Skip to main content

Perma Press

In the 70s--need I say more--Prime Minister PET (Pierre Elliott Trudeau) did a number of things to cajole and harangue Canadians.  There were wage and price controls, there was Fuddle Duddle, there was the Fuddle Buck, that wasn't worth a buck (there being 25 per cent discount, more or less, against the American dollar--in the long history stretchy dollar, 15 cents either way makes no difference).
Protesting the weak Canadian dollar; a group of businessmen gave away bumper stickers and wore Tru-dough fuddle buck T-shirts outside the Toronto Stock Exchange yesterday. [Incomplete]
The Fuddle Buck was, however, worth 100 cents True Dough, and it certainly stretched better than fabulous Fortrel, or any of a number of 70s miracle fibers and fabrics.
How could you forget the Dacron bathroom ensemble, to match your famous four appliance colours: avocado green, burnt almond, coppertone brown, and poppy red.
Image result for fortrel tag
Washer/dryer, fridge, stove--missing anything?  Oh, yes, the dish squasher!
Image result for avocado green appliances
And, in the small appliance category, the bun warmer, the crock pot, and the electric knife.
Image result for avocado bun warmerImage result for avocado crock potImage result for avocado electric knife
Then he brought in the metric system, which made "A quarter" (of a pound) of bologne in grams a morning plenary at the annual meat slicers' convention in Medicine Hat, Alberta.
Image result for meat slicers' convention
It also made Trudeau wrenches very unpopular to weekend mechanics, in their aquamarine corrugated fiberglass enclosed carports
Image result for fiberglass carport mechanic
who have never given up their imperial torque wrenches even to this very day.
Image result for 1970s wrench set
Torque is as torque does, surely.

And what were Canadians to make of the meter stick, which was a paint store premium?
Image result for meter stickImage result for paint store yard sticks
It was as awkward and inexplicable as a slide rule,
Image result for slide rule
and as mechanically challenging as an architect's scale.
Image result for architect's scale
What's more, the meter stick made a perfect blind man's cane, when paired up with a pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarer's in Mr Christensen's Henry Wise Wood physics class.
Image result for ray ban wayfarers
A slap of the meter stick on the shins was definitely harder than a swat of a yardstick on the socks!

If nothing else, PET left us with Perma Press.Image result for perma press 1970s
Image result for perma press 1970s
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Danusia and the brickworks

Kipling, who made comments about big guns and so many other politically inappropriate things it would be impossible to include them here, once visited Medicine Hat and declared that it had all hell for a basement.  It does have natural gas, and a flame is constantly lit in the coulees to mark the spot.  Some say it is a waste of gas, but at least you can actually tell the whisperer by his flame.  Harder to pin down is the wind.  In southern Alberta they say the cows sleep standing up because of the wind.  And you only know there isn't a breeze when you get bit by a sand fly. Here I met Danusia, the daughter of Polish combatant, who, along with her childhood girlfriend Bogusia, sold Toni home perms and L'Oreal hair colour to fellow children of displaced persons, who cut hair and did it up just so in the Flats, where it flooded every Spring, or thereabouts. Danka and Bugsy were married, as was the custom, to strapping Polish lads who worked at the IXL brickworks, where red
Post a Comment
Read more

Of course she's not a true red

As the parent of a "ginger", and having red heads on both sides of the family, and having married into two Irish families, I know first hand that ginger covers the whole spectrum from strawberry blonde (to my way of thinking a classic ginger!), to orange (carrot tops), to a real rust red (what my father in law would call a true red).  When Pat Todkill first set eyes on his granddaughter, he remarked, "Of course, she's not a true red".  For one thing, Emily the Elder lacked freckles on her face and upper body.  For another, she really was and is a strawberry blonde. A further observation.  Even people with the raven blackest hair have rust red lights--caveman red, soot covered ochre if you like.  Woolly mammoth red.  Sometimes it takes just the right light to pick out the smoldering ember, but beard and eyebrows tend to incorporate the tell tale ginger strain, like chili pepper in a spice jar of mixed pepper corns. And, of course, brunettes are
Post a Comment
Read more

I double dog dare ya

I double dog dare ya to repeat the story you heard in 3 Trees the shop of Indian incense and beeswax crayons from Germany perhaps a source for Waldorf or Montessori Nepali filigree or Balinese woven silver and semi-precious gems cut loose dresses and butterfly pants from Indonesia or somewhere similarly hot and breezy and yoga cushions maybe made locally and unmentionable remarks harder to tell than listen to I think it was a tall woman of subcontinent ancestry who was trying on bras and dresses and saying she was generally pleased at the selection and the clerk who replied yeah who knew Asian women have boobs and height and take up space and commisserated with her customer who mentioned she didn't think men looked for a mirror to see how their bum looks before deciding and buying down the risk she knowingly showed to me I was there for the sale half price and no tax the gift they give 3 times a year to generate so
Post a Comment
Read more