If We Didn't Have It We Used:
- Q tip -- cotton wound around a match
- Scouring powder -- wood stove ashes
- Glue -- raw egg white
- Hot water bottle -- heated rock or bag of heated rock salt
- Toothpaste -- salt mixed with baking soda
- Paste -- flour mixed with water
- Bandage -- torn-in-strips old bedsheets
- Adhesive tape -- needle and thread
- Deodorant -- baking soda
- Ice -- hailstones or blocks cut in winter from a pond or river
- Waxed paper -- found inside cereal boxes
- Sandwich bags -- waxed paper
- Foil -- gum wrappers
- Ink -- laundry bluing
- Group transportation -- truck with seats in back
- Tire repair kit -- can of rubber patch and glue
- Air for tires -- hand operated tire pump
- Toilet tissue -- Sears or Wards catalog
- Salad dressing -- cream, sugar and vinegar mixed well
- Sanitary napkin -- old sheets
- Pencil sharpener -- knife
- Fingernail clipper -- kitchen scissors
- Salve/Ointment for wounds -- lard mixed with kerosene and turpentine
- Hand lotion -- cream or lard
- Laundry soap -- you made it from grease and lye
- Lunch pail -- lard bucket with a handle
- New mop -- old clothing on a mop stick
- Cough syrup -- raw onion and sugar syrup
- Fresh milk -- milked a cow twice daily
So do you really think life was better in the good old days? How would you have fared?
(Thanks to Nostalgia Magazine, Nov-Dec 2010 issue for this wonderful article by Leone A. Browning.)
