As I get old, and by definition I am aging daily, [View all]

[PCIntern]

I begin to reminisce about a number of things, some interesting and relevant, some not at all germane to today’s life.

In my lifetime I went to school with kids a couple years older than I who wore braces on their legs from polio. They were the lucky ones. Some people in my neighborhood were confined to iron lungs. I do recall that when an ambulance pulled up to a home, you more likely than not never saw that person again. Heart attacks were often fatal or there was a second one almost immediately and there was nothing anyone could do. I remember going to houses wherein we were told to keep our voices low so we wouldn’t cause someone’s grandparent to have another heart attack.

If someone wasn’t feeling well, and went to the doctor, it was not unheard of for the doctor to admit the patient to a local hospital wherein the general surgeon would perform an exploratory operation. If cancer were found enveloping an organ or spread elsewhere, the patient would be sewn up and sent home to make his or her final preparations. There were no CAT scans or MRI’s to ascertain anything.

There were no seat belts or airbags and steering wheels and dashboards were fabricated from metal. Front end collision at any real speed usually meant death to the occupants of the car (Weirdly, when airbags were invented, only the driver was saved from impact -there were jokes involving that fact).

It seemed that nearly everyone smoked cigarettes. If a family moved into the neighborhood it would be remarked when informing neighbors about them that amazingly, they were non-smokers and people might be put off by this, realizing that if they visited, they might not be allowed to smoke in the house. People had their brands to which they were loyal and one of the things I remember vividly was that when a pack was 33 cents at the store, they were 35 cents in a cigarette machine but there were two Pennies inside the cellophane for change if that machine were located in the store or just outside for Sunday sales.

Speaking of which, there were Blue Laws in many states and only necessities could be purchased on Sundays. Portions of the few supermarkets or grocery stores that were open were roped off where non-necessities were stacked. It was a very big deal in Pennsylvania when 7-11 Stores opened because you could buy food on Sundays but you did pay a premium except for milk, whose maximum price was fixed by the Commonwealth. And there were outdoor milk machines so you could buy a dispensed quart of milk off hours or Sundays. No bars or restaurants were permitted to serve alcohol until after most church services had been completed on Sundays.

There were all kinds of over the counter medicines and medicaments which no longer exist because they were outright ineffective or dangerous. They had been used for hundreds of years routinely. Mercurochrome contained mercury which, if dosed sufficiently, is poisonous. Tincture of merthiolate was another, also with mercury -there is still merthiolate but it doesn’t utilize the metal anymore. I loved the smell of the anti-bacterial ST-37 which I believe is gone as well. The introduction of Bactine eliminated a lot of these medicaments because the company advertised it magnificently.

I know many here don’t like very long posts so I’ll stop here. Oh…one more thing. Standard Oil Company’s gasoline was called Esso in many regions. They changed it to Exxon and what they did was take the “Tiger in the Tank” cartoon and have it carrying the Exxon sign up the gas station pole for a couple months and then had it carrying the Esso station sign down having placed a new Exxon sign at the top. Very clever.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!