Michael Mascio, 5, of Lincoln, appears not yet full of the holiday shopping spirit as he cools his heels while his parents shop at the Target department store in the Lincoln Mall Friday.   Call Photo/Ernest A. Brown 

By RUSS OLIVO

LINCOLN —  Many economists may be predicting a season of doom and gloom for retailers, but the dark clouds parted over Lincoln Mall on Black Friday, the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season and one of its busiest days.

Lured by heavily promoted day-after-Thanksgiving specials, early-bird bargain hunters formed long lines outside Target and other stores in the George Washington Highway shopping center before dawn, hoping to snap up deals on toys, home electronics, apparel and other items.
As recession-wary consumers home in on savings, high-end retailers might be feeling the pinch hardest of all, but a management spokeswoman said things are looking up at the local Target.
“We’re not seeing that,” she said. “Things were about where we expected today, and we’re optimistic.”
The doorbusters scarfed up iPods, digital cameras, home entertainment equipment and “all kinds of toys,” she said.
Target rolled back the price on its 26-inch, flat-screen TVs by about $130 for the one-day  sale, and shoppers cleaned the shelves of every last one (there were about 50 in stock) in approximately two hours.
But not everyone was taking the plunge.
As he strolled the aisles of the department store with his wife Donna and 5-year-old son Michael, Anthony Mascio couldn’t help but recall what happened to him last year. “I got laid off a week before Christmas,” he said.
A finish carpenter from Lincoln, Mascio has since gotten a new job and is feeling more secure this year, but he’s still not planning on buying anything he doesn’t need unless it’s an exceptional deal. After all, in times like these, you can never be too careful.
“We’re here to see if there are some really good bargains,” said Mascio. “The TV is pretty incredible, but I don’t need one. So I’ll be looking for something else. I’m frugal.”
About 250 people lined up outside Target before the doors opened at 6 a.m. “I’d say it was crazy busy,” said Michael Mooney, a sales clerk from Pawtucket.
There was even a line of customers waiting outside Ocean State Job Lot, which had  issued a chunky advertising flier full of holiday specials and opened its doors earlier than usual for Black Friday promotions.
A store spokesman said the traffic was at least as heavy as last year as customers seized items like flannel sheets for $12 a set and fleece tops for less than a sawbuck.
By mid-day, the crowds thinned out a bit, but there were still plenty of shoppers attempting to exercise their unique holiday-savings strategies at the mall.
“I did do some price checking and we thought we’d save some money by shopping here instead of buying online,” said Janice Melio of Middleboro, Mass. Melio was visiting her daughter in Lincoln for Thanksgiving and they decided to do some holiday shopping together.
They ended up walking out of Target with $400 worth of toys for their children and grandchildren piled into a shopping cart, including a set of “Hulk Smash Hands” and a robotic tarantula the size of a dinner plate that looked like a prop from a horror movie. Melio said she knows Black Friday is supposed to be a very busy shopping day —  if not the busiest of the year — but she was pleased to find the crowds at Lincoln Mall so easily navigable.
“I’m surprised, very surprised,” she said. “I didn’t think we would be able to get in here.”
Kim Bigonette of Lincoln agreed, saying, “It’s been easy this year.”
Bigonette, who went shopping with her mother-in-law, Myrna Bigonette, thought Black Friday shopping was a smart move from a bargain-hunting standpoint, but she wasn’t necessarily looking for gifts. Her logic paid off with the lowest price she’d seen in a long time on a Dirt Devil vacuum.
Black Friday or not, Bigonette said she was holding onto her pocketbook for a while longer this season. With all the talk of tight times and a tough economy, she thinks that as Dec. 25 approaches retailers will have to come through with even more impressive deals in order to get people in the stores.
“We shop the sales,” said Bigonette “I’m going to wait because I think the sales are going to get better.”
Black Friday may seem like a rather ominous label for what’s supposed to be one of the cheeriest shopping days of the year in the realm of retail — but it’s the day when the red ink in the accounting ledger shifts into the black column (representing profitability). People like to say it’s the busiest shopping day of the year, but it’s not always true, at least when it comes to dollars and cents, according to mass-market bean counters.
More people may flood the stores on the day after Thanksgiving, but in the last decade or so it has measured up to its top-dollar-day myth only a couple of times. While Black Friday consistently finishes among the top-grossing money days, shoppers typically spend more in retail outlets on the last Saturday before Christmas than any other day of the year.