Last week, WRAL posted this article about the Western Blvd K-Mart being redeveloped. It described it as a “graveyard of a big box eye sore”. While this is true, it made me a bit sad because that building, as crazy as it sounds, has so much special meaning for me.
My earliest memories are of growing up in Cary in the late 1970s. It was a town of 20,000 people and only had a couple of restaurants and very few stores. The (now closed) mall was brand new. As best I can remember, the Western Blvd K-Mart was the only big box store in western Wake County.
My family did most of their shopping at this K-Mart, usually on Friday nights. That store was my universe. Everything I ever spent allowance money on or dreamed of getting for Christmas was found within those walls. My music hobby started with a set of toy drums I saw there. My Legos, my records, the plants our family planted in the garden, our hunting and fishing supplies, my school supplies all came from that K-Mart.
I also met some interesting people there. Being next to the University, many of the customers were international students and their families. The first time I ever saw anyone wearing a Sari, Chador, or nose ring was there. I also saw an NC State basketball player in the aisle next to me. He was so tall that I walked over to his aisle to make sure he wasn’t standing on a ladder! But the most famous person I ever saw there was Ric Flair (pro wrestling matches were held at the nearby WRAL-TV studios in those days).
Most the most important, and strangest part of the story is that K-Mart is where my programming career began. When I was 8 years old, they sold Commodore 64 and VIC-20 computers. There were these kiosks in the store with a working computer, a monitor, and the manual (which was nailed down). I would elbow the other kids out of the way and work through the manual. After a few months I had worked all the way through it and knew the BASIC language. Finally, my parents bought me one and the rest they say is history.
At some point in the early 1980s another K-Mart opened in Cary, so we didn’t go to Western Blvd as much. Then Crossroads Mall opened, and other big boxes (including Wal-Mart) opened, so we didn’t come here much until college. I went to N.C. State, so I once again began doing all my shopping here. The chain was eventually purchased by Sears and the location closed in 2018. The building has sat empty ever since and has become dilapidated.
I am not arguing for it to be preserved. Whatever replaces it will look nicer and generate revenue for the local economy. Customers of those businesses will make their own special memories just like I did. But I can’t drive past the site without taking a long look and remembering how my life changed in that otherwise insignificant chunk of suburbia. As they used to say – thank you for shopping at K-Mart.