I WONDER what became of . . .
- Mansize Kleenex, the large, substantial tissue that doesn't disintegrate when you use it? It's very popular on the East Coast, yet Utah is more famous for buying food or domestic items in very large quantities.The other day I saw a package of potato chips as big as a bag of briquets. If you can get a cereal box that won't fit in your cupboard, why can't grocery stores carry Mansize Kleenex?
- Decent dental floss? Actually, I've found one brand called GLIDE that will not fray in your mouth, but only PayLess Drug Stores carry it.
- Tom Bradshaw, the former Channel 5 weatherman and emcee from the days of my youth? He was enthusiastic, interesting and witty, and we need more TV personalities like him.
- Former Congressman Howard Nielsen - the guy who had enough of Congress, announced he would not run again and didn't. Anybody seen him?
- Hot, sunny Utah summers? I never remember such black clouds or such cool weather on the traditional pioneer celebration day of July 24th. If you weren't thinking straight, you could have thought this year that you were living in Oregon by mistake.
- Randy Horiuchi's U.S. Senate candidacy? I doubt he would have had any chance at all of winning an election against Orrin Hatch, but what a wild, outrageous contest it would have been!
- Local enthusiasm for light rail? We need it, our streets are wide enough, and it would add a lot of character to the city.
- Playing hide and seek at night outside? When I was a teenager, and even a college student, my friends and I used to play it in our large yard, then come inside afterward for homemade ice cream.
- The signs in Skool Lunch that used to give you some idea of what kinds of sandwiches you could eat there? I miss the principal's office and all the scrawling on the walls from their old location, too.
- All that extensive construction downtown that used to make the entire city a maze of wooden sidewalks and tunnels? Now it's only South Temple that keeps getting torn up - and oh, yes - 100 South between the Deseret News and the ZCMI Center.
It's really just a conspiracy to keep journalists from crossing the street.
- Laura Larsen's Ice Cream store in Sugar House, next to Hygiea Ice Co.? We used to get huge green pineapple ice cream cones. Couldn't someone else make green pineapple ice cream?
- Dee's Hamburgers, the family junk-food emporium? When we were kids we used to sing, "Let's go to Dee's, let's all go to Dee's, that's what Daddy says and the family all agrees, Dee's Burgers, Cheese Burgers, hot dogs and shakes, everything a taste delight, apple turn-overs, french fries, for goodness sakes, let's all go to Dee's tonight!"
- The Coon Chicken Inn on Highland Drive, the politically incorrect restaurant that required you to enter through the smiling mouth of a huge black face? How did Salt Lake ever get away with such blatant racism?
- The Arctic Circle on 2000 East and 3300 South, where they used to serve those delicious, large, thick malts? When I was a kid it was the only Arctic Circle, then it changed in later years to Munson's Burger Den.
- Lee's Cash Market, the old-style grocer on the other corner at 2000 East and 3300 South, where you could go not only to watch the butcher cut meat, but chat with the proprietors as if they were good friends.
Those were the days.