Connections
S&H Green Stamps were the precursor to electronic rewards programs. Let me explain to those of you who are not ancient like me. One would buy groceries, and the more one spent, the more stamps one earned. One then had to lick the stamps and stick them into booklets. One could also rope one’s children into doing the licking and sticking, which is what my mother did. It is a wonder my tongue didn’t get permanently glued to the top of my mouth, I licked so many.
The goal of filling those books was to buy things with the stamps. For my mother, it was to get a set of china dishes. She not only wanted a nice set of dishes, she really did need one because we hosted most of the holiday parties for extended family, and we didn’t have enough “every-day dishes” to give everyone a plate. Hence the licking, sticking, and collecting.
Those dishes have been used over and over in the last fifty years, and they are now coming to me. My siblings do not want them, and my mother no longer needs them. I have never owned china dishes before because I didn’t think I would ever need them, but I am finding myself with the same dilemma my mother had. I do not own enough “every-day dishes” to host a holiday party because many of my every-day dishes broke over the years by using them every day.
I have started the process of having the set shipped across country. The plates arrived today, and as I unwrapped one to check for breakage, I couldn’t help but wonder how many friends and relatives used that plate. Nearly everyone from my childhood either lives far from me or has passed on, but a part of them remains with those plates. The dishes are family heirlooms. They are things that connect one generation to another, and they hold a lot of memories.
I could buy more dishes, of course, but the desire for my mother’s china has grown as the years have passed. Besides, after all of that licking and sticking, I figure I earned it.