Montlake - 2021 and Way Beyond by William Goodrich Bellman Chapter 40 - Random Thoughts

The Sunday comic section of the Seattle Times always had advertisements that had a great appeal to kids, especially boys. The Saturday evening post, Boy's Life and Country Gentleman magazines, to name a few, would have a large picture of a Daisy Air Rifle, that one could get free, by securing several paid subscriptions to the magazine. It wasn't too difficult to get those subscriptions if you had the guts to pound doors and put out some kind of sales pitch. Of course, the first person you hit up was a friendly neighbor, just like kids do today, when they are selling candy for a school, or a girl or boy scout cause. I received several BB guns by working my good neighbors.

A schoolmate, Phil Hilditch, was more enterprising than I. He established a route for delivery of the Saturday Evening Post, and hired friends to make the weekly deliveries. I signed up with him and made a few bucks each month.

The introduction of earwigs from Asia created quite a stir. The notion that the insect would enter people's ears was scary enough, but it's appearance was equally as frightening. It had a long brown body with pincers in the rear and when frightened the pincers would rise up in a threatening manner. The city or state, I don't know which, made it obligatory for all households to put out ear-wig bait, in an effort to eradicate the pests. However, though baiting did get rid of many of them, 65 years later they are found almost everywhere in the northwest. They are a nuisance in vegetable and fruit gardens, but I never heard of one entering an ear.

If we didn't have the funds to buy chewing gum we resorted to fresh street tar or that from a newly tarred roof. It took awhile to chew and warm the tar to a chewing gum softness and the flavor was nothing like juicy fruit or spearmint gum.