Tooth the tubes were squeezed dry, rolled up, and added to the tin collection. Cans, minus labels, were cleaned, ends cut off and flattened. All for the war effort. Today we call it recycling. Those were the days when we all did it, today just a few participate without the patriotic fervor. Bert

I had forgotten about the toothpaste tubes. I can not remember any food cans, my grandmother canned EVERYTHING we had that would normally come in a can--vegetables, fruit, even meat. My grandparents also had a drawer in a "freezer locker" at a place in town. This was where people could rent a drawer in a huge freezer to keep their frozen food. I also remember my grandmother getting a large tin can of frozen cherries from a place in Sodus, NY(anybody here near Sodus) she would let them thaw just enough to get them out and put into smaller containers then refreeze them to use later. Once a year we would make a great trek to a place in NH (probably all of 30 mi from here) where we could pick high bush wild blueberries in an area where lots of trees had come down in the hurricane of '38 and blueberries had come in. We picked the berries into 14 quart milk pails and got several pails full to be frozen for the next winter's use. We had a huge garden and our own beef, pork and chickens. We had milk cows and made butter and cheese and grandma even made her own salad dressing. We also made maple syrup in the spring so had little need for purchased sugar. The only purchased grocery items I can remember were flour, salt, spices and a little molasses. I think grandma even got cider from the neighbor and put it in a jug with some mother to make vinegar. When "recycling" became the vogue in the '70s I said that's not new, that's what we did during the War. But it has never caught on with these younger folk like we did it then. Ruth At 12:46 AM -0500 3/21/05, Buddbo@aol.com wrote: >Tooth the tubes were squeezed dry, rolled up, and added to the tin >collection. Cans, minus labels, were cleaned, ends cut off and >flattened. All for >the war effort. Today we call it recycling. Those were the days when we all >did it, today just a few participate without the patriotic fervor. > >Bert -- Ruth Barton mrgjb@sover.net Dummerston, VT

Bert said, > Tooth the tubes were squeezed dry, rolled up, and added to the tin > collection. Cans, minus labels, were cleaned, ends cut off and > flattened. All for > the war effort. Today we call it recycling. Those were the days when we > all > did it, today just a few participate without the patriotic fervor. Yes, I had forgotten metal toothpaste tubes that were added to the tin drives. Regarding flattening tin cans, I remember that also. I believe it was my job and/or my sister's job to rinse them out, peal the labels off, remove the other end (by a hand operated can opener) and then stomp on each one to flatten them. But I have to giggle about about stomping on them. Kids in those days wore leather shoes that had a heavy sole. We'd try to stomp on the cans so that the two ends would buckle up and get caught on the soles of our shoes. Then we could walk around the house with cans on our shoes! (tee hee) Yes we all did our part for the War Effort. That was the patriotic thing to do. vee