In the early 60’s there was no more exciting excursion than a trip to a Sears department store at Christmas.  The big store windows were filled with snowy displays and Santa’s sleigh.  The aroma of warm cashews and peanuts and chocolate greeted you at the door.

For moms and dads, it was practically a pilgrimage to bring the family and find your way down the escalators to the store basement where state-of-the-art, glossy, enamel washers and dryers awaited.  The sleek and powerful new machines were such a wild new convenience for moms that life at home would instantly change forever.

It was a transformational time in America.  The old “wringer” washers with a crank for squeezing the life and water out of clothes, were the standard.  So unattractive, most women hid them in unfinished furnace rooms or in the garage.  But when Kenmore and others came out with the cube-like, matching washers AND dryers, clotheslines became nothing more than a place for birds to roost and the watery workhorses suddenly became…furniture.

Customers couldn’t line up fast enough.  Appliance salesmen held clipboards layered with orders.  Little children waiting on transactions to close, ran amidst the aisles of iceboxes, ovens, and washers and tried to be invisible as they floated up the escalator.  A father’s purchase of a new family washer/dryer set was as momentous as the purchase of an automobile.  A Kenmore arriving in the driveway made Dads heroes as they delivered the “ultimate” Christmas gift to their spouses.

In that wonderful, hopeful era, prosperity dovetailed perfectly with ingenuity.

These were the memories which poured through my mind today while I sat in a shiny, bright Apple store in a neighborhood mall, waiting eagerly for some of that same Christmas magic.  Only in this case, the gift would be from my husband, shiny and white, and small enough to fit into my purse.

Looking around, there were as many children in the store as there were adults. Jewel-like, full-color computer monitors dotted the store, each bringing the future right to your fingertips.  Customers were trying to catch the eye of the next available salesperson.  Apple Store bags were eagerly dangling from wrists on their way to Christmas trees.  Smiles were the brand of the day and it was just as if Steve Jobs was still…alive.

Fifty years later, Christmas is still a special day for families, because America still creates, innovates, capitalizes, and fulfills the hopes of new generations.  We need strong families to bring to our store windows.  We need fathers with jobs carefully budgeting for lifetime purchases.  We need industries free to create and expand, upon which we can build America’s economy.

Most of all, and not just at Christmas, American thinkers and inventors need to be able to create new dreams.  Dreams we can share with our children, and teach them that all are within their reach.

When we blow out the candles of Christmas and New Year’s Eve 2011, it will be time to begin to build on our sweet memories of the country’s past, and invent a new future for America.

Get your sleep.  It’s going to take every single woman in America, to help inspire the work of 2012.

Merry Christmas,

The Kitchen Cabinet

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Filed under: Economy, Featured, Inside The KC, Politics, Uncategorized by Sonja Eddings Brown, Dec 23, 2011