea...

Meacham Lane Memoirs/Eddie’s Lunch Moon Pies, RC Colas, Pin Ball Machines and Ten Cent Chili Dogs As I advanced into my pre-teen and early teen years, I succumbed to the lure of our hang-out at Eddie’s Lunch.  It was every bit as important to my leisure time as Bob’s Dairy Queen was to my junior and senior high school years, or Bob’s and Noble Park Dairy Queen in my Junior College years. The diner was owned and operated by Eddie Box, his mother and grandmother.  The white boarded building was located across from the site of the original Farley Elementary School on Old Benton Road next to Keel’s Grocery store. Usually Sonny and Gary Vaughn and myself made the mile walk each way, quarters jingling in faded blue jean pockets. Sometimes we would be accompanied by Donnie Wyatt, Randy Paris, or some other neighborhood friend....and met others once we got there. Keel’s Grocery was an important outlet for my mother and dad when we relocated from Lone Oak to our Meacham L...

Marmont Hill Art Collective "Nash's Pond" by Curtis.  The Meacham Lane gang could not have looked much different heading to Ramsey's Pond minus the picnic basket and plus another ball cap or two. Nothing honed my pre-adolescent fishing acumen more than my trips to Ramsey's Pond.  My love of the old farm stock pond lasted through most of the years we lived at the little house on Meacham Lane and for another year or two when we relocated to the little grey rental house on Estes Lane. But, sometime around 1957 and eleven years of age the little gravel lane could no longer contain either me or my best friend, Sonny Vaughn, and our need to explore and that sense of adventure led us further and further away from the rows of houses and the tiny yards.  I am not sure who was the first of the juvenile Sir Edmund Hillary "wantabes" that discovered the pond, located just over the railroad tracks on Husbands Road about three miles from the road's ...

Nam, March 1969 Her name was Nam (Nom).  She told me once that that it meant nine or ninth, and referred to her order of birth to her parents in the little village of Di An in the Bien Hoa district of South Vietnam. Her home was in the tiny cluster of huts just east of our Di An ( pronounced as Zee-on) forward base camp and west of the Song Dong Nai River. I never knew her age, but always figured her to be in her early to mid-thirties. Nam was already there when I was assigned my hooch and mosquito netted bunk in late spring/early summer of 1968.  She was what was referred to as a “hooch momma-san”.  Her main chores were to keep the floors, always dusty in the dry season and always filthy with mud in the monsoon season, as pristine as possible.  General housekeeping was also part of her expected chores and, depending on whether you were courteous and considerate to her, she might keep your personal space tidy and neat. She picked up a few extra dollars a...