Thursday, February 11, 2010

It's Your Lucky Smoke-Filled Blog Day

I love to read through old magazines, probably because I always wanted to time travel, and finding real artifacts of people's daily life helps me in that quest. I can tell you one thing: people liked to drink hard liquor. Every other page is a whiskey ad! Coming up second are cigarettes, with Lucky Strike or Tarleton appearing every other page. "I'd rather fight than switch!" shouts the advert, showing a man with black greased eye and cigarette dangling between sly grinning lips.

I think we an all agree that drinking and smoking aren't the best choices for good health, but I wonder how far society has been dragged away from its natural tendencies. Aren't we supposed to have a couple of vices to keep life going smooth? The fact is, people are still smoking and drinking, but now we try to act as if there aren't liquor stores every five feet and cigarette butts in our gutters. It's still happening, but we no longer embrace it—we shun it and those who do it, like a bad disease.

I think the real drug back then was milk. Powdered milk, condensed milk, fresh out of the udder milk . . . put it on your waffles, your jello, your green bean-maple flavored casserole??? It was everywhere. And did you know, ladies at home, that if you write a twenty-five word essay on why you love Carnation so much, you just might win a trip to Paris? That's right. All you need to do is send in your winning entry with twenty labels. Don't delay, send it in today!

Carnation is the best for my family because . . .
it's the sweetest, creamiest, dairy
use it for coffee, waffles and treats,
you'll never, ever be sorry!

I so could have won that trip to Paris, darn it!

My favorite ads are the cars. Oh slobber. American cars ruled back in the day! I would do just about anything for a ride in an old Camaro or Charger. And Pontiacs were so huge, it makes me get all happy inside. Old gas-guzzling hunks of steel make me fill with glee. Seriously, right now my stomach is all twisty-turny thinking about riding in one of those monsters. I need help.

Before I leave, I just want to say that you too can drink the same vitamin-filled juice the astronauts enjoy. Soooo, go tell your parents to buy you some zesty Tang. It will Energize, and Vitalize your day! Get Tanged!


5 comments:

  1. Wow this post had me thinking of this weekend, I went to an old swap meet, at a local college. I ran across an old Rodale Herb Book that I had ( I forgot ) all about it. I thought about posting a comment on my blog- Yes Amy, those ad's was great, The Ice Cubes in those drinks Chrystal Clear. I have a library of old National Geo magazines. These are lil gems.

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  2. Haha- I think I have some old National Geographic mags too! I remember the one that came out when they discovered the Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic, and the cover was a holographic image.

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  3. I Have that ONE! I just found it. I went through a whole year last night, Thank you Amy so much, I just can't thank you enough. I have "TEN YEARS of Nat Geo in leather bound case's... I haven't thought about them in 5 years. I will dedicate a day each week to Nat Geo- and all their pull outs.

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  4. You should post some of these ads. I'd love to see them.

    As to cigarettes, they are frightening. I'm quite convinced someone's going to flick one out their car window and it's going to bounce into my gas tank and blow me up.

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  5. I've had trouble imbedding pictures on here before, but I'll try it again.

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