If you read my articles on here, you know I'm a big fan of Facebook pages like Vanished Kalamazoo and several others, like Michigan History and Memories of Chicago's Past. And it's always fun to see a post from someone who found an item or an unopened box from sometime in the middle of the past century. But it seems like it always happens to other people. Well, this time it happened to me.

You might have seen my story from earlier this week about looking for something to get rid of a wasps nest inside a satellite dish receiver. As my son and I were poking around in the back of the building at work looking for bug spray and parts to create the poking stick, we found a room that looked a like a small bathroom, just a toilet and a sink that probably hadn't seen any water in at least half a century, probably more. And there was a medicine cabinet.

Wow. There was some ancient Pepto-Bismol, that was several shades of pink. There was some Gillette "lather shaving cream". This was in a squeeze tube, not like today's containers where you press the button and out comes foamy cream. There were a couple of old fashioned long handled shaving "safety' razors. Those may be the only treasure we found.  I googled that  and found one selling for almost $100.

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There was also a shaving brush, and, here was a blast from the past, "mercuro-chrome". Amazon says the kind they sell "is a mercury-free first aid antiseptic to help prevent skin infection in minor cuts, scrapes, and burns. It is for external use only." Probably a good thing, because while it's not banned (for containing mercury?). maybe they just found better antiseptics. Finally, there was a container of talcum powder, which is not really popular, either.

Well, the safety razor and mercuro-chrome were a blast from the past. I know this part of the building was stand alone in the 1950's, but the station's studio were above the State Theatre, so it's not like someone had to live out here, but who knows what the reason for the toiletries is.

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