Showing posts with label Sears Catalog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sears Catalog. Show all posts

Jul 22, 2011

Bologna Festival

This year it will be held next week, July 29-31 in Yale, Michigan and twenty thousand people are expected to join the fun. Yale bologna is said to be some of the best in the world. It is bit more course and strongly seasoned than Oscar Mayer slices. This bologna has been rumored to help people live to be 120 years old and I will let you know when I reach it. Every year, well over a thousand pounds of bologna are served either fried in sandwiches, stuck between a bun as a hot dog or placed on a stick for quick consumption. Bologna is  also great barbecued.

The Bologna Queen crown is quite prestigious in Yale. Contestants must declare their intention to run up to six weeks in advance and be willing to raise tens of thousands of dollars for charity. The lucky lady who captures this title receives a crown of ring bologna and a King for her arm. Of course, there is also the outhouse race where people build interesting 'houses' on wheels to push around town as fast as they can. They must include a Sears catalog and somebody riding inside. Mmmm, wish I was there, ring bologna is one of my favorites. Yes, bologna is the proper spelling even though most pronounce it baloney.

Jun 16, 2011

History of TP in the USA

The first product designed specifically to wipe one’s behind was invented in 1857 by a New Yorker named Joseph Gayetty, who sold boxes of  individual sheets infused with aloe. It was a difficult sell and he didn't exactly wipe out the competition as Americans still had the free Sears catalog, as well as other free alternatives.

In 1890, the Scott brothers came up with toilet paper on a roll, which they mainly marketed to hotels and drugstores. It was still a difficult sell and many were reluctant to go out and order something so personal. They managed to cling on and are still selling their product today.

As the 1900s began, more homes included inside flush toilets. That is when greater acceptance came for toilet paper. Indoor plumbing did not do well with catalog paper or other heavier alternatives, like leaves, etc. People required a product that could be flushed away with minimal clogging or damage to the pipes and catalog paper, corncobs, and moss did not flush well. Toilet paper became an alternative that still works.

The United States spends more than $6 billion a year on toilet tissue, more than any other nation in the world. Maybe someone can invent a way to turn junk mail into toilet paper and it would at least have some value.