Episode 4: The Story of Bradlees, Mystic CT, Retro Clothing Brands, This Week In History (12-17-2020)

The last episode before the Christmas holiday, Episode 4 explores some ghosts of the past beginning with This Week In History.   In this segment Christopher Setterlund discusses the Mayflower finding its way to Plymouth, explores the strongest earthquakes in American history, celebrates the Wright Brothers first successful flight in North Carolina, and gives the results of who won the NFL's first-ever championship game.
In the latest Road Trip we take a drive down to Mystic, Connecticut.  It is home to the country's largest maritime museum, Mystic Seaport.  Beyond that it was popularized in the hit 1980's movie Mystic Pizza starring Julia Roberts.  Learn about this and more.
New Englanders, children of the 1980's, and many others, have fond memories of family trips to shop at the iconic Bradlees department store.  Forever linked with Stop and Shop, and at one time a giant in the retail industry find out what led to its demise.
Episode 4 ends with looking back at the clothing brands that the 'cool kids' wore in school in the 1980's and 1990's.  Names like Ocean Pacific and Vuarnet just to name a few bring back memories for me of begging my parents to get me a shirt or at least a sticker of the logo to put on my Trapper Keeper.
All of this and more is here in Episode 4, so come and take a walk!

Check out Episode 3 here.

Transcript

00:00 Intro 

Hello, world! My name is Christopher Setterlund. I'm coming to you from the popular vacation destination Cape Cod, Massachusetts. And this is the In My Footsteps Podcast. Welcome to Episode Four. This is the last episode before the Christmas holiday. So I was wondering how everyone's shopping has gone out there? With the world as it is with COVID kind of hampering the normal shopping and festivities of Christmas how much of your shopping has been done online? I'll say over the years, I've been drifting more towards online shopping just because it's easier. But now it seems like it's kind of more of a necessity. So is it 50/50 for you out there as far as online shopping goes? I mean, it's not just Amazon that you can go to with the clicks and make it so easy. There's so many stores that now have the online presence. I mean, even I have an online presence, you can go to my website, Christopher Setterlund.com and you can get connected with all five of my books on there through the publishers through Schiffer and History Press. And you can even go to my Zazzle store. Have you done anything like that? Etsy, Zazzle, Shopify. I did that a couple years, I created a storefront. And you know, I'll add things to it. I keep trying and telling myself that I need to add more things to it. Just taking my photography and making mugs or postcards. I've even got a tote bag for beaches on there. But my Zazzle store is Cape Cod Living, you can even go there and check it out. I've got I have a key chain and a bumper sticker for this podcast, which I'm the only one that owns right now. But hey, you never know. 

I wanted to give a shout out to my nephew Landon, who is going to turn 13 years old tomorrow, according to when this podcast goes live. So I'm hoping you have a great birthday. And then a great Christmas back to back. I wonder about that. What it's like to have a birthday so close to Christmas. My nephew Landon does. And then my Uncle Bob, he does right after. I've always wondered about that mine is in November. So it's close enough, but they're far enough apart that you can get a celebration of each and not feel like you get the birth Christmas combination was one present for both. Before we get on to what's coming up in this episode, I just wanted to extend a sincere thank you to everyone who has listened to downloaded or shared the first three episodes of this podcast. It's one of those things where it's a passion project. I really enjoy what I share Cape Cod, New England history and travel and the nostalgia part which I really enjoy reliving the glory days, quote unquote, of the 80s and 90s. And it's exciting when I can go to the links and see that this podcast is available through iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and it actually was finally approved through Pandora last week. So now it's really available wherever anyone gets their podcasts. I'd love to hear from people that have listened to the first three episodes or at least one of them just to know which topics you like the best that kind of helps steer me in the right direction. I know what I think will be interesting for listeners to hear. But there may be things I'm totally missing. 

As far as my research goes. The first three episodes I had Deacon John Doane which is my ninth great-grandfather and my connection to the Cape as far as being a 12th generation Cape Codder. I had Cape Cod's Atlantis Billingsgate Island which has fascinated me since college, Thompson's Clam Bar the most well known restaurant, maybe in the Cape's history, those are just for the history parts. I mean, the retro stuff is great. If you are my age, or close to my age, I think a lot of that stuff you kind of relate to and if you're younger, it's like reading a history textbook where you can't believe some of the things that used to exist but you can always shoot me an email at Christopher Setterlund@gmail.com with any questions, comments, suggestions. Coming up for 2021 I've got a couple new segments all ready to go, which are going to be fun and kind of branch out this podcast. But enough about the past. Today in Episode Four, we're gonna find some great deals that Bradlees department stores. We're going to grab a slice of Mystic Pizza and check out the rest of the town, we'll discover some killer retro clothing, some of the brands I think you're going to remember. And we got some more this week in history. All that's in In My footsteps podcast, Episode Four let's take a walk. 

05:42 This Week In History

That music means it's time again for this week in history. For those of you that may not be familiar with this, it is where I take four topics that occurred this week in history, one local, one national, one on the world stage, and one that's more fun pop culture, and just give a little overview of what was going on in the world at different years this week in history. 

This Week in history. 400 years ago, on December 16, 1620, the Mayflower docked at Plymouth harbor. The Pilgrims when they left England on September 6th of that year, their intention was to land in what is present in Northern Virginia. Of course, they didn't end up reaching there. There were 102 passengers on the Mayflower when it left Plymouth, England to cross the Atlantic. Ironically, the Mayflower was set to be joined by another ship on its journey across name the Speedwell, and the Speedwell kept having trouble where it was leaking. When they would start sailing, the ship would leak they'd have to return drain the ship. Eventually, when it got to September 6th, the Mayflower left on its own and left the Speedwell behind. The ship was at sea for 66 days, and ended up landing in Provincetown on November the 11th, and there's a park, their first landing park at the end of Commercial Street in Provincetown. There's a little rotary you can park at and see that where they landed. The group spent five weeks on Cape Cod exploring and there are a lot of places that you can see on the Cape that are named after the pilgrims or are places that they visited. 

On Pilgrim Heights road in Truro. There's the pilgrims spring trail, which is where they purportedly had their first drink of fresh water in the new world. On Pond Road in Truro, there's Pilgrim Pond. The story is a group of 16 Pilgrims led by Myles Standish and William Bradford spent their second night on the shores of Cape Cod camping by this pond, Corn Hill beach, on Corn Hill Road in Truro is near here, the same Pilgrims that stayed at the pond came upon a Wampanoag tribe stash of fresh water and corn, which they stole to sustain their people. This led down into Eastham and First Encounter Beach on Samoset Road. It's called First Encounter because this was the first encounter between the Nauset tribe of Native Americans and the Pilgrims. On December 8, there was a skirmish because the natives remembered other Europeans which had landed, and they were pretty hostile towards the native so there was a little bit of a battle. Nobody was killed, which was good. But in the end, the Pilgrims decided to leave Cape Cod and find somewhere else that was more hospitable. Within days of the encounter, they left for Plymouth, which is where they docked on December 16th. And Cape Cod wouldn't see a permanent settlement until 1637 when the town of sandwich was formed.

This Week in history 209 years ago, on December 16 1811, the town of New Madrid, Missouri, was rocked by what is purported to be the largest earthquakes in the history of America. December 16th, started a string of earthquakes between December 16th and the end of March in 1812. There were 6-10,000 earthquakes in the area of Missouri where New Madrid is located which is near the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. These earthquakes are seen to be the longest where there was one and then a series of aftershocks which lasted for months. The first one though December 16, 1811, was a magnitude 8.1 on the Richter scale. For comparison, the earthquake that struck Southern California in 1989 that affected the World Series that October. That was a 6.9 on the Richter scale. These ones that started in New Madrid, Missouri started as an 8.1, ironically, that wasn't even the most devastating of all the earthquakes. The third, really major one occurred on February 7, 1812. And that's purported to be as high as an 8.8 magnitude. It was after that earthquake on February 7th, that legend has it that the Mississippi River actually ran backwards for several hours because of all of the damage. Legend has it that these earthquakes, especially the one in February, was felt as far away as New York City and actually rang the church bells in Boston, which is incredible. I can only relate it to last month on November 8th, there was an earthquake just off of the coast of Cape Cod more off the coast of Dartmouth in New Bedford. That was a 3.6 magnitude. And people felt it all over Cape Cod, but I couldn't imagine something more than double that, let alone quakes that just kept going aftershocks for months and months and didn't dissipate that actually got worse at some points. 

This Week in history. 117 years ago, on December 17 1903. the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur succeeded with their first flight from a top Big Kill Devil Hill on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The Wright brothers were actually from Dayton, Ohio, and had been experimenting with flight since 1899. They moved to the Outer Banks because it seemed to be a perfect area to conduct these sorts of experiments. On December 14th, they made their first attempt this was made by Wilbur via coin toss, they're playing called the Wright Flyer, left the launching rail and climbed too steeply and just dove into the sand. So they had to wait for it to be repaired, the repairs took place and on December 17th the first flight had 27mph winds, and it was flown by Orville and they went for 12 seconds and 120 feet. the Wright brothers made four total flights that day, each one going further than the one before. All of these flights in the records, they're commemorated at the Wright Brothers National Memorial. It's in Kill Devil Hills, next door to Kitty Hawk. So that's actually where the flight took place. Kill Devil Hills, obviously that's the name of the hill they launched from. I went last year and visited this site. And it's incredible. It's really neat if you're into history like me, to get to go and actually be where history took place. They have monuments where each of the four flights landed. They tell you when it took place, how far it is away. And on top of Big Kill Devil Hill, there's actually a really big monument to the brothers. So it kind of gives you a perspective of how far these flights took place. There's replicas of the camp that the brothers and their team had set up. It's the hangar and living quarters. It's neat to see that and they've got the living quarters actually have things inside chairs and beds that make it look like it's 1903. But that was 117 years ago this week that humans first had the miracle of flight. Thanks to Orville and Wilbur Wright.

And lastly, 88 years ago this week on December 18 1932, the Chicago Bears defeated the Portsmouth Spartans 9-0 in the first ever NFL Championship game. The NFL was founded years earlier in 1920. But the thing was that the champion was always whoever had the best record at the end of the season, there was never a need for a championship game. What happened was the the bears and the Spartans ended up tied for first which necessitated the championship game as the tiebreaker, the teams played in Wrigley Field. 25,000 fans attended this game. The big highlight was the touchdown forward pass from quarterback Bronko Nagurski to halfback Red Grange. The Spartans team actually moved to Detroit in 1934 and became the Lions. For the Bears. It was the first of nine total NFL championships including one Super Bowl, the Portsmouth Spartans after they moved to Detroit one four NFL championships, although the last of those was in 1957, and the Lions have not made it to a Super Bowl or since then. So that wraps up this week in history. Which one did you like the best? I went and I visited the Wright Brothers Memorial, so I have a soft spot for that. And the 

Mayflower landing in Plymouth is obviously huge with this the 400th anniversary. And I've been to all those places, they're easy to get. But we'll see you again next time for more this week in history.

15:47 Sponsor - Cove Road Real Estate

So before we go on, I just wanted to take a minute to give a thank you to our sponsor for this week. Cove Road Real Estate in Orleans. I'm a Cape Codder through and through, born and raised here. I love it. I created this podcast partially to be able to share things about my home, and New England and history and travel and nostalgia and all that stuff with all of you. It's also been started as a distraction from the terrible year that was 2020 with the covid-19 pandemic. One actual unexpected silver lining of this pandemic was the real estate market became flooded with an unprecedented bump in properties. It's actually a fabulous time to sell if you're thinking about it, the values of the homes have risen substantially due to everybody wanting to be on the Cape now. That's the irony is that you can work from home so you can kind of choose wherever you want to live. If that's possible. I know not everyone can. But if you can, you can live on the Cape. Inventory is low and there are a lot of buyers looking around. If you're thinking about selling your home buying a home, you should contact Samantha Chin-Reynolds from Cove Road Real Estate. Her passion is helping people find a home on the cape. And it's one of the reasons she got into real estate in the first place. She's a third generation realtor on the Cape and grew up loving real estate and Cape Cod so it's a perfect match. Cove Road Real Estate is located in Orleans, but they do more work than just in that single town. So to contact Sam, her email is Samantha Chin 888 @gmail.com. Or you can give her a call at 774-994-1501. Samantha is flanked in her duties as a real estate agent by her business partner, Jeff Cusack, who has been doing real estate in the area for over 20 years. These are people that know what they're doing, know how to get the best value for your home and know how to give you the best value when you're buying a home. So contact Sam, contact Jeff, Cove Road Real Estate.com. Cove Road Real Estate if you're looking to buy a home, sell a home come down to the cape. You can't go wrong with Cove Road Real Estate. 

18:12 In Their Footsteps - Bradlees

So this is the part of the podcast each week where we go over some sort of historical story I call it In Their Footsteps. And if you've been listening to this podcast at all, you know that as a child of the 80s and a teenager of the 90s I'm a big fan of nostalgia and retro. I'm not quite the old man yells at Cloud, like Grampa Simpson on The Simpsons yet where I say you know my generation was the greatest ever. But I do find myself drifting towards 80s and 90s pop culture and things like that and really enjoying it and that's where the back in the day segment comes from also. So this week, it's going to kind of intersect. I remember as a kid growing up in the 80s the fun going is usually on Sundays, going out shopping with my grandparents either my either of my grandmother's it was usually them that would take me and my oldest sister Kate, we would usually be the ones that were old enough to go off on our own. It usually consisted of getting some sort of toy somewhere we'd either go to so we didn't have Toys R Us on Cape Cod. Back then we had Tons of Toys or KB Toys at the Cape Cod Mall. And we would usually have lunch at Friendly's. That was my favorite Chick'n Lick'n plate which was chicken tenders and fries. Yeah. That dates me right there. 

So one of the places that we would go every now and then to go shopping was Bradlees. And I'm sure anyone who is my age or around my age or older. remembers Bradlees if you grew up in the Northeast. Essentially Bradlees was it wasn't like Job Lot. It was like Kmart, but it was, I don't want to say higher quality. I guess maybe when I was a kid I thought it was higher quality. It was neck and neck on Cape Cod and in the Northeast with places like Woolworth, Jordan Marsh, Sears, and like I said Kmart, and also in the northeast were similar stores like Caldor and Ames. But rather than wax nostalgic about what it was like for me to go visit Bradlees, I wanted to give a little bit of its history to give you an idea of why it was so beloved and is still remembered today. Almost 20 years after went out of business. 

The origins of the Bradlees department store started at a place called Windsor Locks, Connecticut. And this was when three Connecticut businessmen, Morris Leff, Edward Kuzon and Isadore Berson met at Bradley International Airport to discuss the next step in the evolution of discount stores like the old 5 and 10s. Anyone that grew up on the Cape might remember Robinson's 5 & 10 in South Yarmouth, these guys wanted to kind of evolve the business. Due to the location of where they had the meeting, they decided to call the store Bradlees. So there's no real big, deep meaning behind it. It's just the name of the airport where they happen to be meeting. The first Bradlees department store, opened his doors on March 14, 1958 and it was in New London, Connecticut, which is in eastern Connecticut about 50 miles southwest of Hartford. It was labeled as a modern self service department store. And so when it first opened it had to distance itself from other department stores. So basically it advertised first quality good and nationally advertised merchandise, and they would have snack bars at these first ones. It was a success. And so within a few years subsequent Bradlees opened up in Connecticut in Milford, Derby, Hamden, and Bristol and also in West Springfield, Massachusetts. 

The initial success of Bradlees caught the eye of another up and coming business and that was the Stop and Shop grocery store. In May 1961, Stop and Shop bought Bradlees from Leff, Kuzon and Berson, the three men that established it. From there on out Bradlees and Stop and Shop were linked. They would usually even be in the same strip mall, if possible. For those that grew up on Cape Cod, the first Bradlees that opened on the Cape was in 1965 and Dennis Port, and that was actually the 31st Bradlees store in the chain. Today that location is Ocean State Job Lot. It's where Upper County Road and Route 28 meet in Dennis Port. Ironically, my sister Kate that I mentioned earlier, when we used to go out shopping with our grandparents, she ended up working at that one. I don't know if it was up until it closed or not. But I remember picking her up from that location when Bradlees was in its dying days. 

By 1968, there were 52 Bradlees stores in the Northeast and they generated an annual revenue of $139 million at the time, which adjusted for inflation is about a billion dollars in 2020. So they were really successful. They opened up several more stores on the Cape. In the early 70s. Bradlees grew, they open stores in New Jersey, and it was in that time during the 70s that the commercials that were on TV introduce people to a character named Mrs. B. She was basically the mascot of Bradlees she was the smart shopper in the Bradlees ads played by actress Cynthia Harris. The ad campaign worked by the end of the 70s Bradlees sales had reached $634 million annually, which is about $2.2 billion adjusted for inflation. In 1982. Bradlees stores made up 78% of the Stop and Shop corporations total profits, which is crazy to think about how big I guess how big stuff and shop is now. But even in the 80s they were big. But to think that their profits were mostly hinged on Bradlees thinking about where Bradlees ended up. times were about to change for them. As Bradlees was still growing and kind of in its heyday in the mid 1980s. This was when Walmart started to take hold. And Kmart had been there for a while, but it began to take a bite out of the discount retailer pie. But even in the mid 80s, Bradlees opened stores in Virginia, Maryland in North Carolina, peaking at nearly 170 stores in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. The trouble came when opening all these new stores, coupled with the impact at Walmart, Kmart and target made started to shrink the Bradlees profit. 

The downfall of Bradlees actually started when Stop and Shop became a privately held company in 1988. They acquired massive debt, as it arranged a buyout among the shareholders. And this debt forced Bradlees to step back from the expansion they were doing. They had to sell off the leases to 37 stores they had opened down in the Mid Atlantic. In the early 90s. they got rid of the Mrs. B character on TV, they started streamlining, the profits began to slowly rebound and in 1992, Bradlees broke away from Stop and Shop and became its own company for the first time in 31 years. They even got on the New York Stock Exchange, the new freedom that Bradlees got, though, ended up becoming their downfall, which is ironic that Stop and Shop was kind of helping them you know, one hand washes the other. So Walmart and Target surpassed them by the mid 90s. As far as the retail stores, Bradlees filed for bankruptcy, more stores closed in '96. Some of them got converted into Ames department stores I mentioned earlier, and they emerged from bankruptcy with 105 stores. Things actually looked up in 1999 when Caldor another competing department store closed down. So Bradlees had kind of a brief resurgence. But a second bout of bankruptcy in 2000 proved to be the end. All the stores began to close and by the end of 2001 Bradlees was but a memory. 

It's wild to think that it's been almost 20 years since Bradlees closed. It was such a big part of my childhood. I don't know about any of you, I would say if you're in your mid 30s and older, Bradlees probably held kind of a bigger place in your childhood. If you're younger than that, then you they it just falls into a category of businesses that failed but Bradlees was a big deal. I have plenty of memories of going to Bradlees when I was a kid. If you're interested in kind of reliving those days, I'm a big fan of doing that. If you go on YouTube, you can find old commercials of Bradlees back in the 70s and 80s. And you can see Mrs. B and see if you remember her, I vaguely do my memories of life basically start in about 1980 but even then I was three years old then. That's the story of Bradlees and its rise in its fall. Anyone out there remember going to Bradlees? Did you have those kind of trips either with parents or grandparents back in the day where you'd go kind of Sunday shopping, get some lunch that was always fun. I miss those days. Next episode, we will go back in their footsteps again. If you got any suggestions, anything you want to hear as far as New England history goes, it doesn't have to be some huge event like the Boston Massacre. It can be fun stuff like Bradlees I enjoy these just as much. shoot me a message, Christopher Setterlund@gmail.com. Or you can visit my website, Christopher Setterlund.com. And send me a message with questions, comments, they're always good. See you next time for more of In Their Footsteps.

29:00 Road Trip - Mystic, CT 

Road trip time again. This is the part of the podcast where we take a little trip to a popular spot in New England and find out a little bit about it, why you should go there and what's so great about it. This time we're going to the town of Mystic Connecticut, located about 55 miles southeast of the capital of Hartford, and Mystic is a great spot to go. It's made up of two towns actually. So it is made up of the towns of Groton, and Stonington. Groton and Stonington are separated by the Mystic River and the town itself was first settled in 1654. It's a small town, as of 2018 the population was just over 4200 people. It's kind of centrally located in New England, as it's three hours from New York City and two hours from Boston. So it makes it really easy to get there. 

If you're looking to go to Mystic, there are two places that probably will jump out to you as far as where to go. The first one and most popular attraction is the Mystic Seaport, which is located at 75 Greenville Avenue. Mystic Seaport is located right on the Mystic River. It's a 19 acre shipyard and museum, founded in 1929. It's seen as the leading Maritime Museum in the United States with more than 500 historic watercraft located there. You can visit their website at Mystic Seaport.org and kind of get a better idea with pictures. It's fun to go and just walk around. Don't go with a plan, we need to see this, this and this, you kind of just want to go and let things flow. That's kind of how you discover the neat things that are there. 

The thing that I really enjoy about the Mystic Seaport connects to my love of lighthouses. So there's a replica lighthouse. It's just known as the Mystic Seaport lighthouse. Essentially, it's not a working lighthouse. It was built in 1966. And it's an exact replica of Brant Point Lighthouse on the island of Nantucket. And interestingly, there's also another replica in Hyannis' inner harbor on the Cape. And I found it neat to have photos of all three of these lighthouses that look exactly alike. They're little wooden lighthouses they're 15 to 20 feet tall, little diminutive lighthouses however, that's just me. Obviously, there's more to see there than just a lighthouse that doesn't actually work. There's also restaurants you can eat at, like the Galley and Latitude 41 and you can grab a drink at Shaffer's Spouter Tavern. 

But if you're going to Mystic Connecticut, and you're looking to eat, there's one place that you have to go and that's the other spot that comes up when you think of Mystic and that's Mystic Pizza. It became famous through a 1988 movie that starred Julia Roberts. But the pizza place located at 56 West Main Street was actually opened in 1973. There are two locations of Mystic Pizza. The other one is in North Stonington, Connecticut. But if you want to go and get the true experience, you've got to go to the one in Mystic. Mystic Pizza was opened by the Zelepos family and they have the tagline 'a little slice of heaven' to describe their food. I have been there and it is excellent. I have my own souvenir cup, which is one of those touristy things that of course I had to do when visiting. Screenwriter Amy Jones was summering in the area around Mystic and found the pizzeria a perfect spot as the backdrop to her story about the lives of three young waitresses and that kind of led to Mystic Pizza the movie being filmed in the area. 

Immediately the pizza place was a huge hit with cars pulling up and stopping in the middle of the road to get pictures of the sign and the interior of the building. And that traffic kind of led to the opening of the second Mystic Pizza. But for the fans of the movie, who couldn't make it to Connecticut, they had another plan in mind and that was to create a frozen pizza that could be bought in in stores. So all of the New England states sell the Mystic frozen pizza, including places like Whole Foods and Market Basket. So if you're looking to get a slice of heaven and you can't make it to Connecticut, you can go to these stores or you can go to Mystic Pizza Original.com and check it out there. 

The other big attraction in mystic is the Mystic Aquarium, which is Connecticut's premier aquarium. It's located at 55 Coogan Boulevard, or at Mystic Aquarium.org. The aquarium is an excellent place to bring kids especially to see all the marine life and it's also great to learn about the conservation and protection of the aquatic animals. And it's led by highly qualified individuals that truly care about the preservation of marine life. They've got indoor and outdoor exhibits, New England's only beluga whales, the endangered African Penguin, and rescued seals and fish and so much more. It's definitely worth checking out. Mystic, Connecticut in general, although I only mentioned three huge attractions, there's so much more to see. Being on the Mystic River it's easy to go and check out the scenery in Groton, and Stonington. There's a lot to see in those areas in general as well, but I'll save those for another trip. Definitely if you're anywhere in New England from New York to Boston all the way up into Maine, take the time if you can to go check out Mystic Connecticut year round you can go to the aquarium and Mystic Seaport it's a little different when it's wintertime, but obviously, it's worth it. Check out Mystic Chamber.org to get more information about the Town of Mystic and everything that you can see and do there. Have any of you been to Mystic, what did you think of it there? Did you go to Mystic Pizza? Are there any places there that I missed out on because I can always go back there myself too. But I will see you again next time for more road trips all around New England. 

36:05 Back In the Day - Retro Clothing Brands

When you're a kid growing up, there's always a big sense of wanting to fit in wanting to be cool. Do what the kids that are seen as popular do. And I remember as a child of the 1980s, a teenager of the 1990s that was always big whether it was music. When I was in middle school, the cool music was Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Beastie Boys. You want to listen to what the cool kids listen to watch what they watch and wear what they wear. So for this segment of Back In the Day on the In My Footsteps Podcast, I wanted to dive into some of the old school clothing brands that I remember wearing, or wanting to wear or knowing Ooh, if I wear that stuff, I'm gonna be cool just like everyone else. Now granted, all of you out there that are in their 20s or younger. These brands if you go and look them up, you're gonna probably say look what this was cool back then. But yeah, trends change fads change. So these clothing brands were the in thing. So let's go back in the day, some old school clothing brands. 

When we're talking about these brands, specifically from the 1980s into the early 90s. These are the brands that I remember. First I know that I had Ocean Pacific clothing, it was a surfer brand. They were established in 1972 they kind of go alongside other surfer brand clothing lines like Quicksilver and Billabong I remember having Quicksilver too specifically the T shirts. It's almost like you wanted a shirt or shorts or something that had the logo so that people could see it and oh, yeah, he's he's got the Ocean Pacific. Ocean Pacific had the OP logo. That was very, not tacky, but had the 80s look. Yeah, you have to see it to understand. The clothing line is still made today by the way. I remember the T shirts. A lot of them had horizontal colored stripes with palm trees on them. Specifically, I remember having a pair of what they call board shorts, big, huge legged board shorts that were bluish, yellowish. Those were the ones especially in summer wearing those it was Oh look, he's got the OP shorts. 

Another brand that I remember being really popular, especially in middle school was Vuarnet. The company started as a sunglasses company. They're a French company started in 1960. So they really were just about making sunglasses until they were a sponsor of the 1984 Olympics. And after that, they became a global brand. Their logo if you're trying to, if you're my age, trying to remember what the logo looks like it was a blue circle with a red V and they had a lot of the shirts the one that I remember was just a white shirt with the the logo, the blue circle and the red V. You can still get the shirts today to on their website, the Vuarnet US site and they have sweatshirts. Some of the logos have more of those surfer colors, kind of the pastel blue and orange. But yeah, that one's still going strong today. 

One that I remember specifically for the T shirts was the No Fear company. So No Fear they were established in 1989. They also had some energy drinks. I remember the T shirts having kind of motivational kind of inspirational slogans on them. They were more like tough love slogans. I remember specifically, my friend Barry had a T shirt. This was in high school and the slogan on the back said 'second place is the first loser,' which is a great sentiment. But it's also just like art. If you don't win, everyone else sucks. And that's, so it's one of those. It's, it's tough love. But it was, I guess, motivational. There was another one that said, 'I don't come here to play, I come here to win.' Those. If you wore those in school, it was definitely kind of that cool, rebelling against the norm kind of shirt. This clothing line could be seen as kind of the extreme sports example of clothing. Not really skater stuff. I always assumed that like kind of the rebelling was seen as skater clothing back in my day, but they're still going strong too. Well, sort of. So they went bankrupt in 2011. And the company was bought by a British sports retailer, the Frasers group, so they're actually still available, you can buy No Fear clothing still. 

Does anyone out there remember LA Gear? LA Gear started in 1983 and interestingly, for this podcast, the guy who founded it, Robert Greenberg was from Boston, and he moved to LA and started the LA Gear company and they got really big. When Kareem Abdul Jabbar, the Center for the LA Lakers, left his Adidas contract to go and endorse LA Gear. There was a lot of other big celebrity endorsers. I mean, you had Michael Jackson, and Paula Abdul. In sports you had Wayne Gretzky. The sneakers for LA Gear were the most well known. They had their high tops, they called the Regulators. They were like the Reebok Pump, which another one, if you're, if you're not familiar, the Reebok Pump or the Regulator, essentially, it had a little air pump in it that would kind of tighten the shoes up around your feet. Those were a huge fad in the early 90s. Now not so much. They also had LA Lights, which were shoes that had light up heels and they actually became important, they were like a safety thing. If kids were lost in the woods or something their light up shoes, people could actually come and find them. So they became more than just a status symbol of wearing these types of sneakers. And like the others that I mentioned before LA Gear is still available, they have a website, you can go and get some new and retro clothing and accessories. 

The one that I remember, specifically thinking of it as a skater brand was Airwalks. And they're still around to but the Airwalks came out in the 1980s. They were a casual sneaker. I remember having those were for me along with vans. Those were the brands where it wasn't a sneaker it wasn't a dress shoe. It was a casual. And they were not bland. But think of it as like Skechers today, where they just look like a casual shoe. It's hard to describe. But Airwalks are still around. I had a pair of those in high school and thought I was pretty cool having those. I got another pair, this was less than 10 years ago I said I wanted to go retro even then when I was in my 30's.  I said 'I got to get me some Airwalks' all I need now is a flannel shirt and some torn jeans driving right back to my grunge roots of the 90s.

I wanted to include one more In the early 90s so there was a company called Generra and they had something called Hypercolor shirts. So if you're not familiar with this,  Hypercolor was basically it would be one color kind of a powdery looking whether red or blue or whatever, if you put your warm hands on the shirt it would leave a handprint that was a different color. So basically heat would change the color of the shirt and those things were popular for a short time but they were very popular when they were popular.  Generra was sold in the mid-90s.

Did any of you out there that are my age you know 40's did you have any of those clothing brands that you wore? And did you keep any of those? Can you go in your closet and have a No Fear shirt from 25 years ago?  I was curious, I was looking up sayings that used to be on the shirts should for research for this segment actually have no fear shirts for sale on eBay they're going for $50-60 so I mean I don't know if they've aged well, if they're collectors items but I found it interesting that people are selling their No Fear shirts from the 90s for $60-70. Would you buy an old t-shirt from the 90s or 80's? Maybe not to wear, but to have like someone else's shirt, I'm not sure about that.

So there was a little trip back in the day with some old school clothing brands. Let me know if you had any of those brands, shirts, shorts, shoes. If there are any that I missed out shoot me an email and let me know. 

45:38 Closing

That's going to do it for Episode 4 of the In My Footsteps Podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to this episode and any of you that have listened to the other ones I really appreciate it as I continue holding my craft as a podcast host.  I went a little bit longer than I had intended.  I keep saying that these podcasts usually I want them to be a manageable bite-size so that you can listen to them in one sitting but I've also in my research of how to do a podcast learned that you don't add it to make it longer than it has to be. If you're trying to meet a certain time requirement one way or another.

You can find me on Instagram I have a page In My Footsteps Podcast page that has the podcast and things that have to do with it.  I have another personal page that has more to do with me as I am an amateur photographer. Find me on Twitter at Chris Setterlund that's my handle over there.  I'm also on YouTube Christopher Setterlund and you can see my stupid face from when I was on Chronicle last year I made sure that was a photo. It has the little Channel 5 logo in the corner so I feel like a big shot. My Facebook page is Christopher Setterlund In My Footsteps, it has the podcast logo that was created by Amy Keller Jump, that is my photo for that page too easy to find.

As I said earlier if you haven't finished your Christmas shopping and you're interested you can check out my Zazzle store that's Cape Cod Living and also my website Christopher Setterlund.com that was designed by one of my oldest friends Barry Menard a great graphic designer. It's got links to all of my five books on there and my In My Footsteps lifestyle and travel blog which I'm constantly trying to post uploads to. The last post that I did was about this place called Pop's Pie Plant in Dennis Port, Massachusetts, but I'm also doing New England history a lot more now which is fun.

Tune in next time for episode 5 is going to actually fall on New Year's Eve so that's going to be a fun one. I will have some stuff related to New Year's Eve. The retro section will feature Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. Anyone who is my age definitely remembers what it was like to have him hosting New Year's Eve. We're going to take a trip to Chatham Massachusetts which has usually a great first night activities there, this year probably not quite as good. For the In Their Footsteps section I did a little poll on Twitter and Instagram where I had two choices as far as what people wanted to hear about. The winner was Mayo Beach Lighthouse in Wellfleet. Without giving too much away essentially the lighthouse was lost for several decades and discovered somewhere else we'll just leave it at that. We'll do another This Week in History which will include some fun stuff like the debut of The Howdy Doody Show on TV and I'll have a new sponsor next week. 

I wanted to give a shout out to my sponsor for this week Samantha Chin-Reynolds and Cove Road Real Estate. Until next time I want to wish everyone a happy holiday season Merry Christmas coming up. Again happy birthday to my nephew Landon on the 18th of December happy birthday to my Uncle Bob on the 30th I'll probably wish you it again when we do the next episode and thank you to everyone out there for taking a walk in my footsteps but remember in life don't follow my footsteps don't follow anyone's footsteps create your own path enjoy every moment you can on this journey. Take care and I'll talk to you again soon.