People still miss Liberty House. Most of this decade has been without the hibiscus-logo shopping bags, but some people still can't get used to calling the store on the diamondhead side of Ala Moana (or the Wailuku side of Ka'ahumanu, or the highway side of Kukui Grove, etc. ...) by any other name.

Some confess to keeping those Liberty House shopping bags and jewelry boxes safe at home like antique treasures, especially the gold and pink ones.

The department store chain was sold to Macy's in 2001 after more than 150 years of business in Hawai'i. The last few years while the company was struggling through bankruptcy weren't much to remember, but in the decades before, Liberty House was a cultural touchstone. It offered more than merchandise — it had a feeling. It had a smell. People recall that smell stayed on the clothing even after they brought it home. It was almost sad to wash it away.

The stories attached to the store over the years are a testament to Liberty House's role in the community.

When the first Liberty House opened on Kaua'i in 1972 at the Coconut Plantation Marketplace, the opening-day crowds were so big Mayor Kona Vidinha couldn't find a parking space.

In 1982, Liberty House stores on O'ahu held a "celebration of Hawai'i" that included a Brothers Cazimero concert in the Ala Moana store and in-store talks by Nona Beamer about tracing your genealogy.

In the 1980s, Sears and JC Penney in Honolulu adopted a new dress code so clerks would be as spiffy as the Liberty House staff, where men wore suits or coats and ties and aloha attire was allowed only on Fridays, Sundays, May Day and Aloha Week.

The personal stories abound, like the people who fondly reminisce about working in gift wrap during the holidays or recall how fun it was to recognize people they knew modeling in the Liberty House ads. The Liberty House Teen Fashion High Board made local celebrities out of cute high school seniors.

For Diana Bonsignore, Liberty House was a way to measure the passage of time. She remembers a friend commenting once, "What! The Zooper Sale already! How time flies."

"It was like she was saying, '10:00 already!' Or 'Monday already!' ... Her comment suddenly gave me another reliable chronometer to measure the time between the birth of children, holidays of all sorts, kindergarten, summer vacation."

The big Zooper Sale was in July, by the way. Rainbow Sale in October. White Sale in January. Throw in Mothers' Day, Back-to-School, Safari and Christmas sales, and that measured the year.