Wednesday, September 12, 2012

More Outdated Items & Useless Ephemera






Kerry, bless her soul, opined (in the comments to this other post) that she misses candy cigarettes.

(Before we go on, I suppose I should tell you why it is that when you click onto the "Kerry" link up above you come to a blog written by two dogs named Ed & Reub. The short answer is I have no frickin' clue. It's entertaining, though, so why complain?)

Anyway, number me among those who also miss candy cigarettes, Kerry. And a whole bunch of other stuff, too (because there's only so much you can say about candy cigarettes, after all, and I need to get this up to 1,200 words before my bloviating license expires.)

I think easing children into future vices by plying them with candy was a swell idea. There also used to be bubble gum cigars, but those were for the rich kids (and, if the Freudian supposition concerning cigar usage is valid, for the kids who had issues with the size of their wienies.) I haven't been in a candy store lately, but I assume kids these days can buy sets of works made from spun sugar (maybe including a licorice whip to tie off a vein.) Oh, OK, I suppose that's farfetched. Spun sugar would break too easily in shipment. It's probably Gummi hypos.

(By the way, you can still buy candy cigarettes. You could get them from the same place I stole the photo of them. They apparently don't come with a red-painted tip now, and they're called "candy sticks". They also don't have packaging that features an actual brand-name cigarette logo. Still, as that website suggests, they could make a dandy gift for someone trying to quit the real things.)

(But not me, if that's what you're thinking. If you give me candy cigarettes, all you'll do is put me on the road to Type II Diabetes in addition to my incipient emphysema.)

(Let's move on to another topic before I start thinking too clearly about what I just said.)

Does anybody patch kid's clothes these days? Sooner or later, every boy in our neighborhood wore something patched. My Mom used to patch my pants when I got a hole in them. I remember having one pair of jeans that had both knees, both ass cheeks, AND a spot on the crotch patched. The only other person I ever saw with pants like that was Emmett Kelly.




(I miss Emmett Kelly. However, if we start talking about people I miss, we'll be here all week.)

Aside (yeah, like I have to label these things by this point. My entire blog is an aside.): Am I wrong in assuming that this was a boy thing? Patching, I mean; not Emmett Kelly. What I mean is, were girls clothes ever patched? I don't recall seeing any girls with patches on their asses, and I was looking, too.

The particular patches My Mom used were a type that could be ironed on. They had some sort of adhesive backing that was dry before being applied to the clothing with an iron. They were worth whatever they cost. I clearly recall outgrowing pants before the patches ever wore out or fell off.

Moving right along on this haphazard train of thought, what about paperweights? They used to be fairly ubiquitous, but I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts you can't put your hands on one right now.

(By the way, I think donuts cost about a dollar now, so that phrase has pretty much become meaningless.)

I've heard of folks who collect paperweights, but does anybody still use them for their intended purpose of holding down a stack of paper from being blown away by a sudden gust of wind? Heck, never mind paperweights. The stacks of paper themselves are becoming redundant.

Hey, let's think of something else we can bitch about and make young people laugh at us! How about toys? Do kids still get toy guns as presents? I don't mean water pistols and such; those will always be around. Who doesn't like giving someone a face full of water now and again? But what about cap guns, miniature Thompson sub-machine guns, realistic wooden rifles... Is it just here in the oh-so-liberal Northeast that folks would try to have your parenting permit revoked if you gave a kid a toy gun, or is it everywhere? I suppose BB guns still exist. I sure hope so, anyway. That was the coolest toy ever, even before A Christmas Story became so popular. What kid in his right mind wouldn't want a toy that could shoot your eye out? Not me, that's for sure! The only thing more entertaining were those chemistry sets you could blow up your entire family with.

What else can I go on about like a boring old geezer with no life aside from his blog? Hey, I've got it! Do you any of you still hang out clothes to dry? Maybe there are one or two holdouts among you, but I'm willing to bet treasury bonds to donuts that most of you don't do it. Hell, clotheslines are actually banned in some places. This is because the hideous yuppie bastards elected to the city councils in those locales decided they were an eyesore. It's a shame, really. Anyone who has ever gone to sleep in a bed made up with freshly-laundered outside-air-dried linens knows for a fact that nothing you can pull from a dryer will ever compare, no matter how much artificially scented crap you throw in with the load.

And another thing! Where do butterflies sleep?

(Wow! That may be the single best non-sequiter I've ever typed! But, seriously, does anybody know the answer? Worms sleep underground, ants have hills, moths seem to enjoy spending the night wherever MY WIFE has decided is a good place to keep her clothes, and cockroaches live under the sink. Butterflies? I have no idea. Maybe they used to sleep on clotheslines, but now they're homeless, you yuppie bastards!)


[Found the chart HERE. I have no idea what Sommerfugle means, but maybe you do. If so, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to: Suldog's Stupid Contest, 93 Winsor Avenue, Watertown, MA, 02472. Enclose $5 processing fee. You might be a winner!]

[Although, if you fall for it and send me the five bucks, I doubt it.]


Let's see. I've yearned nostalgic for crap most people don't miss, made a fistful of obvious jokes, gone entirely off-topic once or twice, and thrown in a shot in the dark at suckering some of you to send me money. I guess that about wraps it up. Merry Christmas!

Soon, with more (what would almost have to be, by default) better stuff.



52 comments:

i beati said...

I have clothelines and many many butterflies and the others too- Good news about moanie

Julie said...

well my girls' clothes get patched ...normally with roses or some such AND i buy them toy guns as presents ...

Julie said...

PS and they'ld probably enjoy candy cigarettes but i've not seen them for sale here

Brighton Pensioner said...

Where do butterflies sleep?

Well now, Suldog, you can believe this or believe it not but I was pondering this question only yesterday while looking at a red admiral on our clothes line.

joeh said...

I think Butterflies crawl out of their cacoon, look pretty for a while, screw another butterfly and die before sunset.

Damn suldog, how friggin old are you? Probably younger than me, cause I forgot all the things you remember.

Suldog said...

I Beati - Thank you for the news about Moannie. I'm glad to hear our prayers are being answered in such a good way.

Julie - Well, I kind of assumed that you wouldn't be troubled by toy guns. Just so everyone knows, neither am I.

Brighton Pensioner - I believe you. You and I seem to have the same lack of useful things to do.

Joe - I'm younger than you, but that's not saying much.

(Wow. Pretty snarky. My apologies. I shouldn't be treating my elders so snottily.)

Lowandslow said...

Sure, I remember all those things. I "smoked" candy cigs, had patches on my jeans, had a cap pistol and a bb-gun, slept on sheets that had ben hung on a clothes line, etc. Today, though, cigs will bring out hte smoke police, kids don't tear clothes up playing video games, toy guns are too real looking so the cops will shoot you if you have one just to play it safe (don't blame 'em), and we have the scourge of suburbia, HOA's, to thank for the demsie fo clothes lines.

And they call this "progress"?

S

Craig said...

See, the whole point of those candy ciggies was so kids could practice their 'cool cigarette grip'. . . I could never get any of the girls in my hometown to play 'Hide the Bubblgum Cigar' with me, either. . .

Sure, my mom patched my jeans. Being a, uh 'husky' lad, I tended to wear out the inner thighs of my jeans (and don't eve get me started on corduroys). So after a good patching or two, it got to feel like I was wearing a diaper. . .

But my mom would still darn our socks (she still has her darning egg). I asked Jen a while back about darning some of my holey socks, and she just gave me a disgusted, 'get-real' look. . .

Toy guns - did you ever have one of those pop guns, that were little tubes of cheap sheet metal, with a lever-cock air piston, and a little cork, tied to a string (maybe three feet long), that it 'shot'? Now that was a serious high-end toy, lemme tellya. . .

And you're right - squirt guns are so passe. Now, my kids get these Super-Hydro-Galactic Water Blasters, with replaceable two-liter supply bottles, that you can charge up to 8 gazillion psi and soak a kid from three counties away. Now THOSE things could put somebody's eye out. . .

And 6F was in the Flag Corps in HS, and they had these wooden mock-rifles that they used for some of their twirling tricks. Her freshman (college) public speaking class had her do a kind of 'show-and-tell' speech, so she brought in her Flag Corps rifle, which was really just a jig-sawn hunk of 2x4, painted white, with a little stub of copper tubing for the 'barrel', and it took her all manner of grief, and upwards of an hour, before the college security folks would even let her bring it into the building. Morons. . .

Craig said...

Oh, and when Jen and I were first married, I told her I was gonna get her a solar-powered clothes dryer. Since I was this earnest young engineer, she was expecting some really high-tech something-or-other. So when I tossed her a coil of clothesline rope, she was, uh, underwhelmed.

And jeez, how's kid gonna cop his first glimpse of women's undies, if not for clotheslines?

lime said...

i was never a great fan of candy cigarettes but i did like bubble gum cigars...not that i got many of them in my lifetime. but i can attest to girls getting patches on their pants. i had several pairs of pants with patches. i consistently put holes in the toes of my shoes too because when i'd use the swings i'd drag my toes to stop myself instead of using the flats of my feet. my mother threatened to buy me steel toed shoes more than once.

i am proud to say i am one of the laundry-line brigade. my children know if they do laundry on a sunny day they better darn well hang their clothing outside because i'm not paying for electricity when the sun does the job for free. i refuse to ever live in some yuppified place that outlaws wash lines.

i will say i have debated the issue of toy guns in our house, mainly because we are a hunting family and i don't want bad weapon handling habits to take hold due to my kids handling actual firearms. that said, there has been a bb gun in this house since they were small and they've had permission to use it under supervision since they were small.

lime said...

oh, and because you asked here is where butterflies sleep.

Suldog said...

Lowandslow - Ugh. I'd forgotten about the incidents of folks being shot by cops when carrying toy guns. I understand why it happened, but ugly stuff for all involved.

Craig - I have no idea why I didn't think of women's underwear. I usually do.

I hadn't remembered the cork guns. Yes, I did have one! Great toy!

And, to the story about 6F... If they suspend kids from school for carrying ASPIRIN, for God's sakes (and I don't use blasphemy lightly) then... well, fill in the rest yourself. If I get started, it will have to be another new post.

Kerry said...

Oh wow, have they stopped making bubblegum cigars too, or are those called bubblegum "sticks"? I mean "candy sticks"!!! Seriously. This makes me want to go out and start passing off "tobacco sticks" as a new product; the tips will have to be red, though.

Ed and Reub are mere co-authors of mine. They hardly ever get a word in edgewise, poor frustrated canines.

Barbara said...

I loved candy cigarettes, and was so conflicted by that love and my parenting guilt, that I allowed my kids to buy one box a year from the little store down the road. But only one box. I didn't want to be a bad parent, but didn't want them to miss the joy of candy cigarettes. (No wonder society is so screwed up, right?) Somehow my kids have turned out okay, and none of them smoke. Toy guns... almost impossible to find, but that didn't stop my kids - anything they picked up could become a toy gun. I had patches on my jeans when I was a teenager, but they were pretty and embroidered and didn't necessarily cover a hole.

(not necessarily your) Uncle Skip said...

Patches. You wanna hear about patches? I'll tell ya about patches.

My folks used to buy the triple knee jeans at Sears. Yeah three layers of fabric in the knees. After about a week my mom would be ironing on those patches you mentioned.

The bubble gum cigars cost a nickel.

Around here folks don't buy their kids toy guns. The give them memberships in the NRA and buy them real guns and send them to hunter safety classes.

I know what Sommerflugel means. It means some fool came to Boston on vacation to watch me play softball. ;-)

Jenn Flynn-Shon said...

Here in the good 'ole (boy) southwest them thar guns ain't toys...and neither are the cigarettes. You'll need both when you go up to the Cave Creek rodeo every Sunday located out back behind the Green Bay Packers bar. Especially if you're a 9 year old.

Suldog said...

Lime - Thanks for the excellent link! Now I know where butterflies sleep! However, something else I read over there is alarming. There are POISONOUS butterflies? I think it just means that they are poisonous to eat, so I'm probably not in any danger, but the thought of a lovely little flutterby landing on my arm and then sinking dagger like teeth into me and making me drop dead... By the way, do butterflies have teeth?

Jimmy said...

Yes Sir, I remember the iron on patches, candy cigs, and clotheslines, like you I think most kids in our neighborhood had at least one patch on their clothing, if the tear in the knee was too bad that was the pair of jeans that became shorts.

Suldog said...

Kerry - Ed and Reub are hilarious. I'm glad I found them!

Barbara - That's a point I should have made, and thanks for bringing it up. If you don't give a kid a toy gun, they'll make one up out of anything - a tree branch, a tennis racket, a baseball bat, even just their own fingers.

(not my) Uncle Skip says - "I know what Sommerflugel means. It means some fool came to Boston on vacation to watch me play softball."

You figured it out, but since you didn't send me the five bucks, you don't win anything. Also, since you gave away the answer and now no one else will send me five bucks, you owe me.

Jenn - Yee-Haw! The wild west, where men are men and so are the women (present company excluded, of course!)

Jimmy - That's right! Almost nobody ever bought ready-made shorts!


(not necessarily your) Uncle Skip said...

For more info on butterflies see this.

stephen Hayes said...

I doubt that butterflies sleep, but I'm no expert. But tell me, do kids still make rubber band guns these days? When I was a kid we made our own guns with wood and clothespins(?), stole rubber bands from neighborhood newspapers and had our own reenactments of WWII battles. Kids are probably too sophisticated these days for such things.

Ericka said...

i was at candyapolis in downtown chicago over the weekend. they had candy cigarettes, gum cigars, wax lips, o'henry bars and more. the candy place at navy pier has them too. so, someone somewhere is still making them. i used to love the gum cigarettes. they had a paper wrapper so they looked real, and powder between the paper and the gum so when you blew on them, "smoke" would come out. it's really a wonder that i don't smoke.

"the thought of a lovely little flutterby landing on my arm and then sinking dagger like teeth into me..." i LOVE that visual. so cool.

Karen said...

We used to smoke candy cigarettes, chew on red wax lips (after we were finished wearing them), bit the tops of wax bottles and suck the "juice" out of them, buy penny candy when it was really only a penny. What I thought about the other day: DOesn't anybody package gum in the little 5-stick packages anymore? Gum seems to come in everything from bubble-shaped containers to matchbook looking packages. I think gum as we knew it is long gone.

Michelle H. said...

I bought candy cigarettes and cigars as a kid. I remember unwrapping the hot pink-colored cigar and sticking it in my mouth like it was a fattie hanging by moisture alone on my bottom lip.

I also have a clothes horse. That's about the closest thing I'll get to when hanging clothes up.

Buck said...

Sooner or later, every boy in our neighborhood wore something patched.

Ahem. Sooner or later every old hippie in MY neighborhood had his Levi's patched. And embroidered.

As a s'matter o' fact I still patch my jeans, what with 501s going for the princely sum o' 40 Yankee Dollars these days.

Suldog said...

(not my) Uncle Skip - As always, you have proven yourself a fount of useless information (which is my favorite kind.) Thank you.

Stephen - I always admired the kids who could construct those things. I was never able to make one that didn't somehow end up going off and shooting the clothespin back into my face.

Ericka - I completely forgot about those kind of candy cigarettes. They were excellent! I believe they also came in chocolate? Wow. Thanks for that memory boost!

Karen - A good blog friend sent me a whole bunch of chewing gum a couple of months ago, after I had written something or other mentioning it, so I can vouch that the five-stick packs do indeed still exist. Since I got them for free, though, I have no clue what they now cost. Probably even more expensive than donuts!

Michelle - Clothes horses... I'm going to sound like a chauvinistic dope, but I think most women have them and guys never understand why. We figure if you can't put it in a dryer, it's not worth the bother.


Suldog said...

Buck - See, that's the main thing that made me ask the question. It seems like it would make even more sense to patch things these days than it did then, but I rarely ever see patches anywhere. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places.

Michelle H. said...

But that is the beauty of the thing. If guys were meant to understand women, women wouldn't be able to get away the the overemotional crap that garners sympathy and attention.

On a serious note, a clothes horse is a great thing after I dry clothes in the dryer and I have that one shirt or sweater that just won't dry completely. Instead of plugging another $1.50 in the coin dryer in the apartment building, I just hang it on the clothes horse to dry.

Craig said...

@Stephen Hayes -

I must've grown up in a poorer town than you. ;) We just wrapped the rubber band around our own hand. You'd make your hand like a gun, and put one end of the band on the point of the 'pointer finger, wrap it around the thumb, and hook the other end around one of the folded-under fingers (I usually used the ring-finger). Then to fire it, you'd just drop your thumb, and off it'd fly. It took a bit of trial-and-error to learn how to aim it right, but it was actually pretty cool.

IT (aka Ivan Toblog) said...

I remember having a pair of jeans in the late '80s that was all patches. I mean they were made that way
The funny thing about buying the jeans was that Levi's in the wayback (they only made 501s) wore like iron (and they had a guarantee, too) and cost about $3.75
When I was a kid, I don't think I ever saw a pair of Levi's with a patch

About those clotheslines/solar dryers, they work really good if there's a breeze, but suck eggs when the air is still
The ambient temperature is almost irrelevant


Your WIFE'S BROTHER said...

When attempting to quit candy cigarettes, do people go the candy patch?

Suldog said...

Craig, Stephen (not to be confused with Craig Stevens, star of Peter Gunn, although that title is appropriate) - Well, see, I couldn't even get just the fingers gun right. With that one, I'd somehow end up whanging myself in the balls with the rubber band. The only way I've found success shooting rubber bands is to just hook one end over my left thumb, pull back with my right, and let fly. I'm actually fairly deadly with that.

Suldog said...

IT - Hey, My Mom had a clothesline strung in our basement for the Winter. Talk about a different sort of smell to your clothes...

MY WIFE's Brother - They used to. Now there's electronic candy.

messymimi said...

And have a Cool Yule while you are at it.

Yes, i don't use a dryer, i dry my clothes outdoors. Sheets, too, which are changed on Monday.

Oh, and you can always fall back on what my old high school chemistry and physics teacher, Sr. Ruth Marie, used to say and start betting people "credits to navy beans." As in, "I'll bet you credits to navy beans the valence of oxygen is -2!"

Jeni said...

Patch jeans today? Are you crazy? They sell the damned jeans these days for prices the equivalent of an arm and a leg and they come with holes or raggy spots, sort of bare places, already in them! I really don't understand purchasing things that are already ripped and calling it fashionable but that's just my thoughts on that topic. (Based on some of the jeans my son wears to work -he's drives a tractor trailer -and the number and size of the holes in his jeans, he'll probably still be wearing them when there's just enough fabric left to cover his important parts, ya know.

Absolut Ruiness said...

Hey we do see these around here very much in use, not just nostalgia!! I guess we will lose them once we go from "developing" to "developed"....(sigh)

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Suldog said...

Messy - Unfortunately, nobody gives me credit and I'm already full of beans.

Jeni - Yeah, I dig it. During the early days of punk music, there were the real people, the folks who were actually in the scene, and the plastic people, those who tried to fit in. The real folks wore jeans with holes in them because that's what they had and could afford (or, at least, the holes came about organically), while the plastic people went to Christian Dior and bought "pre-stressed" clothing. Dipshits.

Absolut - Of course, my silly rantings are America-centric. I always appreciate hearing from folks who live elsewhere and have different backgrounds. It puts good perspective on our silliness! Thank you!

Kusum - I usually deep six any comment that seems to be selling something, but what the hell. I'm the one who brought up cigarettes, so have a ball!

Daryl said...

okay .. at least it - okay the parts i didnt skim - werent about sports .. you are so silly butterflys sleep on top of flowers, under leaves or if they are rich they sleep in botanical gardens .. ;)

Suldog said...

Daryl - Yeah, OK, but do butterflies have teeth?

Maggie May said...

I used to get those sweet cigarettes and practiced smoking them first. It never got me onto the real thing.
Everyone had patches when I was a kid and darned socks.
Once my Mum put a pocket over a hole that I had cut in a dress. Ended up wearing it for years.
Do butterflies sleep?
Maggie X

Nuts in May

Suldog said...

Maggie asks - "Do butterflies sleep?"

Apparently, according to Daryl and Lime, they sleep on leaves and things. Lazy butterflies! Daryl, in a private e-mail to me, said that butterflies do, indeed, also have teeth, but they're like straws that they use to suck up pollen or something.

I only have one more Butterfly question: Did they save any of the royalties or are they broke and that's why they sleep on leaves and things and have teeth like straws?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

Matt Conlon said...

Hah! Loved this post...

Yeah, Candy cigarettes... I used to love those as a kid. I'd get a box of those and a "Tab" soda and live life large. I remember actually trying to light a candy cigarette in a camp fire once. Not a very interesting memory to share, cause all it did was smolder and blacken. No injuries, no cool images to share... It tasted badly, by the way.

Everyone around me smoked throughout my entire childhood. I have a picture of myself somewhere at the age of like, 2, sitting in a high-chair pretending to smoke a carrot stick. I'm sure someone said "Oh, isn't that cute!" and snapped a picture, and somewhere a DSS agent was waking up in the middle of the night with cold sweats.

I also remember my mother handing me a box of candy cigarettes that looked different than I'd remembered and it turned out to be gum. What a let down.

I miss cap guns. I don't think they exist anymore... I had a cap-bomb once too, shaped kind of like a missile, you'd load the caps in and toss it into the air, and when it hit the ground there was a spring loaded hammer of sorts that would make it go off on impact.

I don't think butterflies sleep at all, least not around here... between my kids and the beagle and all the cats we have around the house, I think they're pretty much running for their lives the whole time they exist.

I hate hanging clothes out to dry. Every time I do, one of the cats pulls it down and pees on it.

I had one pair of patched jeans, and I seem to recall having a suit jacket that had patched elbows.

I'd planned on commenting about paperweights, but you made my point moot when you mentioned that stacks of paper were a thing of the past... So I decided I wouldn't comment about paper weights, but instead I'd comment about not commenting about paper weights, since you commented on them for me.

You know what I miss, I miss cartoons that didn't suck. Just once, I want to see a cartoon that was made recently where one guy shoves a stick of dynamite down the other guy's pants, or shoots him square in the face point blank with a .44 Magnum. I wanna see a cat roll a live grenade into a mouse hole without some yuppie bastard crying about psychological damage being caused to kids he doesn't even have.

Hehe candy-patch... Yeah, they have to wear fruit roll-ups on their biceps.

Suldog said...

Matt - Hah! Lover your comment!

(I love ALL comments, but especially those that dive headlong into whatever pile of bullshit I've put out here most recently. You dove in, rooted around, and came up with all sorts of good stuff.)

I remember those cap bombs. In our neighborhood, we'd lob them at each other's faces. It was subtle, though. First, you find a kid who has his back turned and throw it at his ass. When it hits his ass (*POW*), which is funny enough in itself, he turns around to see what hit him, then... well, you can fill in the blank.

(That was a variant of the ol' High-Low in a snowball fight. First guy fires hard and high, and just a split second after the second guy fires hard and aims for the belt. When the kid ducks the first one, he gets the second one straight in his moosh.)

Yours was the first comment about paperweights, I believe. Even if it was, in effect, a non-comment, I appreciate the effort.

Yeah, I'll have to do something about cartoons someday. Tom & Jerry were instrumental in my outlook on life.

Judi FitzPatrick said...

Wow, so many flashbacks to my youth and then those of my kids.

Matt mentioned cap guns - I had one of those, but my favorite thing was to remove the strip of caps, roll it out on the sidewalk, and hit each one with a rock - much more fun than the actual gun.

My clothes were patched, and I did the same with my kids' things. I still have some of that iron-on patching material in my sewing box, not so much for knees anymore, but for small tears.

Where I live, the HOA only allows clotheslines if they can't be seen by your neighbors (which means almost no one here can have them.) However, I have a screened in porch and hang my things on a drying rack whenever possible. The sheets don't fit, but the pillow cases do - ah!

Thanks for all the laughs and walk down memory lane. The poison flutterby line got me laughing hysterically; maybe moving to a hot place has totally fried my brain.

Peace, Judi

silly rabbit said...

My mother was an artist when it came to patches on my clothes. She would shape them like a heart or a flower, bird, etc. then embroider around them after ironing them on well. It kept their edges from coming loose and curling up. She even put patches over stains.
I loved candy cigs... in fact we were talking about that earlier this afternoon.
I have a glass paperweight that has colored blobs and air bubbles inside it. Its very cool. But do not drop it on your toe. Seriously.
I was asking Randy what candy he liked as a kid. These questions came up "Would parents now allow their kids to drink liquid that came out of a wax bottle?" and "Would kids even chew wax lips?"

notactuallygod said...

I remember those patches. Had a few myself, and they DID outlast the jeans they were put on!

Marilyn said...

I remember candy cigarettes, gum cigars, caps, patches and all those fun things from my childhood.

I own a beautiful, blown glass paperweight, handmade by a friend. And I have a great clothes line to boot! I hang my sheets and towels out to dry and, occasionally, my unmentionables (just for shock value).

But, I live in JP where eccentrics are tolerated.

Suldog said...

Judi - Sure, I remember doing that with caps, too. And it gave the added enjoyment of enjoying the aroma of the tiny bit of gunpowder in each!

Silly Rabbit - "I have a glass paperweight that has colored blobs and air bubbles inside it."

My Grandma used to make things with an acrylic kit, beautiful things. She once made me a paperweight that was much the same as you describe. I hadn't thought of that in years, even when I was writing about them up above. Funny how the mind works. Thanks for bringing back that memory!

Not Actually God - I wonder if anyone has ever tried constructing an entire pair of pants from just that material?

Marilyn - We do not have a clothesline where we now live (Watertown), but I wish we did. I probably wouldn't hang our undies out to dry (although that was common when we were kids, and always good for a laugh if some neighbor had huge bloomers covered with daffodils or something.)

Babs said...

Oh hey...finally a good chuckle. I have to deal with an HOA and that's no laughing matter. They are one of those who prohibits any kind of anything.
There are a few people I know who still hang their clothes outside on a line...lucky dogs...one is in England. one in the country.
What kills me about the yuppie b's you commented on is most of those people are "green" and you would think they'd be for it. they are dumb just plain dumb.

I remember buying candy cigarettes and the best kind were the ones wrapped individually in paper and when you rolled them and them blew out of them you saw "smoke" It was cool.

The one bit of info you wrote that made my day was the homeless butterflies...good one... :)

Suldog said...

Babs says - "What kills me about the yuppie b's you commented on is most of those people are "green" and you would think they'd be for it."

Absolutely. I meant to say something along those lines, but it slipped my mind (not unusual, as my mind is very slippery these days.)

Hilary said...

That's one of the things I love most about your blog.. you make me remember things from long ago.. and they're always fond memories.

Of course I remember cigarette candy (it was Popeye on the package, I think) and bubble gum cigarettes - pastel cylindrical sticks wrapped in white paper.. with enough powder to keep it from sticking to the paper. We could mimic smoke by blowing the powder right through from one end of the stick to the other. There were also those yummy bubble gum cigars.. pale yellow, pink or green.

Yes, my clothes had patches, occasionally,

And paper weights... can't say I've ever used a proper one but just about anything with some heft would do.