Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for May 23, 2016

hahaha! reminds me of savings stamps. remember those? grocery stores and gas stations gave them out . fill the booklets then cash them in for things? Blue Chip was one..

I remember Gold Bond Stamps and S & H Green stamps.

We bought our first piece of furniture with Green Stamps. a “Danish Modern” black leather (plastic) chair.I still have a book of Blue Chip Stamps.

Somebody. sometime, really needs to tell Scooter he is a dog!

Stamps were in the 60s, I think. People were crazy for Green Stamps for a while. Back east, Shop-Rite made a big deal of “lower prices, not stamps.” The same kind of marketing still goes on with airline miles and membership cards that give access to sale prices. Finally, there are now credit cards that just plain give you real cash back.

Scooter is good at licking the stamps, but he needs help to place them.

I remember electric blankets and electric razors both were relatively new at the time.

I remember before there was glad bags and saran wrap O_0 gad! i AM old!

I remember there was a redemption center where you could see the merchandise for which you were exchanging completed books of stamps. I also remember a catalog.

Buying groceries on a student budget, I saved Blue Chip stamps forever to get the little camping tent I had my eye on.But I moved before I got it….and they stopped carrying it…sniffle…But eventually I redeemed them for something else at at one of those centers Wilde Bill mentioned…most of the stuff would have taken about 10 times the books I’d saved up.

So I was excited a few years later when I was given a huge pile of them, after helping clear out an older lady’s kitchen…her daughter only saved S&H Green Stamps… but before I could cash them, Blue Chip closed forever.

Yeah… I remember when grocery prices started rising, they came out with those special bigger stamps, worth 10 regular ones… less to lick…. though I did it with a wet sponge, anyway.

Meanwhile…Marathon Zack….

I posted some belated birthday wishes to you yesterday, on the Saturday strip, of course, that I hope you will go back to see…I believe Bev posted there too.

Sorry I blew it!

But back to Scooter….he’s an amazing dog.

A real handful, but sooo talented. he can do things few other dogs can do, except for the highly educated ones like Fenton.

He’s artistic…

He spends a lot of time… um… reading….

He plays on the local softball team…And yeah… as with the stamps and the cap pistols, occasionally he’s a little short on dexterity….He worries about his “legacy” but he really doesn’t have to fret…we won’t forget him!

Ah…*S&H Green Stamps* ! Brings back memories of rainy days when I was little and Mom set me to work pasting the stamps into the books.

We had an S&H redemption store near us where those full books could be redeemed for ‘stuff’. I don’t remember what we got except ( a tip of the pirate’s eyepatch to @beviek for jogging the ole memory ) those aluminum tumblers !

Remember this song ( to the tune of Greensleeves ) by Alan Sherman ?

I found my love in a grocery shop,Selling pickles and egg-plants and bottles of pop;She asked me to try her asparagus tips,And I fell for the smile on her ruby red lips.

Green stamps were all she gave,Green stamps were all I took,Green stamps were all I saved,So I pasted them all in my green stamp book

.

Bev’s cups, or as Linguist mentioned ‘tumblers’..A couple of years ago I cleaned out my Dad’s house after he passed along. Found several of those with scratches at the rim made by my brothers and I with our lower teeth. Should have saved them.

And, just like his coloring book hobby, he just can’t seem to stay inside the lines… or the book, for that matter…

A last comment on Green Stamps. Years ago my parents house was robbed. Guy waited ’til my parents left for work and had 8 hours to go through the house. He took many things, the silver, the cameras, the money and jewelry my mother hid in gloves and boxes, but the thing that they were maddest about was the suitcase full of green stamp books he found in the crawl space! About 150 books my mother was saving for something (I forgot what) she wanted really badly.

The glue on the stamps must be made from animals…..

I got a bicycle saving Green Stamps. Lots of places gave them when you made a purchase back in the 60’s.Gas stations, grocery stores, that where the joke “You give stamps?” quote shows up in one of the Family Guys stories.Quagmire swipes his credit card between the female dancer’s butt cheeks as he had run out of cash. He asks her that question…..and then gets tossed out.I even remember the little machine that handed out the stamps. It looked like the old style telephone. You had the dollar and cents on the face so you matched the turn with the amount you spent and out would come the stamps.Pretty amazing for this little boy growing up.Mad Science.I can remember police working thefts of those things. No cash. Just cigarettes and the stamp distributors.

Zack… you’re quite welcome!Still sorry it was late…. but yeah, a birthday month is OK with me…

That’s about how long it took this year, till I got my promised birthday dinner..and it was just fine!

Forgot to say, @ Bev…

Sorry dear, your reputation was sealed long before any little excursion into…. um… “philately”…

They must be food stamps…Good evening, Ballard Dears! I have emerged from my silent retreat.

Tom Lehrer song c 1960:

Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately? I’ve got a hobby: rereading lady chatterley. But now they’re trying to take it all Away from us unless We take a stand, and hand in hand We fight for freedom of the press. In other words,

Smut! (I love it)Ah, the adventures of a sl**Oh, I’m a market they can’t glut,I don’t know whatCompares with smut.Hip hip hooray!Let’s hear it for the supreme court!Don’t let them take it away!