Soul Train of Thought

Don't worry, this isn't like those days when Soul Train came on and you knew the cartoons were done for yet another Saturday. This is a quick journey on my train of thought. All aboard!!

A friend went rollerskating at a roller rink last week and ever since I've been thinking about two things: gigantic combs and gigantic lip balm. Specifically, Orange Crush lip balm. Damned if I can't find the combs anywhere online though. I'm not even sure what to call them. They were approximately 6-8 inches long and about 2 inches wide. They each had a graphic of some sort on the non-comb portion and when inserted into the back pocket of a pair of Lee, Levis, or Wranglers (this was just before the introduction of designer jeans) the graphic portion would stick out for all the world to see. The boys could also smack the hell out of each other with these things if I remember correctly. Then again, boys can smack the hell out of each other with a blade of grass, so I guess that wasn't much of an accomplishment.

I'm not sure when the combs fell out of favor, but I imagine it was around the same time we started carrying around velcro wallets. We could only jam so many items into those back pockets. Which is why the gigantic lip balms were so handy. They were obviously too huge for pockets, so they hung on a cord we wore around our necks. They came in a bunch of soda flavors (although not in my fave, Sunkist) and I'm pretty sure you either had one or you were drummed out of school. And that was by the teachers.

So, do you remember any of these things? And if you do, what was your fave? Sure, nostalgia is a cheap blog ploy. And don't think I'm not nervous since this is only day 5 of NaBloPoMo and I'm already feeling uninspired. Let's hope something hugely absurd or tragic takes place tomorrow!