![]() ![]() On the front was a snowy scene featuring a vintage red pickup truck emerging from evergreen woods with a fluffy Christmas tree in the back. There would be a gadget to help a lonesome senior scratch his own back, a birdfeeder that fit into your window so you could fill it with seed from inside the house, and wall calendars illustrated with images - nosegays of violets, deer grazing amidst fall foliage, cheerful snowmen - that harked back to the era of Loretta Young and Doris Day: The aesthetic of the decorative items was frozen sometime between 1940 to 1955, and that was what piqued my interest.Įvery now and then I still sneak a look at the Walter Drake catalog, and it is from Walter Drake that, about six years ago, I bought a set of customized holiday cards bearing warmest wishes from the Rattray Family. Because of this demographic, its wares seemed to come from a distant time. Walter Drake sold - then, and still sells - inexpensive decorative housewares, easy-on-off slippers, garden whirligigs, stationery sets, and unusual utilitarian doodads targeted toward a “senior” customer aged 70 and above. I would examine it carefully when left alone in the house after school, which was basically every day in autumn, as the days grew short. ![]() Back in the days when we shopped for Christmas presents from a stack of mail-order catalogs that started arriving at Box E, East Hampton, in October and grew taller and taller on my parents’ bedside table as December approached, in addition to the Sears-Roebuck Wish Book (heavy as three bricks) that gave us kids endless hours of pleasant dreaming, I secretly took a somewhat perverse interest in an old-person’s catalog from a company called Walter Drake. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |