BRANDON - I had it in my mind what the new department store in Brandon would be like: Happy, pretty people skipping around, giving you bargains galore.
What a happy place it seemed to be, because after all, they had everything in there - the coolest fashions, NFL football helmets, Charlie perfume and on and on and on and on ...
Kmart!
I first glimpsed the store on our new, big, fat color television with a million tubes inside: Tubes that sometimes burned out and my dad and I replaced at the Eckerd Pharmacy after sticking them into this tube-testing machine.
I figured they had to have a better tube-testing machine at Kmart, which on the TV featured a super happy guy singing and dozens of folks singing and dancing behind him, even atop the store's roof: "I know a place where life is good. A brand new place in your neighborhood. A place where dreams come true. A place that can save a lot of dollars for you. .. Kmart has a lot of value in store."
It was the early 1970s when Kmart came to Brandon and I was barely 10 years old.
You might not believe what my friends and I did to see this new Kmart. You might not believe it because - in this day of "Don't dare let your kids walk through your neighborhood without parental supervision" - it might sound dangerous.
We didn't think it was dangerous, but we did think our parents would not approve or our plan, which was to ride our bikes a little more than a mile to the new Kmart, located just on the other side of highway 60.
As we did every day of our lives, we walked out our front doors, told our moms or dads or siblings that we were going to play with our friends.
This time we grouped up and started making our way toward the Kmart, a trek that included pushing our bikes through a 400-yard minefield of sand spurs.
I had one huge concern: If my sister rang the gigantic iron farm bell on a seven-foot iron post in our backyard - clanged when it was time for me to come home for meals, or for the day or for whatever - would I hear it from the Kmart?
The rule was never get out of hearing distance from the bell. If the bell was rung and you didn't hear it, you had traveled too far, and if that happened there would be hell - and I do mean hell - to pay.
I took my chances and went on the adventure to Kmart with my friends, but the farther I went the more dread entered my heart: Could I hear the bell from this distance?
We made it to the point of standing across the street on Highway 60 and staring at the new Kmart several hundred yards away. There it was all shiny and new with cars pulling into the parking lot. Who knew, maybe they were about to experience a famous "Blue Light Special."
But not us.
I chickened out.
I believed if my sister rang the bell I probably wouldn't hear it from where I was, and I at least had enough sense to know there was no way I could hear the bell inside the Kmart.
So, because I was chicken, we turned around and headed home.
My fears turned out to be for not. My sister never rang the bell. She was busy watching General Hospital or something on our big, fat, new, color television.
My parents would eventually take me, of course, to the new Kmart, which, of course, had everything you could possibly need - including the "Blue Light Special."
A few days ago I walked into the same Kmart, which featured a giant "store closing" sign. The place lasted more than 40 years, but it looked far more tired than that, 80-percent-off signs everywhere, the shelves pretty much picked clean.
Its doors will close for good on Sunday, just like hundreds of others across the country.
I walked out the front doors, looked down the slope and across Highway 60, past hundreds of cars, shops and signs, the air buzzing with engines.
I thought: I would never let my kids ride their bikes a mile to this Kmart.
A few minutes later, I stood in front of the building to take a photo and a random man looked at me and said, "It's all over for these places. In a few years there won't be any stores left.
"Everything you need is online"
I told him I believed he may be correct.
I wondered: Are there people out there, somewhere, ringing an iron farm bell to tell their kids it's time to come home?
Maybe somewhere on a farm?
I hope so.
It's a good way to keep you close to home.
Even in a memory.
Contact Scott Purks at hillsnews@tampabay.com.