It was the first store I remember going to in San Bernardino, and it seems that we lived around it for a good chunk of the time until it closed. I think the store on Baseline was the main one, but I’ll always consider the Del Rosa store as the real Sage’s.
Until we found a house to buy, we lived in an apartment complex just a block away from Del Rosa and Highland, the corner where the Sage’s complex was. I vividly remember the first time I went through the front door of Sage’s with my parents. There were some candy/gumball machines and one or two mechanical rides by the front door. There was also the smell of comfort food that hit you, because just inside, to the right, was a coffee shop—the Copper Cupboard. I seem to remember the food tasting good, but I won’t trust my judgment back then because I also thought McDonald’s tasted good.
We found a house, what seems to me fairly quickly, and it was just across the street from Sage’s, on 21st Street. Our new neighbor’s, both husband and wife, worked for Sage’s—which I remember thinking was really cool. It was here, when I was allowed to go to Sage’s on my own, that I developed an almost daily habit. Sage’s had a toy and comic book store, separate from the main building—a precursor to the Toys-R-Us concept, but smaller. Still, I’d never seen so much space dedicated just to toys, and being that it was just across the street, I was a frequent visitor. I was a huge Lost in Space fan and that Christmas found the ultimate gift at Sage’s to beg for, it was a replica of the robot. (I’ve since learned what that exact toy robot now sells for and it’s depressing that mine probably ended up in some landfill.)
We moved to Tippecanoe, putting Sage’s out of my independent daily routine. But we still did our shopping there; it feels like we bought almost everything at Sage’s. Behind the Copper Cupboard they sold household goods, across the aisle on the left was the grocery store, at the hardware and garden shop was at the back. We bought our first swamp cooler there: a darn good investment for the San Bernardino sun.
Eventually we moved back to Del Rosa, this time to a house on East Eighteenth Street. Once or twice a year a small section of a carnival would set up in the back parking lot at Sage’s. A few rides, games and even a couple of freak show style exhibits; giant rats, or a doll in a jar made to look nothing like conjoined twins. I’ve always liked carnivals, but there’s something special about one being built in your backyard.
It was somewhere around there that Sage’s went bankrupt. The reasons rumored included internal theft and embezzlement, over-expansion, or even labor costs. Too bad, it had a business model similar to another little chain at the time, called Wal-Mart. On the other hand, I doubt that I’d ever be nostalgic about Sage’s if it had become Wal-Mart.
I suppose everyone has strange places that they’re nostalgic for, and kids nowadays will have their own (although for the life of me I can’t imagine what those will be). For me, it’s the places doing business in San Bernardino at a time when the country was in major transition: Sage’s, Wheelin’ ‘n’ Dealin’, Two Guys, and White Front, are some names I remember. But it’s Sage’s that I remember best.