Five For Friday: Resurrecting The Chains

Though I'm yet to make the pilgrimage, my heart was warmed greatly when I learned that after a near 20 year absence, Roy Rogers was returning to my neck of the woods. There was always something about Roy's that separated it from the big boys like McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's. Maybe it was the ability to get fried chicken or roast beef. Maybe it was the fries. Oh, those glorious steak fries. Most likely though, it was the Fixin's Bar. The world was your oyster when you approached that buffet of opportunity. Sauces. Vegetables. Garnishments. Seeing Burger King's "Your Way Right Away" and going all-in.

In honor of Roy's Return, here's 5 other defunct chains and franchises from yesteryear I'd love to see make a come back.

5. SERVICE MERCHANDISE

Technically this still exists on the internet as a web-based only retailer, though their website looks like an old user-made geocities site from 1998. But if you remember getting the Service Merchandise Christmas Catalog in the fall during the 1980's, you know how awesome this business was. It was basically Amazon or Ebay, except you had to drive there. It was online shopping before the internet. You'd go into one of their (generally poorly kept) locations, fill out a form the item you wanted - toys, watches, car stereos, binoculars, bath robes, you name it. Then you'd go to the front of the store and your items would arrive on a conveyor belt. For a while I was convinced they had Oompa Loompahs in the back working some sort of magic. Alas, in the 21st century there appeared to be no need to drive to a warehouse so you could get a tennis racket and a VCR in the same location.

4.CRAZY EDDIE. 

Truth be told, I only have one memory of ever being inside a Crazy Eddie. And that might actually have been a Trader Horn or Tops anyway. But oh, those commercials. It wasn't  a weekday afternoon of cartoons (or suffering through a Little House on the Prairie episode while waiting for cartoons) without the Crazy Eddie commercials. Who could resist a middle aged dude going apeshit and smacking himself in the head with a rubber hammer? Also didn't hurt that he was the third "Eddie" I ever met after myself and my father. Even had a nun in the 5th grade who called me "Crazy Eddie". She was kind of a bitch. Regardless, who cares if Crazy Eddie was basically the Enron of the 1980s, those commercials WERE INSANE. You just don't find that kind of charm in a Best Buy, where it doesn't matter if you buy a bottle of Sprite or a 72 inch LED TV, some troglodyte is gonna accost you upon exist and search your bags and demand a receipt.

3. GRAND UNION. 

All supermarkets kind of suck in their own way. When a new chain comes to town, or an existing one undergoes a renovation, it seems refreshing and unique for a couple of months. Then you realize, no, this sucks like the rest of them. But Grand Union was especially shit-tastic. Habitually over-priced, regularly filthy and understaffed, the GU was a distaster. But it was a beautiful disaster. I include this on the list for selfish reasons. I was a GU Deli Clerk for two years while in college, some of the best years of my semi-charmed life. Seeing the creatures that made that whole operation work - or actually - collapse, was a daily treat for an uninvested and uninspired hourly employee who was confused as to why he had to pay union dues to make 28 cents per hour above minimum wage. I was there for two of the final three years of it's existence and watching the corporate Yes Men frenetically try and change the failing fortunes was enough to cement my belief that I was in no way, shape or form cut out for a career in corporate America. The produce manager took 45 minutes to walk from one end the store to the other. The bakery clerk, who was also the pharmacist for many of the younger employees, quit to become a Tibetian Monk. The deli manager was actually illiterate. The shopping cart wrangler would wander the aisles blurting out lines from contemporary movies like "GIMME BACK MY SON" and thought the funniest thing he ever saw was a lobster that he thought looked like former First Lady Barbara Bush. I think I smell a future entry on my Grand Union experience the more I think about it. 

2. CHILD WORLD.

I include Child World not because it was this mystical and magical emporium full of toys, candy, games and a magical panda bear wearing overalls in the days before Meghan's Law. No, I'd love to see Child World resurrected so today's youth can know the depths of childhood disappointment when your parents say they're taking you to the toy store and you end up in Child World after thinking all day/week/however long that you were going to Toys R Us. CW was to Toys R Us what the Go Bots were to Transformers, or Fleer baseball cards were to Topps: the overwhelmingly inferior competition that you were embarrassed to tell your friends about. Last year's toys. Items thrown across the floors, half-empty shelves.  A "Book" section! Who wanted to go to the toy store and shop for books?!?!?!?!

1. BRADLEES.

O Bradless, Where Art Thou? Done in by the War of Wal-Mart aggression and allegedly cleaner department stores like Target and Kohl's, Bradlees lasted as long in this millenium as peace and prosperity did. Quality goods weren't necessarily their forte, but you could stretch a buck in Bradlees unlike any other department store I can ever remember. Also helps that I purchased Slippery When Wet there in 1986. On vinyl. And not because vinyl was hip either. Music. Clothes. Toys. Home goods. The most fantastic snack bar ever - serving Icee drinks and popcorn from open to close. And ooh that smell. Bradlees had this omnipresent scent that was so pervasive it clung to any clothing you bought there through multiple washings and dryings (But you never wanted to throw Bradleeswear in the dryer unless you bought them 3 sizes to big in the first place). I can only assume it was a proprietary fragrance pumped into all warehouses, shipping containers and retail locations. If you, or anyone you know has any information on where I can acquire a bottle of Eu de Bradlee, please reach out and hook a brother up. Until then, I'll be right here waiting for Bradlees Resurrection.

All I Can Say Is That My Life Is Pretty Plain

This is it. The home stretch. Exactly one year and six months from today, I will complete my fortieth trip around the sun.  Frankly, it's a little terrifying. I've always looked at forty as a benchmark that stood out among all others. The line of demarcation between young and old. Second base, the fifty yard line, the Second Inauguration. Maybe because it's I vividly remember my parents turning forty. Heck, I was already sneaking bottles of booze and buying cigarettes when that happened, so it REALLY doesn't seem that long ago. Perhaps it's because folks in their twenties are routinely considered young, turning thirty is full of "You're best days are still ahead of you" encouragement, while turning 50 or 60 has the perception of "Well yeah, you're old".

But forty? Shit man, while it's not time for the AARP Card, it sure as heck ain't young.

I'm already dealing with blood pressure medication, 20 Year High School Reunions, having to stretch my Achilles Tendon before I get out of bed in the morning, wondering if it would be too obvious if I started using Just For Men at this point and leaving baseball games early "to beat the traffic".

I've traded beer pong for golf and tie dyed t-shirts for collared polos - and not just on Christmas. Like, on a random night out for a casual meal. The last auto I purchased had to be affordable and fuel efficient. As she comes to her natural end, I've lined up replacements with qualifications like "roomy" and "easy to get into". 

And if that's not bad enough, this happened:

A very big piece of my soul died when I saw that. Arguably the most iconic song of my senior year in high school is now being used to pimp a freakin Honda minivan? And even grandpa's singing along? So. Not. Cool. My initial reaction upon seeing this was something between Brad Pitt's "What's in the box?" and Darth Vader when he learns of Padame's death.

Ever since I was a wee lad - which it's getting more and more obvious was quite some time ago - I've had an infatuation with the idea of generations. It was much easier growing up though. My parents were baby boomers - they of the Beatles on Ed Sullivan-turned Woodstock attending draft card burners-turned devout capitalist Reaganite generation. Even if none of that fit my parents narrative.

Their parents were what I knew as "The World War II Generation" until Tom Brokaw cut his Oedipus Complex with Viagra and deemed them "The Greatest Generation". You couldn't say ANYTHING bad about The Greatest Generation, after all, THEY LIBERATED EUROPE FROM TYRANNY!!!! And then came back home, sprawled into suburbia, lost control of their young and escalated the Vietnam War before retiring with a full pension from wherever they worked and becoming the sweetest, gentlest grandparents the world had ever seen.

And nowadays you can't read or watch a damn thing without the term Millennial shoved down your throat. Because Millenials do everything. They've redefined urban America, they've swung elections, they've become the judge, jury and executioner on all products, brands and services and there's countless other unfounded and straight up lies about their impact and societal worth, because hey, people love to talk about themselves. (As I intend to prove)

And then there's me. Websters...er...Wikipedia tells me that I'm part of Generation X, since I fall into an arbitrary group of people born between 1961 and 1981. I don't dispute those findings, as I've said many times that I relate in generational experiences more with people born fifteen years before me than I do with those born seven or eight years after me. But having said all of that, when you subdivide a generation, I find the "fourth quarter" of GenX to be "my people". And My People are on the precipice of one of life's turning points.

I've dabbled in internet writing/blogging many times since the medium was invented but have yet to be able to find that one topic I could even pass myself off as an expert on. Well, maybe early millennium politics but when everyone else realized George W Bush was an unmitigated disaster who broke the world, railing against him seemed pointless since it was like writing about how blue the sky was, or how I thought water was essential to human life forms. I'm a huge baseball fan but got lapped by the new era of advanced statistics that brought baseball analysis from bar-stool debates to an esoteric series of spreadsheets and algebra. Lots of fucking algebra. I adore music, film and television but for Christ's sake, is there anything about any of the arts that hasn't been written about ad nauseam?

One concept that always piqued my interest though was "The Mommy Blog". Always thought it was a novel idea. An often talented writer would share her experiences as they happened, often to the benefit of readers undergoing a similar life-altering event. But wouldn't ya know, I'm not, nor have ever been (or plan to be) a Mommy.  Heck, I'm not even a Daddy.

I am approaching middle age, however. And my people are to. We didn't storm Normandy and we don't remember where we were when Kennedy died. But we didn't grow up with the internet and we remember using the yellow pages. We're not quite the Winona Ryder/Ethan Hawke slice of Generation X, but now we're the ones cooking the holiday meals. Over the next 18 months and beyond I hope to share my experiences and reflect on the journey that brought a generation to the threshold of this anti-puberty. Hopefully I rub you the right way.