09 23 24 #Whatchutalkingbout

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, Killy Nash. Hey there, it's tomorrow's show Today. Tomorrow
will be Tuesday, the twenty fourth of September, as we
marched closer to Saturday's big concert. Seventh Anil will follow
tam to the Ballpark, brought to you by the Big
Bred Barn Retreat. Actually it's to benefit the Big Bread Born.
They do a lot of good work for our PTSD
is one of the biggest programs having to do with

(00:22):
first responders and military but they do like say, like
twenty other different kind of therapies, so they get a
lot to support.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Speaking of the ballpark, I should salute the DJ or
whoever plays the music at Williams Brice because they snuck
it in there Saturday night. Do you remember the twenty
fist of September And my wife was like, oh my gosh,
it's the twenty.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
First of September. They got it. Yeah, so it was
the night Hugo came ashore.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
A tip to the DJ and yeah, very excited about
Scotty McCreary. And we've got the answer up on the
Morning Rest blog right now. If you'd like to win
tomorrow morning six thirty. What you're talking about the word
of the day. Gentacular, gentacular. I've stumped you yet again.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
You do. You've done a good job of stumping me
with these words. You don't have to help me.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
You want just a little hint type of thing. Yep, Okay, Well,
in the example that I give, we use Okay, I'll
read you the sentence. Then look that I wrote coffee
is considered by many a necessary gentacular beverage.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Oh please do explain. Give me the full definition.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Related to breakfast, related the breakfast. Yes, so if you're
having like a that's a great word. Yeah, gentacular, gentacular interesting. Yeah,
so tomorrow. If you know that gentacular means related to breakfast,
then and you're the right number caller. Jonathan hasn't decided

(02:10):
the number yet. But if you are the right number caller,
I know that gentacular is related to breakfast, then you
get the four pack of tickets to see Scotty McCreary
Saturday and also be eligible to win the grand prize,
joining Scotty McCreary on the field at Segra Park for
batting practice that afternoon.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, we're gonna do the contest for the qualification for
the batting practice tomorrow Wednesday and Thursday, and then Thursday
we draw out a winter, so you got to get
in and you can always get a chance to win
your tickets without the opportunity for the VP. That'll be
online at the contest page at ninety seven to five
w COS dot com. But you better do that like
today or tomorrow, absolutely, because we have to identify all

(02:48):
the winters. So we will be doing it all the
way up through Saturday up through Friday, all right, So
we're gonna do that tomorrow morning at six thirty and then, uh,
what else we got going on for the twenty four
of September.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Well, Jonathan, it's a it's really a big piece of Amaracana.
That is kind of it was is gone here in
the Midlands a while ago, but it's officially closing for
the United States on October twentieth. The final full sized
kmart will go out of business October twentieth. Ironically, it's

(03:21):
been in one of the richest neighborhoods in the country,
Bridge Hampton. The Hamptons Oh really in supporting the kmart
until October twentieth.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Will be allowed to operate in the Hamptons.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
In case you're wondering, the last kmart here would have
been December of twenty nineteen. That was the West Columbia
and Lexington locations closed. Then the kmart on two Notch
closed in November of twenty fifteen. So we've been nine
years without a kmart here and on two Notch and

(03:58):
five years in the Midland. So but growing up in
the seventies, eighties, nineties, the kmart hit its peak in
the nineties. I'm a kid of the seventies in the eighties,
and I don't know if we were early adapters or not,
but I can I have strong memories of going to
the kmart in the seventies. Lay away was a big thing.

(04:21):
I don't even know if people know what layaway means anymore, but.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
They still do the layaway at the samp I mean
at Walmart, don't they do? Maybe they don't.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
I mean, why would you everybody's got a credit card, Yeah,
I don't know. Basically, it was for people who didn't
have credit cards, that's right, and you so you couldn't
get it.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Now you got to pay some money down the store
for you and then you can come back in and
pay some more money, or you can just wait until
you get all the money and come back in and
then you pay for it and walk out with it.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
But what if they don't have it? That was why
you put it on.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Layway where it's going to go, put it on layaway.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
So lay away was like in I guess for the
poor people who because credit cards were a big deal
in the seventies, like I remember, like if you had
a credit card that showed status. Then somewhere in the
late seventies early eighties they started giving them. The college kids, yes,
and the stigma was gone, the you know, the this

(05:12):
he's got a credit card, don't And a diners club
a diners club, that's right, that's great, and the platinum card. Yes.
But now, in its peak, Kmart had twenty three hundred stores,
and that's actually I think a little bit more than

(05:32):
the Target stores. We have about two thousand Target stores today,
so Kmart a little bit larger than Target. I don't
want to say a lot smaller, but Walmart was is
right now at like thirty four hundred stores, so smaller
by a significant amount than Walmart. But definitely a cultural
impact was made by Kmart and the blue light specials. Sure,

(05:55):
and like I said, a lot of great memories of
going there. Toy shopping is a kid and I say
toy shop. It's almost like window shopping because I don't
think I got like but five percent of the toys
I wanted, right, But it was always like you're pointing out,
how I love this. I love that imagining things back
to school shopping. That was one of And ironically, I
think it's that Kmart was bought out by Sears, So

(06:19):
now Sears, some poor suckers currently own Sears and Kmart
right now, Like why would you, like, you're you're already
saddled with Sears. Why would you buy Kmart now? But
Sears and Kmart? I don't know, do we have any
Sears left? Not to my knowledge, Kmart's got one small

(06:40):
version in Miami, and then they've got full size stores
still available in the Virgin Islands store somewhere. But I
mean when we were for no other reason, they never
took the sign down. Yeah. Maybe so it kind of
like there's a radio shack in is there really in.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Not in Manning, somewhere close to Manning. I do think it.
It could be because I never took the sign down,
but it says radio shot. I was.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
I'm pretty. I thought they went out of business years ago.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Handy went under years ago.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
The Tandy Corporation, don't you know, with the best calculators
in the business.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
That's right, it's Sears. It's like Kmart bought out Sears.
Great Sears had the Silverstone radios.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Oh, I just remember. Sears was the home of the tools.
Was it Craftsman plastic and those are guaranteed for life?

Speaker 1 (07:33):
They were at one point.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
And yeah, for some reason, that's where I remember buying
my jeans.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
Was.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
For whatever reason, the three stores that we frequented was Kmart,
Sears and J. C. Penny.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
I don't know why, and I guess it was because
it was the first one open, or maybe because coming
from salute to my parents would it definitely stopped at
the one you're saying on Airport Boulevard, because that one
closed in like seventy five years.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
The no, no, I mean came art. The kmarts were open.
Those state opened the latest. So the ones let's see,
Lexington and West Columbia both closed in December of twenty nineteen.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Okay, Well, I don't know why, but we would always
go and I remember specifically and sometimes when I go
there now there's it's right off of Garners Firio. It's
tucked away off there to the left off of Fort
Jackson Boulevard. I believe, I can't remember the side street
runs peer level for Jackson Boulevard. Anyway, that was the

(08:34):
one that I always went to his kids. I remember
going into that store, and that store was so big.
It's like the biggest building of kid's ever been in.
Oh yeah, and you just run all over that store
and parents ad go nuts trying to keep up with
their kids.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
It was a great I mean, shopping was like an
event when you were a kid. Yeah, when you're a
kid and your parents are like, we're going to the store.
That is a big deal.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
That's the first time we've ever seen like the circular racks.
You could go under me and be in the middle
of your mom and dad be looking for you. They
couldn't find you.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
It was an event. It was an event. And how
many kids will never experience the Blue Light Special. Right
as a child, I would get excited because I had
insider knowledge, Like I would watch the guy and if
you don't know what the Blue Light Special is, it was.
It was like a little rolling rack with a thing

(09:25):
like a you know that you would have almost in
like your seventh grade class, where they would project it
up onto the wall. It was one of those times.
They had a big maybe what about a five foot
high metal bar, and at the top of it was
a blue light and that like a police blue light. Yeah,
and when they would turn on the blue light, they
would turn it on as they were making an announcement,

(09:45):
so it was a coordinated attack. Somebody's back because they
can't be with the blue light. They got to be back.
So I guess they probably said we're going at exactly
five after.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
Five after we're doing the half price on the Russell
Athletic socks.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, and the guy or gal would push the button
the microphone and they would talk attention Camar choppers, if
you are, you know, right now in the so and
so aisle, Yeah, we have, like Jonathan said, half price
on Russell athletic socks for the next minute. Get it
during the blue light special and you'd go running to
the but I already I followed the guy with the
blue light, so I would be like, tell my mom

(10:19):
and dad, Hey, he's over here. The blue light's about
to go off. Well, Kelly, we don't really care about
women's hosiery or yeah, it's like you have to havy
something you're interested in, I suppose, but I just wanted
to know where the sale was going to be. It
was exciting for me. So stores that you loved that
are no longer with.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
Us, I just had a flashback from running around one
of those stores. My dad got so angry because we
were running around and you're running around with chasing each
other through this huge Camoort store, and I guess my
hair got must of course my standing at the checkout aisle.
My dad whipped out that pocket comb and combed my hair,

(11:03):
and I remember this woman looking at me and it
was like publicly embarrassed. Oh I was combing my hair.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Don't make me do it.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yeah. He had me by the chin. He was like,
no more running around and I meet it.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, and I'm sure he did well.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
He did meet it.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
I remember like, ah, So, like, do you remember other
stores that you used to shop at? Like for me,
I'm just looking out. One of the stores I used
to shop at in the eighties, which was probably past
your time, was a store called Chess King.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Never heard of it.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
Chess King was in every mall in America at one point,
and it was the new wave fashion store. Okay, so
if you wanted like a skinny tie, all right, you
wanted parachute pants, you wanted the sweatshirts that had the
zippers like across the shoulders.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, So.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
From like nineteen like I mean, it says here they
were founded in nineteen sixty eight. But I would shop
at the chest King in the mall from like nineteen
eighty to about nineteen eighty six. That window when new
wave music was hot. I got a lot of crap
from that store, and the girls who shopped there were

(12:19):
different than the girls who shopped at other stores I think.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Outside of that, the kmart was when Dutch Square Mall
first opened up. That was like the first mall in
the Midlands, okay. And they had the old school chick
fil A. Oh, when chick fil A was so new
that a woman would come out there with a platter
of little Chick fil A squares.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
They's addicted to it.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah, And then they have little toothpicks stuck in it,
and you could pick up a Chick fil A bite,
a Chick fil A chicken on a toothpick. They were
trying to convince you it was good. Who knew years
later they would no longer have to be in mall's
where foot traffic was guaranteed, of standalone stores with four
damn lines for takeout.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Here's a store, Tom McCann's shoes. Yeah, I remember getting
my shoes at Tom McCann several times and back to
school shopping. They've been out of business since nineteen ninety six.
Holy smolly, Well was.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
It Buster Brown's shoes that had the little Yes, yeap.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Buster Brown was huge back in the day. And then
like you know, of course all the music stores are gone.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yes, I mean how many?

Speaker 2 (13:32):
What was it the record bar? Yeah, there was so many.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
Much John's are still open here as it closed.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
Did you guys have a Marshall Fields down here? Marshall
Fields was big up where I'm from. We also had
another one called cow Doors, which was big, kind of
like an early version of a Target. Okay, those were massive.
When I was a kid, My mom used to like, oh,
I try to remember the name of the store that
she used to go to. It was like something to
do with it was it was like all women's clothes,

(13:59):
and so I would sit in the car, Yeah to radio.
Why she would do it?

Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah, if she went to a Roses, I didn't want
to go inside the Roses. I'd sit in the car.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
You love it at Levit's Levitt's Furniture, linens and things.
Now linens and things. That's kind of more recent. Circuit
City went out of business in two thousand and eight.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yes, wow, so many great stores from the past. But
it's a different world now everything's online. It's hard to
see him, goodie. That was one of the big music stores.
And for your entertainment fye yep used to I mean
back when you used to pick out records. It was
a big deal to go record shopping.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, like record bar and sounds Familiar was huge here.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
So what stores do you miss or do you have
just maybe you don't even miss them, maybe just had
great memories of shopping Toys r Us or whatever. I
mean that was past my era, the Toys r Us era,
But I can imagine if you were a kid going
to a Toys r Us that would have been a
huge stinking deal.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Every ow was a toy aisle, that's right, that's all.
It is huge. Jeffrey, you might love Jeffrey.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
He wants to be a toys r us kid. He
don't want to grow up.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, it's funny now when you go out to Columbia
Mall and you ride around, you remember the toys the
Rush used to be there. That was the main interest
to Sears. That was Macy's, that was you know, and
now it's like you drop through the parking lot. It's
like being in a.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Pasture dress barn. I think I think dress Barn was
the name that my mom.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah, dress born. I remember the dress bar Rest Barn.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
They went out of business in twenty nineteen after fifty years,
so yeah, I look, I have a lot of great
memories from the mall because I'm a kid of the
seventies or eighties. The mall and even like the strip malls,
we had some indoor strip malls. I don't know if
you had any indoor strip malls down here really. I

(15:56):
remember we had one with a Bradley's. The Bradley's was
a big place up north. I don't think they made
it down here. But Bradley's was a stork again like
a kmart, maybe a tad nicer than a kmart. And
but you know, you could walk on the outside of
the strip mall or so. The two anchor stores were
like a stopping shop grocery store on one end and

(16:18):
a Bradley's on the other. And then you had like
record stores and little pizza restaurants and little shimmer stores.
But you could walk inside or outside your choice. Obviously
in the winter you.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
Were inside so cold up there. They had to build
the stores. We had indoor activity, and then once they
got you in one of the doors, they want to
keep you there.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
Yeah, And it was like one of those things where
you know, it was a great option for a kid
on a Friday night. You know, the stores are all
closing at nine or whatever anyway, so that's the latest
you could stay there. But something to do because you're
not old enough to drive or drink or go anywhere.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
To meet your girlfriend there, try to try to meet.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Try to meet a girlfriend, and just wandering around looking
at the clothing store, probably going to get in trouble
with some kind But I loved growing up in the seventies.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
In the eighties, Oh and the very first Cromer's, well,
the first one I remember, the Cromer's Peanuts was in
Dutch Square Mall Oh, you go in the Cromers. They
had the monkeys up there on the top Guarantee Cromers.
Oh yeah, you know, they had a they were making
a killing with a monkey. Maybe it was more than one,
but it was at least one monkey up in a
cage that went all the way around the top of

(17:27):
the store. And you go in to see the monkey,
and then you're standing there buying peanuts and popcorn.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
And Cromers have been here since like thirty six or
something like that. I mean they've been around forever.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
And now they got a new location over there off
of North Maine we call it now.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
How long has it been there though, it's probably been
like four years the.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Old location where Cognal Carpets they opened and closed there. Yeah,
but if you do if you did anything with high schools,
you knew where Chromas were. EPI was where you had
to go to Cromer's to get all your stuff for
your high school Friday night games. Once you get to
the point where you're working for the pep Club or whatever,
everybody had to make the trip endo Cromer's.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
That's good stuff, all right.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
So we got all that coming down tomorrow. More opportunities.
Remember six thirty is when it gets your chance to
win a four pack of tickets for the Scotty Moore
Query show coming up. You'll be qualified for the batting.
And then the weekend after that we got the Field
and Stream Music festival, and then the State Fair is
going to open up. My goodness, we got a bunch
of good and then next football game is Saturday night
away right, No, this week, this week, this week we're off.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, we have off and next week the following week,
while the Field and Stream is happening, we also have
a home game. That's why I can't go to the
Field and Stream because we got the old Miss game,
which is the return of what they've now called instead
of Juice Wells Judas Wells. Okay, so that's what some
of the Gamecock football players are calling him, Judics Wells
returns to Williams Brice.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
Aide a lot of side stories going on. Hey, what's
going on in your neighborhood we should be talking about.
Be sure to let us know. Reach out to us
on social media. You can also email us some rush
at ninety seventy five companies to huh.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
And I'm nash ninety seven five to b c us
dot com.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
We start talking tomorrow. You start talking, remember at about
six thirty. The number this is the same number you
call for the contest you car to tell us what's
going on. It's eight O three ninety seven eight ninet
two six seven eight oh three ninet seven eight w
COS in the morning rush