Thursday, May 5, 2011

A little bit of this and that

1. No, you're not going crazy. There was a post here yesterday about a train wreck. But the train wreck post was, ahem, a bit of a train wreck. So it has been removed. The Internet is full of incorrect information. No need to gunk it up any further with more inaccuracies. The train photo might return some day, after some additional research. I should have filed it under Mysteries to begin with!

2. In the meantime, if you want a Great Read, I suggest you check out Jim Lewin's poignant post on Book Flaps yesterday about a World War II veteran here in York County.

3. Here's a piece of ephemera for today:


It's a 1966 or 1967 coupon for 5¢ off Ivory Liquid1. My favorite part is that the coupon is part of Procter & Gamble's "Safari Sweepstakes". According to the back of the coupon, you could check the winning numbers at your local grocery store. The sweepstakes is described as:
"Pack excitement into your life! Win a luxury trip for two to Africa and Europe -- all expenses paid -- with $10,000 mad money besides! Swimming in Capetown ...photographing exotic animals in Kenya national game parks...sight-seeing in London...shopping in Paris...olé-oléing in Madrid! The best of everything for 2 whole weeks -- if you're the Grand Prize winner!"
I wonder if there's any way to find out who won this 44 years ago? The contest was "Void in Wisconsin", so that's one state we can rule out.

4. Finally, here's today's "love at first sight" image:


This is the kind of find that makes it all worth it, when rummaging through box after box of books. To you, it might look like a falling-apart book that should have been thrown about 60 years ago. To me, it's a treasure chest.

The book is titled "A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband"2, and it was written by Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles Le Cron and published in 1917. Copies of this book in good condition3 sell for about $25. But I probably wouldn't sell this even if it was in decent condition. It has too much charm and personality. It's absolutely stuffed with newspaper clippings, scrawled recipes, pamphlets and other goodies. This book was loved and kept in someone's kitchen for a long time. There's a history there that deserves to be told, and this blog will be the place for it some day.

Footnotes
1. According to The History of Dish Soap: "In 1957, Ivory liquid dish soap was introduced, using the motto 'Tough on grease, easy on hands.' Decades later, a concentrated form of the product was introduced. 'Ultra' Ivory dishwashing soap hit store shelves in 1995, and consumers only need to use one-third the amount of 'Ultra' Ivory as compared to the old formula."
2. Hold your jokes, people with dirty minds.
3. Which is to say, copies that actually have an intact spine.

2 comments:

  1. Uhoh. Should I start reading this? Am I doing it wrong? :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I suspected that the phrase "mad money" came from "money for getting home when mad at date". It's good to finally have a confirmation.

    ReplyDelete