All of us “Baby Boomers” remember the “Weekly Readers” we used to get in grade school. In this missive I shall touch on some memorable ditties from the subject of literature in grade school. I can’t recall whether or not we received “Weekly Readers” in High School. My fuzzy memory seems to recall we received something called “The Scholastic Reader” or something like that. Hey, any of you Baby Boomers out there whose memory is still somewhat intact, please let my know what the title was! Ironically, as a manic, avid, and insatiable reader as I have been the last 30 years or so, I had no use for reading anything in public school. I never read any of the “Weekly Readers”, but nevertheless always looked forward to getting them. Why? You may be wondering… Because they smelled so GOOD! The only other thing that smelled better in school was the “Ditto”copies of various and sundry things they would pass out! I was always excited when the teachers passed out the “Notes to Parents” that we were supposed to take home with us and give to our “Parent or Guardian”.  I always figured even then that the school was too cheap to mail them! I don’t recall ever actually delivering any of them to my “Parent” or “Guardian” even though I never understood then what a “Guardian” was. The only “Note to Parents” they ever mailed (and by registered mail to boot!), was when I got 3 days suspension for “smoking in school”! (See The Sawdust Trail 3). When I got my “Notes to Parents”  I would “smell it out” and get high on the good smell of the alcohol-laden “ditto fluid”!   I wasn’t the only one, not by a long-shot”! I suspect that a lot of kids in the 50’s and early 60’s “got high” on those “ditto” messages because just about everyone would instinctively smell the paper as soon as they got it. Hmmm, maybe that’s what caused all my life-long peculiarities? Nahhh, come to think of it, I had all those long before I started huffing ditto messages. To this day I long for the smell of those “ditto” papers! I’m even a Rush Limbaugh “Ditto Head”!  Maybe I can check E-Bay and find a bottle of vintage sealed “Ditto Fluid”. Whoahhhhh, talk about reaching Nirvana!!!! Say, what the hey, as soon as I’m finished with this, I’m heading to E-Bay!!!! It will be a refreshing change from always looking for old Perry Mason VHS tapes from Columbia House!  If you get a future e-mail from me with “Nirvana” in the URL, then you will know I’ve succeeded in my quest!  You know, maybe the “Ditto Huffing” that went on back then did indeed cause aberrant behavior in we “Baby Boomers” Maybe I can research this and even start a new 12 step group called DIMTPGSA (Ditto Ink Message to Parent (or) Guardian Smellers Anonymous). Gee, I hope when I get on E-Bay I can find some “Ditto Fluid” and an old “Ditto Machine” because then I can send the notices out in Ditto printing!!!! Heh Heh… As cited above, the second best smell was the “Weekly Readers”! Back then they used real petroleum based inks and not the wimpy, politically correct, environmental wacko non-smelling “Soy” inks of today.  Although I still instinctively smell everything in print before I read it, alas, ink just doesn’t smell the same as it did “back then”. When I get to heaven, there’s a list I have of what I hope it will smell like. Listed in order of my preference: 1. Fresh cut hay, 2. Sweaty horse hide, 3. DITTO Fluid, 4. REAL PETROLEUM INK. And 5., Vinyl plastic. Hey, come to think of it, since it IS HEAVEN, it will probably smell like all the above in different places OR all the above-listed smells all at the same time!!!!! Alas, I can only wait and see. Meanwhile, I’m off to E-Bay… “Dittos”…….  ””””””””””””””””””

 

P.S. In direct antithesis to Heaven, what I figure HELL will smell like: 1. Cat Manure (unburied), 2. Formaldehyde, 3. Ditches, 4. Cooking liver,  5. QUEEG!!!