I turned six around the time the Sears at 4000 North Shepherd in Houston opened in September of 1949. I have lots of memories of being at Sears, even into adulthood, ranging from buying clothes for school, shopping for Christmas presents, a Sears Kemtone brand record player, and admiring the Cub Scout and Boy Scout paraphernalia (even though I never became a scout). As a teenage with a drivers license, I made at least a few trips taking our Craftsman lawn mower to be repaired. Looking online for something about the status of the Sears at 4000 North Shepherd, I came across a recent story in The Leader, a local paper serving The Heights:Garden Oaks:Oak Forest:North Houston. There I read about the experience of someone named Jeff, where he has essentially taken the words right out of my mouth. "When I was five or six, or maybe a little earlier, I remember stopping to get a drink from a water fountain near the entry door,” said Jeff Kirk. “It was the first time I saw a sign designating a water fountain for ‘White’ and ‘Colored’ people.” (End of an Era? October 24, 2018, by Betsy Denson) The black and white image in my mind goes a little farther. I think my middle sister was with Mother and me. What’s not clear is if I went to drink from the Colored fountain and was stopped by Mother, or if I asked why there was a Colored fountain and received a slight yank of my hand and told to “Hush!” Probably one led to the other. My questioning of how things are began fairly young, as I recall. Photo: arch-ive dot org