Mail Order

I have something of a shameful confession to make.

I miss mail order.

Now, I know what you’re thinking – not only is mail order still around, it’s even easier than it’s ever been, what with the internet and all.  But that’s not what I’m talking about.  What I miss is old-fashioned mail order the way it worked when I was a kid.

I know I’m dating myself a little here, but when I was growing up mail order catalogs came every so often throughout the year, and if we wanted something out of them we had to fill out the order form and send it back to wherever with a check for the total amount.  After three or four weeks, a package containing our goodies would magically arrive on the doorstep.  Unless, of course, the item was out of stock, in which case we’d get a postcard advising us of that unfortunate fact and giving us the option to call a toll-free number and cancel the order.

As a kid, my favorite catalogs were the ones from Cabela’s (and the Sportsman’s Guide, who would give you a free folding knife if you ordered over $50 worth of merchandise).  My friends and I all got the Cabela’s catalogs, and whoever had the latest one would bring it school, where we would pore over it between classes until it was all dog-eared and starting to fall apart.  They would usually send one out in the spring, about the time fishing season started in earnest, and we would look through it and speculate on how many more fish we could catch if only we had this new lure, or maybe that one…or some of those plastic worms in the latest hot color…or even a brand new fishing pole or reel.

There would be another catalog in the late summer or early fall with all the hunting gear, and then in late fall the much-awaited holiday catalog would arrive.  For me, there was something almost magical about this issue, with its assortment of food and gift products that never appeared in the regular catalogs.  I would pick up that holiday issue again and again and page repeatedly through the assortments of wild game meats and sausages, cheeses, and smoked fish and game birds, thinking that some day I would  send exotic and “outdoorsy” gifts like that to people.  Somehow that Cabela’s holiday catalog represented, at least to me and my friends, the magic of the Christmas season and the allure of the outdoors all wrapped up together in one convenient package.

One summer, after mowing neighborhood lawns for a little spending money, I ordered a new tackle box and a bunch of new bass lures from Cabela’s.  Every day, for what seemed like forever (but was probably only a couple of weeks), I waited anxiously for the UPS truck to arrive with my new gear.  I was 13 or 14 years old, and that summer still resides in my memory as a time of bright days, endless golden evenings, and excruciating anticipation as I waited for that package.  That anticipation now seems as much an essential part of my childhood as little league baseball and bicycles and the Statler Brothers on the AM radio.

So yes, I miss mail order.  Maybe not for what it really was, but for what it means to me as I look back on those years.

Tags: catalog, fishing, kids, mail order