While I’m tossing Christmas catalogs without so much as a glance this year, the Vermont Country Store is one I can’t avoid. For decades I had been ordering their fruit slices for my mother, their old-fashioned horehounds for my father as special Christmas treats. They have a wealth of the memory candies, condiments, cotton underdrawers and hard-to-find or no-longer-made (but where did they get them? Was the stuff stocked in warehouses for thirty years?) lotions and soaps that bring the Vicks VapoRub scent immediately to the mind spanning the years of absence in a flash of moment.
Their catalog, once printed in black and white line drawings that added to the nostalgic effect of old magazine ads, now comes in full color photos that entice with the visual effect of adding brand recognition. Along with the Yardley lavendar bottles and pink Sweet Heart soap (3 bars for $9.90!) I come to this typical practical New England but startling product for an all-natural Bath Soak "for the Overworked and Underappreciated": Tired Old Ass Soak.
You just can’t beat that.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology