IT’S A WRAP
What did we use to wrap things with in the days before we had sturdy aluminum foil and clear, plastic materials?
I ask it in that rather generic manner for two reasons: (1) to avoid the use of any specific, registered trademarks and terms of a specific nature setting certain products aside from all others and (2) to give you a bit
of time to think about what we did use either to protect, carry or to keep things from mussing in with something else.
What did you use?
I can remember wrapping a great many things in discarded newspapers. How could I forget working a soggy crossword puzzle after another member of the family had, thoughtlessly, made use of today’s paper as
a wrapper instead of yesterday’s or one from some day in the previous week. Old newspapers were used to wrap muddy or wet shoes; to protect glassware being stored away in a carton for some reason or another other, to contain
the peelings and other garbage items on the way to the alley cans for collection by the city trucks.
We saved brown paper, grocery bags, too of all sizes for use as wrappers. We even cut them up to make durable book covers for our school books, too. That was an important step, too, because by wrapping our
books, which we had to buy in those days, we could keep them looking bright, clean and colorful longer and get better, second, third and fourth- handed prices for them. That lasted until some demonic force within the school system
called for new editions or completely new textbooks each and every year. And, for some strange reason I cannot explain, we called paper bags “sacks” while we called burlap sacks ”bags”.
We used “butcher’s paper” usually white and semi-slick on the inside for wrapping meats and vegetables, as I recall. If you used newspaper because you didn’t have a supply of butcher’s white paper at the
moment, you could very often enjoy a reversed version of “The Katzenjammer Kids” comics on the white patty-pa n squash hide or ,perhaps, “Day-By-Day” a newsy column by O. O. MacIntyre - a favorite of mine - on a long, yellow
crook-necked squash - which was also a favorite of mine.
Seriously, though, we have cause to rejoice at the manner in which science and industry have developed new and better ways in which to wrap things today.
Have you every wondered why the bagger at your local super market asks you: “Paper or Plastic?” The reason is pure economics. To bring in one large truckload of plastic bags costs about the same as, I’ve heard
anywhere from three to five trucks of the same size containing the same total number of paper bags, and they store in a fraction of the space, too.
They both are essentials for wrapping things are home for cooking, for freezing, for movement from place to place, or even for serving.
Plastic sheets and aluminum foil! How did we get along without them?
A.M.. August 31, 2002 [c-518wds]
