What began as a well-intentioned post about the 1942 Ypsi scrap rubber drive, in honor of Memorial Day, devolved into a conversation with my husband about rubber baby pants.DDH: "I didn't know rubber could be reclaimed, or melted down, or whatever."
DD: "I didn't either--but they were recycling EVERYTHING--even the little ring of rubber around the top of canning jar lids! Just that little ring! One kid swiped his dad's spare tire and turned it in."
DDH: "Ah. I'm sure the dad was thrilled by his son's patriotism."
DD: "Yeah...and you couldn't get new tires then, either. They were getting a penny a pound for scrap rubber."
DDH: "So...OK,...but tires were thinner then..."
(Geeks to the core, DD and DDH carefully calculate the scrap-rubber value of a 1942 tire and estimate it to be around 15 cents).DD: "They were also collecting something called 'rubber baby pants'. That sounds like a singularly...uncomfortable piece of clothing."
DDH: "Yeeaahhh...rubber baby pants? So...the idea is you just...like, bag it up in there?"
DD: "I guess...gross! Then when you have to take them off---
(several icky scatological speculations deleted by editor, eeuuuww.)
DDH: "It's like those rubber-pants bikers in (a city somewhere vaguely to the west of Ypsilanti)--those self-important dweebs with all the logos and stuff on their rubber pants."
DD: "Yeah...they're full of [AAOOOOGAH!] too."
