A POSTCARD FROM GARFIELD

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2026

Hello, good morning, good evening, good afternoon, whichever it is as you peruse this. We love having our stuff perused, so thank you for your perusal. I was thinking of how important reading material was to us not too very long ago, before the internet, which our young folks today probably see the "before the internet" era as the truly dark ages indeed. We subscribed to magazines and newspapers or bought them at newsstands, grocery stores, convenience stores, or drug stores. Newspapers were to be had from payboxes in front of stores all around town. Doctors and dentist's offices, and barber shops had scads and scoodoodles of long out of date magazines, but at least it was something to help pass the interminable time. We'd read stale, two year old "USNOOZE & WORLD REPORT" issues rather than stare at a spot on the wall. As for the ones in doctor's office waiting rooms, they were job security for doctors, as they were ripe and rank with fungi, viruses, germs and such. Folks gladly donated their back issues of National Geographic to any business with a waiting room, so kids could learn about the human body and sexual stuff without the danger of them asking adults, who knew only a tad more than the kids, and feared "said young folks" would find out how dumb grown-ups were. Seriously, all jokes aside, you can't imagine the whispering campaigns that there were among little boys, as we tipped each other off as to the best year and month of old National Geographics magazines that had titties in them. Okay, let's move on to another subject before even more dear sweet, ladies faint. Let's talk about snuff. By the way, do you know why snuff was called snuff? Because when it was first introduced into Europe, fancy men would carry snuff in ornate bottles on their person, rather than put it in their mouth, they would snuff a pinch of snuff their nostrils to make them sneeze. Sneezing triggered the brain's production of endorphins, and endorphins evidently like snuff. I try to keep these topics from getting bogged down in tedious scientific matters, huhuhuh.

But when southern women took to dipping snuff like there was no tomorrow, the tobacco companies were glad to market snuff of all description to them. What I found interesting was the names given to snuff, Peach, Tube Rose, Buttttercup and other nice brand names, mostly referred to as, Scotch Sweet Snuff. I can't vouch for the others, but I can attest to the fact that Peach snuff did not taste like peaches. Okay, gotta go, "see ya in the funny papers"...oops, I forgot those are long gone also.

we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, &me