You’ve Got The Cutest Little Baby Face…And A Box Of Swamp Root

Cutest little baby face

 

I often find myself daydreaming about life in the good old days, back when people really had it made. When there was no stress or worry. Why, even writers had it made back then, with all that modern equipment at their disposal—things like fancy typewriters and kerosene lamps.

Yes, those were the days when foreign lands came to you, instead of you having to bother with pesky airplanes and the groping hands of TSA workers.

Speaking of travel, a Saturday trip to town was always a special day. The ladies occasionally took time to be measured for a new pair of shoes, while the men might be inclined to purchase a new collar, or cuffs, for the shirts they often wore for several days between washings.

Feeling a little sickly? No problem. While in town, you could pick up something for your health woes. Like a box of Swamp Root, or Chill Tonic. Swamp Root worked especially well to combat ailing kidneys, livers, and bladders.

However, if your problems were more of the “fanged” type, there was the handy-dandy Vampire Killing Kit.

The Putnam Dye Company guaranteed their products to never fail, and that their products were easier to use than the products of their competitors.

Do you have trouble deciding which coffee to buy? You know, since today’s grocery stores often have one entire aisle devoted to dozens of brands and flavor assortments. Well, “back in the day,” coffee worries weren’t an issue. The choices were Blue Plate Coffee, or…well, Blue Plate Coffee. Sometimes stores managed to carry one or two other brands, but that was about it.

Who knew turtles grew from beans?

Freshly butchered meat was always a treat, even if there were no refrigerators to help discourage bacteria growth and insect invasions.

How about a Sunday afternoon leisurely bike ride through the park?

Saturday clothes washing was easy if you owned an Easy brand electric washing machine.

Central heat meant placing the wood or coal stove in the center of the house, or store.

Freshly baked bread could be purchased directly from a horse-drawn carriage. Or, you could simply ask the telephone operator to connect you with #64, and a loaf of your favorite bread would be waiting for you at the bakery.

You certainly wouldn’t want to forget to grab some hog supplement or meat meal while shopping for fresh produce.

You know, visiting the good old days of times gone by aroused my curiosity, so I asked Sherman and Peabody if they could use the Wayback Machine to send me back to an earlier time in my life.

They agreed, and here’s where I landed—with two strange women who were far too deep into my personal space.

I’m already anxious to return to 2013.

6 replies
  1. Patricia Eimer
    Patricia Eimer says:

    My gran had one of those washing machines tucked away on the back porch! And when we’d get caught doing things she’d break that sucker out of retirement and make us wash sheets with it.

  2. Pat Marinelli
    Pat Marinelli says:

    Lee, I forgot to mention that I went to Kindergarten and 1st grade in a one room country school house. Only 18 kids from K-8th. Interesting part is there were two sets of twins in the school. My sister and I and two girls in the next grade, but when we moved back to NJ with a much larger school, we were the only set of twins in the whole school.

  3. Pat Marinelli
    Pat Marinelli says:

    I lived in the country as a kid and I remember some of this stuff, like: the one room country store, the washing machine with the rollers (ours what white), soda in a cooler with chunks of ice.

    Thanks for a trip back in time. You sure were a cute little kid!

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