Do you remember Lestoil? Perhaps the cleaning solution made an impression on me because I knew it was made in Holyoke, MA, in a factory on Main Street that had a giant bottle sculpture out front.
As a kid I was always impressed when I discovered products that were made something I knew. I was thrilled whenever Tom Terrific would exclaim, " Holy-oke, Massachusetts, Manfred!" to Manfred the Wonder Dog.
Last year at the Hadley Flea market I picked up a little promotional children's book produced in 1958 and written and illustrated by one Virginia Flint Kuniholm. There's no price on the book so obviously it was a give-away of some sort. the back cover reads "This Lestoil book has washable covers – merely wipe with Lestoil and a damp cloth."
Ah, huh.
Inside are three animal tails in which baby animals save the day by washing something or themselves with Lestoil.
Lestoil is still being made, although I haven't seen it on store shelves in a while. Apparently Clorox just bought the cleaner from Proctor & Gamble, which wanted to get rid of "nonstrategic brands." It's considered suitable for general cleaning and floors. On their Web site, it says nothing about laundry, puppies or igloos.
© 2008 by Gordon Michael Dobbs
4 comments:
You know I long for the good old days before focus-group testing! Nice find!
About the burned house 2 posts ago: What are the reasons an owner would just abandon a house? More expensive to pay the taxes and upkeep than to just lose the house? I'm sure this is all "common knowledge" to you guys who pay attention, the reasons someone would do that. What I'm wondering is, who can blame him? If it's a lose-lose situation for the guy, is he supposed to personally drive up here and make sure the house is secured? And how much would it cost to truly secure an empty house in Springfield?
I'm not defending the guy. Just wondering what he coulda / shoulda done. I guess if he doesn't want the responsibility of being a good steward to the neighborhood, he should sell - but can he? Maybe he can't get back what he owes on the thing so he throws up his hands and says the hell with it?
Or maybe he's a slumlord buying on the cheap to run the neighborhood down so he can sell it off and then get a big lucrative bulldozer contract with the city?
It's baffling as hell. I'm inclined to say the culprits are the pricks who spray graffiti all over the house and catch it on fire, but maybe the Florida owner is at fault.
Too bad the brothers won't pay you to run down the story!
And too bad Billy Mays can't barge in there with a bottle of Lestoil and clean up the whole damn city!
Mike, I can still SMELL Lestoil.
On my fingers.
Mark, those abandoned houses are all over the country, and more coming soon. Haven't been paying attention? Another gift from our suckass Prez and the 'free market' GOP: spreading Katrina-like economic devastation from coast-to-coast. Coming soon to your neighborhood, too; we've got it in Windsor, VT already, thanks. Including the fires.
Oh yeah. I forgot it's all Bush's fault. Thanks.
I just found my copy of this book when we were cleaning out my parent's house getting ready for an auction. I had forgotten about my book. I was two when I got it.
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