Philip Spiess

I understand OSS, FBI, POTUS, ACLU, SPCA, WCTU, YMCA, #MeToo (or something.).

I'm sorry; I do not understand your expectations or assumptions for grammagram; please explain.

But I can give you numerous Clerihews, if you wish, or not.

Jerry Ochs

The words in my previous post are odious, envious, and expediency.  I thought of three more while falling asleep, but will hold off posting them. 
 

Philip Spiess

B2NVS - IM!  (Want Palindromes?)

G,YRUNQ4NOP8?  OK?

Philip Spiess

Apparently, we've once again exhausted the Forum's possibilities and opportunities for intellectual exchange.  To give it one more potential heft, I'm going to take up Mr. Lounds' challenge to me of sometime back on this site, namely, to come up with a list of common objects and technologies from our youth which are now obsolete or have completely disappeared, to be replaced (or not) by a new development.  I propose to make no extended historical commentary on these, but just to list some, in the hopes of jarring your memories or sparking your interest in commenting yourselves or adding others.

The first in such a list that always comes to my mind is the glass milk bottle (still prevalent in England), particularly the home-delivered type (in my case, from Coors Dairy on Gray Road in Winton Place), usually with a paper cap covered by a crimped waxed-paper cover (if the cream froze into a 2- to 3-inch cylinder on a particularly cold day, it pushed up these caps -- exciting for a child to see!).  [My father, born in 1918 in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, stated that the dairies in those days delivered milk by the lidded tin pail, and you knew if they'd stopped by the Miami & Erie Canal (drained and covered over circa 1925 to become the Cincinnati Rapid Transit System -- which was built, but never run) to water-down the milk if you found a frog in your milk.]

The typewriter -- which, I'm sure, we all used in our undergraduate college days, with its ink ribbons and all, has been replaced by the word processor (I believe even that term is somewhat obsolete by now).  This was technology you could actually fix yourself, if you had a mind to, when it broke down.  Fairly short-lived, as it turned out, but indispensable my senior year in college for my undergraduate thesis, was "Corrasible" [sp.?] Bond Typing Paper, which could be -- erased! (yeah, it kind of smudged, and sometimes the paper ripped in the erasing process).  And who could forget carbon paper, with which, if you reversed it, you could type things backwards?  It's gone the way of blotting paper, used with fountain pens with real liquid ink (discussed, along with ballpoint pens, around Posts 3553 through 3568, above).  (Blotting paper's predecessor was the scattering of salt or sand -- both very absorbent -- over the damp ink, then blowing it off the paper.)  The wooden carbon lead pencil, however, survives unchanged from the days when Henry David Thoreau and his family helped make it a reality in Concord, Massachusetts (when he was writing Thorough nature studies at that Walled-In Pond).  And although wallpaper still exists, has anyone seen "Wallpaper Cleaner" in years, that Silly-Putty-like green-gray substance (has anyone seen Silly-Putty in years?) that had a distinct "sweet chemical" smell, and which was fun to rub up and down the wallpaper while you watched the grease and dirt "disappear"?

To switch from objects to businesses, I, for one, mourn the passing of the small, independent specialty business shops which I used to inhabit on weekends with our classmate Don Dahmann, as we both indulged in our various hobbies.  (I'll skip the ones I've known in Washington, such as Tandy's Leather Goods; the store where I could get my electric razor cleaned and repaired -- no more! --; and the store where I could get scraps of plate glass, since you won't know those, but I'll mention some Cincinnati ones.)  There was Woker's Medical Supply, on the north side of the street across from Shillito's, where I could get all kinds of glassware to supply my Chemistry Set activities and experiments (can one even find a traditional chemistry set these days?).  There was the Netherland Rubber Company, located (I think) on 3rd Street east of Main, where you could get all sorts and sizes of rubber tubing or rubber sheeting for various projects.  And there was, nearby in that same location, a company which specialized in repairing umbrellas.  In Winton Place, there was Kristos & Drivakos [sp.?] Chocolate Shop, with exquisite chocolate-covered pineapple and delightful licorice boats [note:  for years there was a major licorice factory on Western (Freeman?) Avenue, just north of the convent and the armory and the Lincoln Park entrance to Cincinnati Union Terminal, which you could smell a block or two away], but now there aren't even any candy counters in the department stores or malls anymore -- I used to enjoy the Russell Stover counter in Shillito's and the opera creams from Putnam's on, I think, Race Street.  In O'Briensville, there was Harry Garrison's Piano Shop, where you could get player pianos and even nickelodeons restored, and on north Main Street (Elm?) was Japp's Wigs and hair restorer establishment (I never went in -- didn't need to -- but I always admired the fact that their window display never changed from year to year).  It was all somehow (to me) very Dickensian, and I'd love to hear if you had similar experiences in your youth.

Enough for now; I've plenty I could add, but I'd like to hear from all of you.

E. Churchill McKinney

There is some indication that the wooden carbon lead pencil is on the way out. There is a documentary "No. 2: Story of the Pencil" that details some pencil history.  Although a number of people are obsessed with the Blackwing 602, manufacture ceased in the late 90s, and Eberhard Faber was sold (and was last purchased by Paper Mate). When I mentioned this to a friend, she bundled up several very sharp pencils, tied them with ribbon, and gave them to me as a gift. Nice lady.

Dale Gieringer

     OMG, where to start?

  How about TV repair shops, vacuum tubes, and those tube-testing machines that were in hardware and drug stores?  Or speaking of drug stores, what about soda fountains?  And remember when Paregoric and codeine were available over-the-counter and used to treat kids?

  Then there's stand-alone home radios that weren't also alarm clocks, stereo systems, or car radios.  And of course phonograph records, especially the 78s and 45s, unless you're a vinyl record collector.  And photographic film of all kinds.  Photo development stores.  Brownies and Polaroid cameras, which came and went.   Mimeograph machines whenever you wanted to make several copies of a poster, handout or blurb.
   Mechanical cash registers and adding machines.  Toys made out of wood and metal instead of plastic.  Coke machines with racks where you could dispose of the recyclable bottles.  Milkmen who delivered fresh to your door, and breadmobiles that roamed the street like ice-cream trucks.     Newspaper racks - the early kind worked on the honor system, an open rack with a slot where you paid your nickel;  then they added covers so people couldn't steal a paper without paying.  Now the few newspaper racks left are all beat up and used only for free newspapers.   And there are hardly any phone booths or phone books left here in the Bay Area.  

     Full-service gas stations where the attendant routinely checked your oil and washed your windows.  
     And remember when you could just walk on a plane after checking your bag?  I could go on and on, but leave it to others to chime in.   

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

Love the new topic Phil!

I never knew there was a licorice factory but I love certain kinds of black licorice. There was a store called Herman's that sold candy and we used to go each year before a road trip. We loved black licorice cigarettes. They were hollow. I wonder if they came from that factory. I've never heard of it but does anyone else remember hollow licorice cigarettes? . 

My sister was partial to Brighholly's that was across from Bond Hill Elementary. We went there until we moved. I was in the middle of 4th grade so she was in 2nd grade but she is knowledgeable about all novelty candies. She missed her calling and should have been in the candy business.  Instead she moved to Waynesville and lives on a farm. She gives us all different candy for each special occasion like birthdays and Christmas. 

Yes, word processor is outmoded. We bought one for our older son but after that it was all computers. 

Gail Weintraub (Stern)

I still purchase organic milk, cream, etc in recyclable glass bottles. At the grocery store, you pay an additional  fee for the glass bottle which is refunded upon its return. However, they are no longer delivered to my kitchen door as in the past.

Philip Spiess

Churchill:  My reference point for the pencil is Henry Petroski's The Pencil:  A History of Design and Circumstance (1990); his discussion of the Thoreau family's involvement is chapter 9, "An American Pencil-Making Family."  But I'm baffled by the thought that the pencil, as such, may be going out of existence; what is to replace it (computer-designed stuff will not replace the various tasks that the pencil fulfills so easily)?

Dale:  Keep going!  From the tiny ones to the gigantic ones, vacuum tubes are now collectors' items within a certain class of enthusiasts (and, yes, Bruce, along those lines, we'll eventually get back to deciphering the Crosley radio tower and its power at Mason, Ohio; it turns out that my mother's cousin, Clyde "Buddy" Haehnle, was its major designer).  [Which brings us to the riddle I used to pose to my Middle School classes:  "What word in the English language has a double U in it, that does not have a W in it?"  Of course, when spoken, this is a totally baffling question.]  When last checked on (about twenty years ago, so it may have gone the way of all flesh by now), there was still a magnificent 1904-era ice cream parlor on the main drag in Columbus, Indiana, complete with working Orchestrion (although they had stopped making their own ice cream, though still having the equipment).  I was given Paregoric several times around the ages of 11 to 13.  The first time it was administered to me diluted with water, and I threw up at the taste; the second time I insisted on taking it straight, took it down in one gulp, and slept like a bug in a rug (you can bet!).  Going back to smells:  inside the back door of the Sears on Reading Road, there was always the smell of (somewhat) rancid roasting peanuts, which, I believe, were in a vending machine somewhere in that vicinity; this type of vending machine has now disappeared.

Other notes to Dale:  The Germans still make and sell wonderful 1940s-style metal toys.  And ha-ha!  Coke vending machines:  Don Dahmann and I could tell you a story (yep! I'm about to) about when we were working on our Boy Scout "God and Country" awards at our church, Immanuel Presbyterian in Clifton.  The church was undergoing an expansion, and we were helping to tear out the old kitchens.  The building was partly open at this time to the out of doors, and we discovered mice were coming in, which we dispatched by wacking them with brooms.  As it happened, there was a Coke dispensing machine in the adjacent church's Community Room, and a soda distributor came in one day to fill it. He left his keys in the machine while he went upstairs to the office to settle accounts, and we took this opportunity to stick a dead mouse in an empty Coke bottle, cap it with one of the caps that was in the de-capping bin, and replace the bottle back in the vending machine.  Neither Don nor I have any idea how this subsequently played out, but I'm sure it was a corker.

More to Dale:  I won't discuss phonographs or photographic film (like hell I won't!) -- these subjects are anathema to me!  Records are not the problem, per se; it's finding and servicing the machines to play them on that is the problem.  I have in my collection a Regina music box that plays stamped-tin records, which I had to send to Arizona to get serviced a number of years ago; an Edison Cylinder record player (1911) with some 75 cylinder records (it was my graduation present from Walnut Hills; you can see it in some of the pictures on my WHHS Profile), which works very well, but I had to send to California years ago to get its second needle (it's two-speed:  it plays both 2-minute and 4-minute records with separate needles).  My 78 - 45 - 33 1/3 r.p.m. record player gave up the ghost some time ago; luckily I'd gotten a Crosley 1950s repro player for my son -- 78, 45, and 33 1/3 r.p.m. -- which I now borrow to play my voluminous 78 and 33 1/3 collections.  Tapes and tape recorders have been left behind; my wife got me a CD player for my 50th birthday which I sneered at -- so it quit working.  As to photographic film:  all of those thousands of slides I took to use in my teaching over 40-some years I now have to convert to compact discs -- or not use at all.  Kodak is out of business; my camera is obsolete; I take pictures with my i-phone, but I have no idea where they go once I take them.

I am now so depressed at these thoughts, I think I'll quit writing for now, and just cry quietly into my featherbed.

Chuck Cole

When we were in school, there was a TV show called "You Asked for It" (it would mean something different today).  The one I remember best was the one that showed us how pencils were made by going through a pencil factory.

Here in Vermont, we have both an organic dairy and a long-time non-organic dairy that use glass bottles.  Glass bottles for local dairies are part of the nostalgia element present in our culture.

I remember taking all of the vacuum tubes out of a radio that worked and taking them down to a tube-testing machine somewhere in St. Berrnard.  They all worked--surprise.  And when I got them home and put them back into the radio, the radio no longer worked.  I had broken one on the way home.  

I believe that about the only plastic around when we were born was nylon.  Only after WWII did nylon items become widely available.  And then the plastic avalanche began, and continues.  Hard to imagine our world with plastic.  

I remember my grandmother telling us about the time her family got their first telephone.  Doubtless some among us remember party line phones.  Our grandchildren, when they are in their 70s, will tell their grandchildren that they remember us talking nostalgically about pencils and fountain pens and watches you wound up, rotary phones, and the list goes on and on and on.

David Buchholz

To quote Phil:  "As to photographic film:  all of those thousands of slides I took to use in my teaching over 40-some years I now have to convert to compact discs -- or not use at all.  Kodak is out of business; my camera is obsolete; I take pictures with my i-phone, but I have no idea where they go once I take them."

Three years ago Jadyne and I took on the Herculean task of going through fifty carousels of my 35mm slides with two intentions:  one, to scan and create Shutterfly books chronicling the years 0-18 of each of our three children, and two, to save and scan artistic images that I created during my career as a photographer.  We set up a slide projector and screen and dutifully went through them one at a time, a large wastebasket at our side.  It took the better part of a year, but it's done.  The discarded slides filled two large fifty-five gallon barrels.  I also went through boxes of "seconds", using a light table, and did the same for those.  I have several notebooks filled with 35 mm black and white negatives,, some of which I've scanned and saved, including a portrait of Cesar Chavez.  Film still lives, and there's a Berkeley photography store that caters to the purists.  I am not one of them.  If I never smell fixer again I'll be okay.

Hasselblad cameras represented the pinnacle of film cameras.  Images from space were taken with Hasselblads.  A current top of the line Hasselblad (w/o lens) costs $48,000.  It's digital.  I don't have one.

I do have over three thousand scanned slides, including this one, the first image that I ever took that led me to think I might have a career some day doing this.  1969

Phil wondered about digital images, "but I have no idea where they go once I take them."  Editing images is a lengthy, plodding activity.  Without editing though, even our most meaningful images will be lost.  I hate editing.  But I do it.  The best images will carry meaning that makes saving, filing, preserving, and backing up worthwhile.  We seldom recognize the value of an image when we first create it.

And speaking of other losses.  Yesterday Jadyne and I drove to Stockton, CA for the 37th annual Indian powwow.  Indians don't just exist in casinos, and Stockton is the home of many different tribes.  Indians from all over the West come to Stockton each year for this three-day affair.  Here is one of the faces we saw yesterday and a link if you wish to see more:

http://www.davidkbuchholz.com/stockton-powwow/

Paul Simons

This is mainly in reply to comments about vacuum tubes. They never went out of style in guitar amps because when overdriven the clip - compress - and distort harmonically, producing the singing tone that many love. Also there's been a revitalization of high-end audiophile tube amplifiers like the ones in the pictures for absolute purists - they do NOT distort and are claimed to be more "pure" and "warm" sounding that solid-state analog or digital types. People who have a ton of extra money go for them - they cost a lot.

Nancy Messer

A couple of years ago my neighbor who does a lot of things for me was at my house with a little girl around 7 years old.  I wasn't home at the time.  The little girl commented that the things in my house were very old time.  She was looking at the turntable and didn't know what it was.  Of course the turntable is connected to a receiver that was passed down to me from my father when I was just out of college!  I'm sure none of this works but I'm going to hang on to the turntable - along with all my LP albums!

Philip Spiess

Once again, I hesitate to interject my oar before other comments have been posted (yeah, I know, you're saying, "So don't!"), but having started this thread, I feel the need to respond to some previous comments.

Dale:  The superior cash registers and adding machines (as you may know) were those of William S. Burroughs and his corporation of the 1890s, and later the Ritty Cash Register of the Dayton-based National Cash Register Company, as well as the work of Frederick L. Fuller for IBM.  The first modern calculators (as we know them) were developed by Charles Babbage in the 1830s, and the first printing calculator was by Georg Scheutz, 1852-1854; Herman Hollerith designed the first punched-card computer system (based on the Jacquard textile weaving loom of the 1830s, and the later punched-tin records of the Regina music box [see my post above], and the punched-paper rolls of the player piano), which was first used for the 1890 U. S. Census, and continued in use, as many of us know and used, well up into the late 1970s (at least) -- now another past artifact.  Breadmobiles I don't remember, but every once in a while (Maine last summer; my own neighborhood two days ago) I come across a telephone booth that still has a phone in it (forget the telephone book!); I have not checked to see if they worked.

Barbara:  I'll come back to old-fashioned candy, etc., on a later post; it will take up too much space at the moment.

Gail and Chuck:  So glad to hear that glass milk bottles are still being used; it's another artifact that I know from my museum days is a collector's item (the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, has a major collection).  [Chuck:  My wife and I spent a glorious 40th anniversay trip touring Vermont at the end of June, with day trips out of Woodstock; I called it "touring up and down I-91."]

Chuck:  I well remember the show "You Asked for It," sponsored by Skippy Peanut Butter.  One of my jokes at the time at good old WHHS was "This show is going off the air, because -- 'You Asked for It!'"  In 1976, at the Smithsonian's U. S. National Museum of American History's Bicentennial Exhibit, there was a working machine that made wooden pencils on site as souvenirs of the exhibit.  However, Chuck, I must dispute with you on the matter of plastics (I guess it partly depends on one's definition of "plastic").  Early plastics, conceived and scientifically called as such, included Lac and Shellac (the most ancient plastics, i.e., resins), Gutta-Percha, Hard Rubber, Vulcanite and Ebonite, Parkesine, and an important one at the very beginning of the 20th century, Celluloid (used in both collars and cuffs and collar stiiffeners, in many objects for madam's vanity table, such as brushes, combs, and hair-savers, and in beer paddles and political campaign buttons).  And yes, around the Civil War and somewhat after there was a "plastic" product known as "Hemosote," made of a combination of glue, sawdust, and ox blood (thus giving it a distinctly reddish tinge, by which it can be recognized).  I have both a bas-relief plaque of General Grant and a hinged and militarily-decorated photographic frame made of this substance.  Another major substance of this period considered "plastic" was Papier-Mache (yes, you read right);  babies' cradles, decorative bowls, and even coffered ceilings (see the entrance hall to the Engineering Society of Baltimore) were made of the stuff.  Then later there was Cellulose Acetate, Casein, Phenol Formaldehyde (Phenolic) -- more popularly known as Bakelite (1907; very prominent in telephones, radios, and various scientific instruments) -- and Urea Formaldehyde.  These were the early ones, but yes, you are quite correct in remembering the later ones:  Nylon (Wallace Carothers, ca. 1931), developed by the Du Pont Company (the scions of whom paid for my graduate education in History and Museum Studies at the University of Delaware, 1968-1970); and all the other synthetic ones that came after.  And yes, on your other matter, telephones and watches (and clocks), there was a period that no historian of technology (or anyone else) has ever mentioned -- the "winding era" (no doubt with distinct periods) -- probably from the 14th century to the late 20th century -- and beyond (this includes my Regina music box, my Edison phonograph, the much later phonographs still in use in Clifton School when I was in 5th Grade, the operation of the earliest automobiles, and so much more).

Area codes for telephones were introduced when I was in 6th Grade, making it in the year 1957-1958 (and thereby the old exchange names, such as "University" and then the number -- 861-3092, which was ours in Clifton, were defunct -- but I still have a list of all of those telephone exchange names for Cincinnati at that time).  More later.

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

To all my Jewish classmates I would like to wish Shana Tova. May it be a year of health, happiness and peace to us and to our loved ones.

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

If I could figure out how to turn this around I would. My sister gave me several books last Christmas. Along with Cincinnati Candy I have Virginia Bakery, Lost Tea Rooms of Downtown Cincinnati and Historic Restaurants of Cincinnati

Nancy Messer

Thought you might like this.

https://www.facebook.com/RealLaughOrCroak/videos/1666459876746471/UzpfSTEwMDAwMjE3MzY5ODgxNjoxNDMxNDU3ODEzNjAzMzI4/

Jerry Ochs

So nobody gets a crick in the neck.

Philip Spiess

Barbara:  As my dentist and my cardiologist will attest, I have a sweet tooth.  I was going to comment on candy in Cincinnati as I remembered it, but apparently someone has beat me to the task, with more research than I can claim, since I've done none.  I can only grope through what synapses of mine may still be working, and come up with some minor thoughts on the subject.

First off, "Penny Candies":  these, consisting largely of long, thin cylinders of variously flavored treats, can still be found, in both historic and spurious forms, in many so-called "Country Stores" and the sales shops of museum villages; orange, cinnamon, and even watermelon are among the traditional flavors.  Black and/or red licorice whips are also usually among these offerings.  If you find authentic "Horehound Candy" (Claeys still makes the real thing) or (god bless!) even "Sen-Sen" breath fresheners (mentioned in the musical "The Music Man," and which I haven't seen in years), then you know you are among the original and chosen.  Second:  "Horlick's Malted Milk Tablets" were a treat that the Tooth Fairy brought (I knew who it was who brought it, having wakened up, to my older sister's dismay), but, again, I haven't seen them for years (they came in a bottle, and I think they were out of England).  Should "Halvah" be offered, get it -- it's a great treat; I used to get it in Cincinnati's Jewish delicatessens and stores, and I'm sure it is still available there.

I've already mentioned (above) my favorite Winton Place confectionery; I hope it's in the book.  I've also mentioned Putnam's Opera Creams (I do have recipes for opera creams, as well as Salt Water Taffy, to be pulled, if anybody's interested, as well as Hallowe'en Popcorn Balls), and then there were, available nationally, Whitman's Sampler (I got one just this week, and it's not what it was) and Russell Stover Candies, for which there used to be a counter in Shillito's.  My grandmother, in my late WHHS years or maybe when I was home from college, would let me pick out a box of Russell Stover candies to take home; I most often selected their chocolate-covered honeycomb molasses bars, their chocolate-covered orange-jelly slices, and their candies covered with a green-colored cream coating but which had within them a soft-based, almost (but not quite) molasses candy filling (which I can't quite describe).  Current Russell Stover offerings bear little relation to any of this.  [Ah, yes!  There was the moment (call it 1968; it may or may not have been) when my grandmother had bought me some large cinnamon balls, which I wanted -- and which I was sucking on -- as we emerged from Shillito's garage, and when we had reached the exit to the street, Grandma suddenly hit the brakes sharply, and the cinnamon ball, still pretty large in my mouth, went straight down my throat.  I was choking -- it was blocking my windpipe -- so I quickly upended, head-first on the floor -- and the ball rolled back into my mouth -- and I survived (I think).]  Enough of candies -- until we hear more.

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

I give you the toxins we were exposed to in childhood:

MERTHIOLATE and MERCUROCHROME applied to our knee boo-boos.

MERCURY filled thermometers, which we broke on purpose so we could play with the mercury, and...

LEAD based paint on those metal toys and No. 2 pencils 

I forgot, after eating all of that candy, the dentist put MERCURY amalgam fillings in our teeth. 

Dale Gieringer

 And speaking of penny candies, what costs a penny anymore?   Pennies aren't even worth the cost of their own manufacture.  It's mystifying why the government hasn't stopped issuing them.   They could do the same with nickels, too, as far as I'm concerned.   In the past year, I've stopped carrying pocket change. It only causes problems in metal detectors.  We do keep a stash of quarters in the car for use in parking meters.  A quarter is good for 6 minutes  here in Berkeley.  I remember when it was  $.20 per hour at Shillito's garage.  By my reckoning,  the dollar has inflated 1000% since we were in school, especially if you account for higher costs here in the Bay Area.  An on-line US inflation calculator puts the actual inflation rate at 713% between 1964 and now .  By way of contrast, the rate of inflation from 1913 to 1964 was just 213%.  Americans of our generation have become accustomed to inflating their way out of budget deficits and debt.  

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

Fo you Phil:

Sorry it's sideways again - can't figurer it out and no helpers here. This is from the Candy book.

At Shillito's we went to the Barton's counter for the mixed chocolate covered rasins in milk, dark and white. That was our favorite. 

Jerry Ochs

Crick-prevention again:

Philip Spiess

Bless you, Barbara (and Jerry) for showing me the correct spelling of Christos & Drivakis, Confectioners Extraordinaire of Winton Place!  Their chocolate (and their licorice boats!) was like no other!

Thanks, Ann!  I well remember both Merthiolate (I hated it; it seemed to burn on a cut or bruise) and Mercurochrome (which I liked; it didn't seem to burn so much).  Having 9th-Grade Biology with Mr. Woodward, Jeff Daum, Steve Berman, and I (and sometimes, I think, Dale Gieringer) used to go to his room during study hall in 6th period to hang out and "help" him in the Conservatory (yeah, right!).  On one occasion, something broke, and I collected a cute little puddle of mercury in a plastic pill case.  I had it and played with it for years, breaking it apart into little droplets, then pushing it back together into one big puddle again.  However, in the early 1990s, I was on contract with the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, to catalogue the objects in their recently-established museum, the DeWitt Stetten Museum of Medical Research.  The collection was stored underground in a filthy room, and some of the objects, being old medical equipment and machines, were still filled with plenty of mercury, radium, various poisons and acids, and even some nuclear material.  During my three years there, I wrote a Health and Safety Report about this situation to the board which governed the museum, said board consisting of the various heads of some of the National Institutes of Health.  I was asked to present the report in person; I'll never forget it:  half of these doctors during the meeting smoked cigarettes like fiends, and one, who was head (director) of the National Heart and Blood Institute, said, "Well, Mr. Spiess, this report (HACK! HACK! COUGH! COUGH!) is all very well, but (SPUTTER! COUGH! HACK! HRRUCKH!) all of us here (KA-HEM!) around this table have worked (KA-CHERK! KAAA-CH-CH-CH-CHERK!) with these machines for years, and (SPUTTER! SPUTTER! GURGLE! WHEEZE!) we've never had any (PA-CHOO!) problems!"  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so I just took my paycheck (ka-check!) and cashed it at once.

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Anybody a fan of Esther Price chocolates? This was our family's chocolate addiction of choice. On trips back to Cincinnati from Israel after they moved there in the 1970s, my mom and aunt brought back so many boxes for themselves and for me that Israel Customs must have wondered what was up with these sweet elderly ladies..... My cousin tells me they are still there, so if any fellow chocoholics wish to try Esther Price, I would be interested in knowing how they compare with others.