Tuesday, November 04, 2008

It's All Trew: Good use of newspaper Today's highly-touted "recycling" programs are not new to old timers. The terms of "save it, use it up and wear it out" were the everyday habits of the early day families in order to get by and survive. Nothing was wasted or just tossed out. There was always a use of some kind. Hundreds of stories, jokes and pranks recall the Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogues saved and hung in outhouses to save having to buy toilet paper. Not only was the habit a money saver it provided many hours of enjoyable reading for as long as you could hold your nose. No one threw newspapers of any type away. The principle use was to clean lamp chimneys. Something about the ink in the print made the glass globes shine and glisten around the flame. Since most lamps had to filled with kerosene each day, the newspaper was a staple around most rural homes and kept at ready for instant use. Ours was kept on a shelf in the pantry along with a stack of paper sacks, a ball of twine, a pile of white meat wrapping papers and some rubber bands. Dust from the Dust Bowl along with soot from wood and coal smoke settled on everything inside a home. Newspaper was used to cover shelves so that when they needed cleaning, the paper liner was changed. As most shelving at the time was usually crude and uneven, the newspaper hid the ugly surface neatly as well as providing a clean surface....

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