Toilet Paper

October 6, 2008 by Dick.

The University of Vermont announced recently that it will “go green,” at least in the toilet paper department. The college has eschewed the once-beloved super puffy Charmin in favor of an unbleached, 100% recycled fiber product approved by the Forest Crimes Unit, a student group.

I have a long, personal history with toilet paper but not as long as my dad did. He went to work for Scott Paper Company right out of college, exactly one week before I was born. He toiled in Export Sales for Scott until 1968.

He was a company man through and through. We used ScotTissue and Scotties and even ScotTowels which are pretty bad paper towels. He once tore up a box of [Kleenex] he found in the home of a manufacturer’s rep who sold Scott products in Africa. Now, of course, Kimberly Clark owns Scott. Despite that, I still use ScotTissue because it is the most benign product for septic tanks. I like the price, too, although the size of the “squares” (they are actually rectangles now) gets smaller and smaller.

Scott Paper brought the first rolls of toilet paper to market. The company was founded in 1879 by brothers E. Irvin and Clarence Scott who specialized in producing paper for privies and later for toilets. At first they purchased paper and tissue from outside suppliers, then cut, rolled and packaged the paper.

Early Scott advertisements suggested that “over 65% of middle-aged men and women suffered from some sort of rectal disease.” Inferior toilet paper, the ads proclaimed, was responsible because “harsh toilet tissue may cause serious injury.”

Kids have no sense of history.

You, dear reader, may wonder why I wrote about toilet paper instead of the “bailout” this week. Simple. I thought I could avoid weighing in again on this (latest)(greatest) Congressional financial scam. After all, I’m not an economist. I’m not a national expert. I don’t even have a mortgage.

OK, that last is not entirely true but it is a small, fixed rate note with a good bank that is not in trouble. It has about 5 years left on its term.

One of the pundits said the Congress critters don’t want to “reward bad business behavior.”

Horse puckey. Congress critters do that all the time, for themselves and for anyone whose sphere of influence they inhabit. The bankers and other financial peeps lied, cheated, and stole. Period. Their actions–and this latest bailout–has put three generations of Harper magic in the crapper while said financiers walk off with the perfume. Writing about toilet paper makes more sense than anything else you see on teevee.

These kids have no sense of history, but I repeat myself.

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