Heads up, Mid-centurians. Incidentally, I really like that new name historians have given us. "Baby Boomers" made us sound like a bunch of loud brats who just barged into the world, un-invited, like a generation of party crashers. While that may be accurate, it wasn't really our fault that women had to dance with other women until the war ended. Millions of GI's came home, and voila, the result was US.
But, I digress. The point of this piece is to reminisce about products of our past, which may or may not have been intended to help us.
"BEAUTY": Dippity Do styling gel, Butch Hair Wax, OJ Beauty Lotion, Tackle acne gel.
Then, there were those health and first-aid products: Mercurochrome, which stained you red and stung so much you forgot the pain of the actual wound. Grownups would also attack our cuts and bruises with such treatments as Iodine tincture and a very bizarre ointment called "black salve," which apoarently just stank out the germs with eau de tar. Seriously, based on the tarry odor, I would think you could get the same reults from rubbing your wound agsinst a heavily creosoted telephone pole. Two words: P. U.!
Bearing in mind this was an era when companies were not strictly required to list all of the ingredients, I can't help but wonder if some of these so-called "remedies," like our toys, schools, and the houses we lived in, were laden with lead and asbestos.
At the risk of sounding paranoid, were they really trying to help us? Or was the objective to wipe us out just as we entered, en masse?
Hey, a trip down Memory Lane, by definition means you're looking over your shoulder. Just sayin'.
