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The blue-light special is neither a passenger train, nor is it a Denny's lunch. It is an impromptu, temporary, in-store sale at KMart. Here's how it works: They slash the price of an item for 10 or 15 minutes, announce it on the p.a. system, and set up a blinking, blue beacon to guide shoppers to the temporary value. Hence, the term "blue-light special." According to the news release, KMart began using the blue light special in 1965, and suspended its use back in the 1990s. Apparently, K-Mart's revival of the blue-light special is an effort to establish a more competitive posture in the discount retail industry. It is a reminder of when Jack-in-the-Box brought back the clown - after "wasting" him back in the late '70s. What is scary is the way Wal-Mart seems to be taking over the world. People love discount stores. They have everything you need - even if you don't know you need it, a lot of things you will never need, and a bunch of stuff you didn't even know they still made. For the working class, discount stores were a big part of their lives. They were like the "dime store" on steorids. And at Christmastime, the toy departments were kind of a walk-through Christmas catalog. Bear in mind, this was in the days when real people didn't go to Disneyland, and theme parks just did not exist in the vast volume of today. So, on Parents' Pay Day (usually Friday), piling the family into the station wagon (or other big, ol' car) and going to the neighborhood discount store was basically a major "outing." There was a stigma of sorts about shopping at a discount store. It was not a good thing to be seen at one of these stores. There was no though given to the fact that in order to be seen at a discount store, the chastisers had to be in the store as well! In the 1960s and '70s, there were a lot of different names in the discount retail business. Some are still around, and maybe some of the stores were relatively regional. Anyway, do you remember any of these?
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The copyright of the article Kmart Blue Light Specials Return in 60s America is owned by NancySue Krenrich Hamm. Permission to republish Kmart Blue Light Specials Return in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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