I thought I had a chance at this Northrup King Northern Grown Tested Seeds box at Saturday’s North Star Auction, but I’ll skip the middle part of the story and say it ended at $775 and I didn’t even get my hand up. One of the best vintage illustrations and designs I’ve seen, and also one of the best preserved. Magnificent!
This stuff is mentioned in quite a few old stories, mostly for making gunpowder and causing impotence.
Gunpowder & Impotence would be a good name for a country album.
This last Saturday was laundry day at the North Star Auction in Mandan, North Dakota.
Also, back in the day, laundry soap and dish soap were often the same soap.
Check out the sweet package art.
At an auction on Saturday, I was digging the packaging for Minnesota brand macaroni shells.
I can imagine the girl having a Selma Diamond voice and she says — “I like to stick the macaronis up my nose.” — followed by a strange rattling noise as she laughs.
I have a theory that the only reason Red (strong) Charmin exists is to take valuable shelf space away from other brands so that people buy more Blue (soft) Charmin.
What we need is Plaid Charmin, bringing soft and strong back into one toilet paper. And as a bonus, the Plaid Charmin Poopbears would be friggin’ adorable.
(Note: It’s actually “alterative juice”, but I’m sticking with alternative juice because it amuses me.)
If you got syphilis, yo, this’ll solve it.
Alternative juice will prolly dissolve it.
Let’s check out these Succus Alterans Alternative Juice ingredients! According to Wikipedia…
“Stillingia sylvatica was used by Native Americans for syphilis and as a cathartic, diuretic, laxative, and emetic. In large doses, it causes vomiting and diarrhea.”
Smilax ornata (sarsparilla) “was a popular European treatment for syphilis when it was introduced from the New World.”
Phytolacca Decandra (pokeweed) is poisonous and was used for skin diseases, rheumatism, weight loss, mumps and arthritis.
Lappa Minor’s (lesser durdock) larger cousin, Arctium lappa, was used as “a diuretic, diaphoretic, and a blood purifying agent” as well as a cancer, skin condition and cold/flu treatment.
Xanthoxylum carolinanium (Hercules’ club) is also known as the “toothache tree” or “tingle tongue” and was used to treat toothache.
Who needs orange juice with a delightful concoction like this!
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