Alas, Mervyn's, we shopped you well

When I was a younger lad — and by younger I mean living at a time when a Reagan was president and a Jackson ruled the charts — my mother would take my brother and me to Mervyn’s when back-to-school shopping season rolled around. Actually, I’m not sure if that kid got to buy anything, because if I recall correctly, he pretty much wore my hand-me-downs until he hit his pre-teens. OK, that’s probably a gross exaggeration, but either way, I’m getting way off topic here.

So yeah, a lot of my back-to-school shopping for clothing was done at Mervyn’s because, well, my parents weren’t made of platinum credit cards, and really, I was so much of a dork back then it’s not like I would have known the difference. Actually, that’s a lie: I did know the difference. While the “cool” kids were wearing Z. Cavaricci, Guess? and Mossimo, I was rocking the Bugle Boy cargo pants and nameless pastel T-shirts.

Thus, it’s with mixed feelings that I offer up the latest casualty of the funtastic recession plaguing our land. Mervyn’s closed 12 “underperforming” stores in early 2007, bringing its national count down to 177 locations. By July of this year, the Hayward, Calif.-based company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and by October, it filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and began to shutter all of its stores, including the one pictured at Meadows Lane and Decatur Boulevard in Las Vegas — yes, just a hop, skip and closing-sale jump from Steve & Barry’s. As a matter of fact, I noticed another store next to Steve & Barry’s having an “everything must go” 50 percent off sale, so check back soon to see if that entire corner is coming to a crashing economic halt.