Bowling Alleys & Toilet Paper

Tangled up on the sofa wrestling with the dog two nights ago, television playing in the background, my attention was caught by a commercial wherein a woman in a bowling alley threw her ball for a resounding strike, bringing the product name Cottonelle to the screen as she turned to the camera and said, “I need a clean alley all the time.” My mouth was still gaping in surprise when a quick cut brought up another toilet paper commercial, this one presenting a lovely housewife in pearls and low heels announcing that Charmin is, “another way to keep your underwear clean.” I had to look out the window to make sure I hadn’t drifted out of orbit and landed on planet Mars.

It appears that freedom among advertisers has evolved to include a kind of low-brow tabloid language exemplified by Cottonelle and Charmin in selling their toilet paper. Or am I just behind the times and seeing another case of technology leading us down a road to where nothing is left unsaid or unshared, where social networks have encouraged the sharing of every thought and action and where people say and show anything and everything? Or maybe I’m simply going off on a rant about nothing more than a few graphic details about toilet paper and how we use it. Apparently a great many people are curious about it because the very first website I clicked on stated at the top that the number of questions concerning toilet paper was amazing. Well heck, I’m gonna jump right into the mix.

Long before the luxury of ultra strong and uniquely balanced triple ply, snowy white toilet paper enriched with aloe, people depended on an assortment of devices to handle the problem. We’ve all heard the corncob and Sears catalogue stories but they represent only the tip of the iceberg. Vikings used discarded sheep’s wool, coconut shells were the choice in early Hawaii, lace was popular with French royalty and snow and tundra moss did the trick for the Eskimos of yore. Mussel shells were useful for coastal peoples and one source describes the ancient Greeks using stones and pieces of clay. The Romans had a good idea with sponges on the end of sticks kept in jugs filled with salt water. Probably the worst choice in history was my own. Out in the woods on a camping trip as a kid I grabbed up a handful of leaves that turned out to be poison ivy.

It was the Chinese in about the year 600 who first came up with the idea of making paper especially for use behind closed doors. It must have been intended for people with large bottoms because it was made in sheets measuring 2x3 feet. In the US, “Gayetty’s Medicated Paper” was the marvel of 1857, a paper of pre-moistened sheets of manila hemp medicated with aloe and dispensed from a Kleenex-sized box. The name Joseph Gayetty was printed on every sheet and Mr Gayetty claimed for his toilet paper the bonus of hemorrhoid prevention. The toilet tissue on a roll familiar to modern culture came about around 1880, but since toilet paper was still a sensitive subject, out of embarrassment the Scott Company left their name off of it, deciding instead to customize, or name it for their customers. As a result the Waldorf Hotel gained fame in the toilet paper arena. Scott didn’t take credit for their product until 1902.

Getting people to buy toilet paper was a uphill battle, in large part because Americans were embarrassed by anything pointing to bodily functions. Customers didn’t want to ask for it by name. Germans had a similar embarrassment about the subject and one company came out with advertising copy saying, “Ask for a roll of Hakle and you won’t have to say toilet paper!” Widespread acceptance of the product was slow in coming, but eventually boosted by more and more homes with sit-down flush toilets and indoor plumbing systems. The Hoberg Paper Company hit a bullseye in 1928 with something called Charmin. Once again, the key was advertising. They gave the package a feminine logo depicting a beautiful woman, conveying softness and femininity. This allowed the avoidance of talking about actual purpose and merely asking for a package of Charmin. It wasn’t until decades later that the beautiful ladies on the package were replaced by babies and bear cubs.

Twenty-six billion rolls of toilet paper, worth about 2.4 billion, are sold yearly in the US alone. The average American uses 50 pounds (23 kilograms) per year, fifty percent more than the average of other Western countries. All around the world, in place of toilet tissue, water is still one of the most common methods of cleaning. India, the Middle East and a number of Asian countries continue to rely on a bucket and a spigot.

And Japan? The future does not look too rosy for the now familiar roll of toilet paper. Supermarket and drugstore shelves are piled with the stuff but a growing number of Japanese people have come to depend upon something called the Washlet, and it won't be long before homes equipped with this convenience outnumber those without. Attached to seat and tank, the Washlet works like a bidet, but includes a heat controlled air blower for drying, a heated seat and even a sound device to cover embarrassing sounds. After many years of using a Washlet in Japan, the return to toilet paper was an uncomfortable lesson in my reacquaintance with American life.

Along Old Highways

Summer vacations were once upon a time colored by travel on two-lane highways that twisted and wound through pastoral farmland and small towns of backcountry America. Three and four lane interstate highways were still the stuff of dreams among civil engineers, and ‘getting there’ was a big part of family vacations. I remember those summer weeks, always too short, of driving with my mother, father and sisters to destinations like Pikes Peak, the grand and gloomy Mammoth Cave, Mt Vernon and Williamsburg, and oftentimes ending up at Gran’s house in Ocean View, Virginia.

We made our way to these places in the family car, a black 1948 Chevrolet, a car that memory tells me never felt crowded with two adults and three wiggly children. There were car games to fill the hours, most of them associated with passing scenery along those narrow roads bound by red clay and kudzu, with the occasional weathered country church. I remember one with its marquee in front bristling with black stick on letters warning in Old Testament fervor: ‘Don’t make me come down there—God.’

But our favorites on those road trips, and something that caught the attention of children and adults alike were the red and white signs spaced along the highway advertising Burma Shave.

Looking through the Garrison Keillor book of poems featured in these pages three days ago, Good Poems for Hard Times, I was delighted to come upon some of the old Burma Shave limericks from childhood days. In the flash of a moment the lines rose from a well of memory and for a minute or two the present faded and I was once again in the backseat of that 1948 Chevrolet, somewhere in the hinterlands of Kentucky.

Burma Shave signs appeared across most of the US between 1925 and 1963, more often along a monotonous stretch of rural road, placed in a staggered sequence easily readable from passing cars. Each series of signs was either five or six, always ending at the last sign with the words, “Burma Shave.” The men behind this advertising campaign probably never dreamed it would become one of the most memorable campaigns in US history. Burma Shave eventually became the number two selling shaving cream in the country, thanks to these hokey signs along country roads.

With the development of the interstate highway system and faster driving, roadside advertising entered the age of giant billboards set back at a distance from the roadway. In 1963 the Burma Shave signs came down, sales plummeted and the shaving cream finally discontinued in 1966. (It returned in 1994 but without the road signs.)

Below is a sampling of the old red and white signs familiar to many back in those old days.

THE QUEEN

OF HEARTS

NOW LOVES THE KNAVE

THE KING

RAN OUT OF

BURMA SHAVE

•••

IF YOU DRIVE

WHEN YOU’RE DRUNK

CARRY A COFFIN

IN YOUR TRUNK

BURMA SHAVE

•••

NO LADY LIKES TO DANCE

OR DINE

ACCOMPANIED BY

A PORCUPINE

BURMA SHAVE

•••

POOR SATAN, HE

WAS FORCED TO DWELL

IN THE ONLY PLACE WHERE

THEY DON’T SELL

BURMA SHAVE

•••

DOES YOUR HUSBAND MISBEHAVE

GRUNT AND GRUMBLE

RANT AND RAVE

SHOOT THE BRUTE SOME

BURMA SHAVE

•••

SLOWDOWN, PA

SAKES ALIVE

MA MISSED SIGNS

FOUR AND FIVE

BURMA SHAVE

•••

THE WHALE TOOK JONAH

DOWN THE HATCH

THEN COUGHED HIM UP

BECAUSE HE SCRATCHED

BURMA SHAVE