Bounty-ful Dickies

Many things stick out to me from my childhood in rural New Hampshire, where I grew up on a small farm with five older siblings and our parents. A lot goes on in such an environment, when eight humans and multiple farm animals co-exist on a few fertile acres, yet two memories take center stage for this week's blog post: Shirt pockets and paper towels. These items have re-emerged in my later adult years, helping to close a circle of understanding I wasn’t ready for as a young’un. Stay with me if you will, it may even be worth it.

Dickies

My dad was a self-employed contractor by the time I came onto the family scene in the mid-sixties. He also tended to a small herd of cows, and at times pigs, sheep, rabbits, and one scary rooster he got in trade for fixing something or other. For as long as I knew him, his daily uniform consisted of a short-sleeved, white, v-neck t-shirt under a green button-down shirt and green slacks, both emblazoned with the Dickies brand logo.

That combo could be a blog post on its own, but the shirt is the focus of this part of my entry today, and in particular the left pocket. It was into this cloth vessel that Dad always carried two tiny screwdrivers―one slotted, one Phillips―a small notepad, and a writing implement―Usually a short pencil he’d hand-sharpened many times-over with his pocketknife. Other task-specific items would be swapped out as needed, such as a tire inflation gauge, eyeglasses, or perhaps an open-ended wrench, usually of the half-inch variety.

To my childish mind, having ones' pocket weighed down in such a manner seemed silly. Why carry all that stuff around at all times? How often did one need to write things down, or screw/unscrew a fastener? My memory was sharp, and I wasn't in charge of fixing anything, other than a slice of toast, and I'd be damned if I'd carry a butter knife in my shirt pocket, alerting the world that any moment, I might need to slather peanut butter onto some bread.

I held onto this childish viewpoint through my semi-rebellious teenage years and young adulthood (okay, at least into my early forties, yet I digress). Then, one day at my retail job―and I don't recall the exact date―I looked down at the left pocket of my own button-down shirt to find a pen and a small pad of paper lodged there. How had this happened? I looked around, sure that someone must have snuck up while I was deep in thought and stuck said items into said pocket, yet there was only me. Interesting.

As time progressed, I discovered other things taking up residence in my non-Dickies branded shirt pocket, such as sunglasses, magic markers, nuts, bolts, and even snacks! What's going on here? Had the ghost of my dearly-departed Dad inhabited my subconscious to extol the virtues of proper pocket packing? Perhaps, as the Grinch discovered about Christmas, it means something more, like perhaps, I should have paid more attention to more of my sire's life lessons...

Bounty!

Okay, so you've stuck with me this long, which honestly says a lot about you...I mean a lot of GOOD things about you. Yeah, that's it. As a reward for your perseverance, why not read on and discover a side of paper towels that frankly doesn't get discussed nearly enough.

Picture it: Hooksett, New Hampshire, somewhere between 1970 and 1990, in a small, yet tidy kitchen on the east side of the Merrimack River. Pleasant scents of hamburger-spaghetti casserole (if you know, you know), burning propane (heating the ever-present teapot), and "homemade" date muffins (Betty Crocker’s finest with dates shoved into the batter) intermingle with other intangible odors almost always associated with an old home, inhabited by older folks. Two people sit around a dark, wooden kitchen table. I, an impressionable young lad. She, a feisty senior citizen with a heavy French-Canadian accent.

There I was, enjoying some "company" cookies from the also ever-present ceramic cookie jar, along with a glass of milk. As I took in the familiar surroundings that made up this tiny space, including the worn Formica counters, a cribbage board, deck of cards, family photos, and assorted knick-knacks, my attention focused on the area above the sink, in front of the window overlooking the neighbor's colorful house. Strung across this open-air space, yet safely below the single yellow lightbulb, was a thin stretch of twine. Draped over this twine were several sheets of paper towels being buffeted by the light breeze coming in through the window.

I, being the aforementioned impressionable lad, asked, "Mémére (pronounced Mem-may), why do you have paper towels hanging from a rope in front of the window?"

She, rocking incessantly in her old wooden rocker that squeaked with every backward swing, stopped her see-sawing to look at where I pointed. Chuckling, she said, "Well, I only used those paper towels to dry my hands, so I'm hanging them to use again later."

As my eyebrows knitted in confusion, I replied, "But, they're paper towels. Aren't they meant to be thrown away after you use them?"

With her own eyebrows knitting with an agitated expression quite far-removed from mine, she said, "David, that would be very wasteful! Do you know how much paper towels cost? You wouldn't ask questions like that if you'd gone through the Depression like we did!"

The balance of our time together was spent with me listening to exactly what she meant by going through the Great Depression, even long after my milk and vanilla wafers had disappeared, and thoughts of the recycled paper towels had left my brain.

Fast-forward a few decades, and to me working in an office environment, and especially during the Covid years, where I found myself washing my hands much more often than my usual cleanly-self would. Being in this workplace, we naturally used paper towels, rather than "real" towels, since we had no laundry facilities. Watching the trash can fill up with these expended squares of quilted paper made me think of how much of a waste it was to use them once, since they were only used to dry my clean hands.

So, I began to save and dry these paper towels for future clean hand-drying, but their uses didn't stop there! They were also great for cleaning counters, sopping up spills on the floor, and blowing one's nose, though that is the extent of their re-use, since one has to draw the line somewhere.

I'm not sure at what point during my process of spreading the sheets out over my desk's inbox "drying rack" that I performed an inner head slap, but recognition flooded in. Ah, maudit! (pronounced maude-zee. again, if you know, you know)

There, now you have two of the many tales from my history on this rock. I suppose there is a moral or two that sum up these stories:

1. Don't be so quick to judge or dismiss someone's activity, custom, or habit. Look closer and dig deeper to try and understand. You might learn something useful, or at least see things from a new perspective.

2. Spend more time with your mémére, grammy, grandma, nanni, nanna, nonni, mimi, meemaw, and all their male counterparts. They’re not here forever, and they have so much to teach if you're willing to listen.

And now, if your eyes haven't glazed over like a honey-dipped donut from Dunkin by this point, I invite you to check back weekly for other useful nuggets you might find interesting. Or, if you're a trained psychological professional, perhaps I could serve as a test case for you. Whatever the reason, welcome aboard!

Oh, and as my buddy Abe said: whatever you are, be a good one.

-Dave