Flipping through a time machine

Looking for a great buy on just about anything for your home?

Well congrats! Have YOU come to the right place, because...

"THE NEW EATON’S SPRING AND SUMMER CATALOGUE IS HERE!!!!!"

New for the Spring and Summer of 1976 that is.

While browsing through my "cultural anthropologist" stuff a few days ago, I came across a staple of every home up until the mid ’70s: the much beloved Eaton’s Catalogue.

Have no idea where I got it.

However, it appears as though the ’76 Eaton’s Spring and Summer catalogue is the last of this type that Eaton’s distributed to eager shoppers everywhere, so this is indeed a bit of a collector’s item. I checked eBay to see if this might top off my retirement funds, and found one for $40. Found one on Kijiji for $100. Ain’t going to Bali on this, baby.

We already know that the ’70s were famous for disco, and one flick through these pages reminds us they were also famous, or infamous, for creating some of the ugliest furniture the world has ever seen.

Boomers: You know that ugly bedroom furniture you inherited from your parents or grandparents? Well, I found the perfect example of it on Page 555 of this ’76 Eaton’s catalogue. Viciously tacky. Try and pass it down to the youth of today and they’ll have you charged with abuse. I remember thinking it was ugly then. How did they sell this stuff?

The clothing styles and colours were equally disastrous, with one exception, it was a great time for cool shoes.

I say that because even some of the men’s shoes back then had high heels, and I mean high! I know because I had a pair, in multicoloured leather, and they, were very cool to wear. They made our flat heeled fathers gag a bit, and generally were worn by two types of men: The cool young guys who wanted to look really state-of-the-art stylish; and old sleazy guys in bars.

Shopping online is of course all the rage these days, from the comfort of your home, or more likely driving distracted while paying for your online purchase. Crash.

Such a different world.

There were three ways to order from your Eaton’s catalogue back then: by mail, in person, or by phone. You are NOT going to believe this. Back then, when you called a retail business, the phone was actually answered, by a real human being, who actually worked at the biz’ you were calling, who politely took your order and thanked you for calling. OUTRAGEOUS! No wonder they’ve switched to the current system.

I mean, who can stand that much real human contact?

Awkward ...

Much to my horror, in the bathroom section of the catalogue, I came across what can only be described as a terrorist weapon of the time, used mainly by women to drive men mad, the dreaded fuzzy toilet lid cover. Nobody uses those wretched things any more, do they?

The cover was designed to make the lid fall just about when the innocent male victim was about mid pee, causing an insane scrambling to get a knee in place to halt the tragedy, but seldom was accomplished. I’ll spare you a description of the aftermath.

One of the few saving graces I can find in this catalogue is that on Page 677, you can buy a rebuilt Ford six-cylinder engine (1964-71), "full 100 per cent 24 month or 24,000 mile guarantee", for the unbelievable price of just $355. That’s the price of a tune-up these days, parts not included.

And who decided that pond-scum green and agonizing almond were great colours for household appliances, considering they clashed with every other colour you brought into the house?

Add really ugly dark gold shag carpet into the mix, that actually came with a rake, and you realize we may actually have been closer to end of days back then than we are now.

Not to mention (gasp), no debit card, no Air Miles.

How DID we survive?

Comments or feedback, love to hear from you!

lmustard1948@gmail.com