History – Page 16 – I Don't Get It

Christmas Is So Close, I Can Taste It!

Portrait of an Era, Wishing Gate at Grasmere, England in 1935

Whoever Is Higher To Heaven Wins

During WWII, hats were frowned upon as an indulgence in the UK, and many woman (not daring to go in public uncovered), found that necessity was indeed the mother of invention. These British women fashioned turbans out of headscarves, which not only protected their hair while working, but also added that little pizzazz needed during an era of drudgery.

Sister, if you couldn’t get a man to notice you with this thing on your noggin, it was time to abandon hope.

Zhuzh Up Your Outdated Banister

Tired of walking past those round wooden spindles pre-turn of this century? Ashamed to have guests notice that yellow brown color that dates your abode? I wouldn’t even want to visit a home with this shade of devil’s stain. Why, it’s the shade of nicotine teeth.

Sure, you could replace them with wrought iron balusters, but isn’t that trite? What you need is to get yourself a big honking coconut tree, get your best stabbing knife, and knotch it up at intervals as make-shift steps!

So rustic! So tropical! Won’t your friends be jealous? Test their agility by testing whether rails were even necessary to make it upstairs or just holding them back. Granted, your own kids may miss bumping down a carpeted stairway in a laundry basket, or being able to carry anything at all, instead of having to carefully clutch the sides of a rough trunk to escape the monsoon. But practice makes perfect! And ladies, no more short skirts. Not on this coconut tree!

Worried you won’t be able to deck them out with Christmas festivity, as in days of yore?

Nonsense! Wrap that sucker up with some classic white LED lights. Just make sure not to step on them as you climb. Ouch!

Now that’s what I call sustainable living!

How Not To Lose Your Poise In 1943

These days, you can’t throw a stick without hitting a mom clutching a glass of vino to temper the hours of “social distance learning” with the reality of 2020.

I, for one, am happy to have a senior, whose studies I can entirely ignore. The days of monitoring or supervising are nearing an end. College acceptance takes precedence over anything left in this rotten semblance of a schoolyear. Any reminders for tests or homework go unheeded. So why bother? After a constant barrage of uninformative teacher emails and daily school texts, stating, “Yes, another coronavirus case has been detected on campus,” we shrug and move on. Every day is the same. It’s easily the worst time to be a high school senior since the threat of being shipped off to Vietnam, and I imagine the emotional and social repercussions will be heavy and long-lasting. God, do I need a drink!

In any event, I am not drinking wine nor spirits. Fate has deemed that all alcohol gives me a headache lately, and it could not be timed any worse. So coffee and tea it is, with my beloved Coke at interims. Yes, 2020 has been a nightmare on every level. But at least we have the luxury of Netflix and Amazon in quarantine. We can still be comfortable and feel relatively safe, even without the company of fermented grapes.

During WWII, however, moms had more at stake, fearing for their husbands overseas as well as wondering if bombs would drop on our very soil. Were they encouraged to sample pinot? Alas, no. The power of pulling it together lay in Alka-Seltzer.

Alka-Seltzer kept the “unjust words” at bay. And it had already been time-tested. Even Will Rogers had stamped his approval a decade prior.

The post-war would see the addition of Speedy. Serenity now! Pronto!

But it wasn’t just for ladies about to lose their minds. Anyone indulging in food or drink could make use of it. Instead of a daydrinking suburban mommy, your pre-diabetic uncle kept a roll of A-S in his pockets. Just in case.

As Americans continued to eat up, sales continued to soar. While my association with the product is limited to the “Plop plop, fizz fizz” of the 70s, children of the 60s would have seen a more animated endorsement.

These days, when every other commercial pimps a prescription drug, meant to feed your fears as well as line the pockets of Big Pharma (O-O-O-OZEMPIC!), you have thousands of other choices to provide comfort for what ails you. Most of you probably take a daily prescription to address the imperfections of your mortal coils. But do any of you still take Alka-Seltzer?