The Fuller Brush Saga

Those Were The Days, 1970

I’ve brushed my hair with this model -nylon handle, hard nylon bristles—since the 50’s. Over the years, I’ve bought replacements from Fuller local distributors--in Connecticut, in Tennessee and later, in Pennsylvania. The last Old Reliable came from The Vermont Country Store catalog. This, however, should have given me a clue that the unthinkable which was about to happen. 

A few weeks ago, when I went to order a new brush from Vermont folks, I found that they were no longer pictured in the personal care section of their catalog. I called them—no dice. They had my old 520 Half Round Brush, but when I inquired further, I learned that this 520 ain't the same as the old one. Now the only available "Model 520" has a wooden handle and soft boar bristles.  That sort of thing won’t even go through my hair. I may be old, but I still have hair. 

 L

To clean a hair brush it must be soaked in a hot soapy solution and then combed out, rinsed and sun dried. The old time boar bristles could stand up to such treatment, but the new cheap-o ones go from soft to softer—my balding husband has one of the wood + bristle versions, so I know. Moreover, you shouldn't soak wood. If you do, results will be dire. 

So now the search begins--either for Old Faithful--which may be waiting for me in a dusty warehouse somewhere, or in the remainder stock of some disgruntled Fuller Brush distributor I've yet to locate. I hope to get lucky and find one, but the chances, even with the 'net, are slim.

I've learned in my searches that Fuller has been sold, or more like "sold out." The industrious distributors, some of whom spent their whole lives working for the company, have been shucked off without the recompense they were originally offered.  Now they are just another set of victims of our steal your way to the top culture.

Sorry to digress into an oldster's gloom-and-doom rant about nowadays, but, damn, I'll sure miss having a good hairbrush. The current one is now beginning to lose bristles, and I dread the day when it finally has to be retired for good and all.



~Juliet Waldron

All my novels, all available publishers & formats:

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Mozart's Wife
A Master Passion
Genesee
Roan Rose
Black Magic
and many others

Fly Away Snow Goose, a story set partly in the Canadian Residential Indian Schools, is a December 2017 release from Books We Love, Canadian Brides 

  

AN ATTIC VIEW

The Wars of Roses~View from Downstairs

 

Once this attic was empty, but entire lives are stored up there now. When we arrived here, 30 years ago, the house was completely empty. At closing, my husband requested that nothing be left behind, and nothing was, so we began with a blank slate. Now, thirty ++ years later, the whole thing is jammed. First, came a set of rustic oak chairs from our Tennessee sojourn and a few end tables. Then, in rapid succession came my grandmother’s stuff—the sad remains that the early bird relatives had deemed unimportant—and then came my mother’s boxes and trunks when she entered a nursing home—and next came his mother’s many photo albums, a huge collection going back into the 1930’s, after she too ended up in “incarcerated”. Sadly, we can’t recognize more than half the people who are posed there, giving us tight New England smiles in those old pictures pictures. 

Now all of it gathers dust. Some important boxes filled with memorabilia I would LOVE to find  have vanished—gone without a trace when I went back to locate them later. Perhaps they’ve fallen into some Twilight Zone like void that may exist in the upper stories of houses. My husband suggests they've fallen into the same inter-dimensional crease where the lost socks go.

 

We’ve thought of cleaning it, of sorting through, of discarding most and preserving the few things that might still have some interest and/or value to the next generation. Then summer comes again and we abandon the place for another six months. Next winter, we think, next spring, but somehow it never happens.  Our stuff is there, too. A host of coffee mugs emblazoned with the names of once famous and now dead Tech companies, untouched boxes of tractor-feed paper, and woolen tartan skirts made in Scotland made for 70 lb H.S. girl, as well as jackets and note books from 5^th and 6^th Form English school days—“O” level tide-pool biology and “A” level European History, adjacent to my husband’s brightly colored slacks purchased for 1970’s casual Fridays.     

There is a solar bicyclist who no longer pedals, a strobe light from the Roaring Sixties, a trunk full of 78 records (Big Band, Classical, Jazz) which belonged to my mother, and a bust which my brother-in-law picked out of some East Village trash heap back before gentrification had driven out the artists. My huband's gun club trophies are parked on a rickety bookcase.

Deeper in, there are my own manuscripts--a rejection pile--that all writers back in the day accumulated--pages thumbed through and smelling of cigarette smoke. (We went broke mailing the stuff to agents/publishers and then having it sent back via SASE.)  I even have a collection of dreary literary criticism from the 1920's simply because they they  had my Grandfather Liddle's signature inside them, and I couldn't bear to throw them away.

 

 

 

~~Juliet Waldron
http://bookswelove.net/authors/Waldron-Juliet
http://www.julietwaldron.com

Hop on over to these other talented Books We Love Authors:

 

http://triciamg.blogspot.com/ (Tricia McGill)

http://mizging.blogspot.com (Ginger Simpson)

http://connievines.blogspot.com.au/ Connie Vines

Mr. Klein

He was my music teacher at Skaneateles High School until my parents' divorce sent me off to the U.K. in the 9th grade. He was funny, witty, tall and rather thin, dressed in khakis, a white button down and a tie. Sometimes he wore a jacket, too, but sometimes, when he was working with his chorus or the band, he rolled up the sleeves. He had a long, large nose, wise brown eyes behind big glasses, and long musician's hands.

As this was back in the 50's, a time of teen angst, I don't really remember as much about him, or how he taught, or things he said, as I'd like to. He thought I might learn to be a vocalist, and though that probably wasn't likely, he cared enough to give me something to work toward, which is important for kids in general and which was very kind to me. The high point of my last year was singing a solo at the Christmas program. Even a few days later, broadcast by a local a.m. station, as one among the offerings of a hundred other high schools, I was proud to hear myself, clear and pitch perfect. If I'd stayed in Skaneateles, I probably would have studied music, simply because he was such an inspirational teacher.

My parents often went out to dance and hear music in Syracuse, and they came across Mr. Klein working another job, as pianist in a locally well-known jazz band. Those were the days when teachers didn't get paid very much, but this was more than just moonlighting. Mr. Klein's brown eyes always lit up in music class when he talked about "Jazz Hot" and "Jazz Cool," which was, according to him, the end point in the evolution of western musical tradition. "Jazz Cool," was, of course, what he preferred--and played.  At the big hotel, he was the featured player: "Pop Klein on the Piano," disguised, as were the rest of the band, behind hip dark glasses. It was, of course, a secret, not something that in those days the school board would have looked on kindly, so my parents swore me to secrecy.

Once, in class, Mr. Klein mentioned something about this other life, telling a story about another musician who was, around supper time, scratching  himself absently and saying "I got spag-eyes." Those not into jive talk imagined a horrible skin disease, but Mr. Klein explained that his hipster friend just wanted to go out for sphagetti.

Nope, I won't ever forget this marvelous teacher, the benign Mr. Klein! I hope he's still around somewhere, and that he has enjoyed the great stream of new jazz which has continued unabated ever since.

~~Juliet (Vandiver) Waldron

http://www.amazon.com/author/julietwaldron