Category: Use It Up

I inherited this matchbook cover. Note the the Zip Code is labelled Zip Code, as though you’d never seen one before. This probably dates from the early 1960s when ZIP Codes were new. Note that Florida is abbreviated Fla. Before ZIP Codes, state abbreviations had the freedom to be nearly anything. Alaska and Hawaii didn’t have abbreviations because they weren’t states when abbreviations were codified. Maine, Idaho, Iowa, and Utah weren’t abbreviated because it was thought those words don’t have a natural place to be abbreviated. There was a dispute about whether Ohio could be shortened to O. My mother thought it was wrong–how big a hurry could you be in to need to shorten Ohio? Self-appointed language lovers of all kinds hated to see the two capital letters next to each other. Me, I still think they are a blight. Note also that King Edward is giving away plastic cigar holders for the asking.

Here’s the list: Ala., Alaska, Ariz., Ark., Calif., Colo., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Hawaii, Idaho, Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., La., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Mo., Nebr., Nev., N.H., N.J., N. Mex., N.Y., N.C., N.Dak., Ohio, Okla., Ore., Pa. (or Penna.), R.I., S.C., S.Dak., Tenn., Tex., Utah, Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis., and Wyo.

Here’s Freddie Cannon letting us know how to abbreviate Florida.

If you know my kids, you would be surprised to see that we had a matchbook from a steakhouse. My father and sister cabbaged onto matches from anyplace.

I have no idea why I was writing a lineup for the 2022 White Sox on a matchbook. Good Lord, I have piles of notepaper. I miss Cueto.

A good week for using up and wearing out. I realized I don’t need my work boots any more. My first jungle boots were real Army surplus vintage 1973. A tag said to shake the scorpions out before putting them on. I got these in the ’80s.

Hey, I used all the ink in a Bic pen.

You may think I have a pair like this one in my drawer. I don’t. I have six or eight other mismatched pairs. These are loose at the top and thin in the bottom. It would be abuse to keep wearing them.

My dad had a few hundred matchbooks when he died, saved from restaurants mostly. It is a challenge to use them up at the rate of about 75 matches a year. There are 20 in a book, and many times I misplace the book before using the last match.

These are from the First National Bank of Akron. There’s no way I can see to date them. No phone number for the area code/exchange, no address for a ZIP code, no tire plants in the background. The tower was the tallest building in town, and maybe all the transactions took place there. Still don’t see why they left out the address.

Me, I say the art inside the cover predates The Flintstones–late ’50s probably. It’s the sort of art MAD Magazine parodied in fake ads when I was a young kid. My dad tried a pipe around 1960. I started to look up TV dads to see if there was a pipe-smoking trend I could date, but I’d forgotten how many of shows were sponsored by cigarette companies.

It was my father’s favorite reply when my siblings and I would say we wanted something: Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without. Then he would say he heard that from his parents when he had asked for something.

His parents were farmers near Champaign, Illinois, in the 1920s and ’30s when he was growing up. They did without more than I could imagine, really, when he would tell the story again–running water, electricity, and central heat, for starters. His father went broke along the way–one winter they burned corn in the heating stove because they couldn’t sell the corn for enough to buy coal.

When we kids left the house and didn’t ask for much, the saying I heard the most was ‘Twas ever thus and twill be ever so.’ I think he liked to say ’twill be.’ He stopped following his own advice to not buy much. He and Mom got comfortable and enjoyed having stuff.

Dad lived in a two-bedroom apartment in an old-folks apartment building when he died. When we cleaned it out, we found lots of stuff, some of it unopened. I guess he felt good knowing he could afford a gross of ballpoint pens even if he didn’t write much. And he saved the pen he got from the Olympic Committee, for example, and the next year the neat little calculator. He loved office supplies and electronic toys.

He had probably a hundred 50-sheet legal pads–he’d buy more every time they went on sale. I don’t think he ever pictured himself using that up. I decided I would start using up all my stuff in his honor–and as much of his stuff as it made any sense to even try.

I got serious around 2015. I had about 80 T-shirts saying I was an AYSO coach, fan of the Cleveland baseball team, and Hummel figurine enthusiast (I got that one from my mom). They dated from the early 1990s. I have about 40 now. I have some stories and some photos of this project, and I’ll keep you posted.

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