See that man sitting at the corner table by himself?
He’s eatin’ paste.
How about the guys down at the fire station. The cop at the donut shop. They’re not eatin’ donuts anymore. They’re eatin’ paste.
Paste. Just the thought of it brings tears to the eyes of many older Americans. But people today just don’t realize, just don’t appreciate the heritage of paste. They don’t realize how far we’ve come from the days when paste was all we had.
“But, Grandpa. Did you not have mucilage? Did you not have rubber cement?”
Sure, kid … and you can make due with an Atari 2600 instead of that PS2 you keep begging me for, ya’ little nit. And sure, it was kind of cool to let rubber cement dry and roll it up and pretend it was a booger. But there was no replacement for paste. The creamy thick consistancy. The way it hardened into a brittle, crusty slab before you even got the chance to apply it to paper. And a more natural kindergarten snack could not be imagined.
You kids just don’t know. You don’t remember crisp Christmas Eves when our own grandpas would gather us around the tree to read “A Child’s Christmas with Paste.” Would George Washington had lasted that winter at Valley Forge without paste? Would the Gettysburg Address be as stirring had not Abraham Lincoln taken a big spoonful before he wrote? Yes … it was paste that fed the dreams of Lewis and Clarke as they forged their way into the wilderness of the new world.
So, do it Mr. and Ms. John Q. Public. Go to Au Bon Pain and ask for a big bowl of paste. They’ll look at you funny, but they’ll give it to you. Eat some paste. You’ll feel better about yourself and your fellow man.
Ah, man, Euty. I Do remember the slick sly taste of paste in the Hampton Bays elementary art class. It had a wintergreen bouquet, with a hint of plastic ageing. It was pretty awkward and lumpy for it’s foisted purpose, so after getting bored with the project, down the gullet it went.
Ain’t nothing like the smell of Paste in the morning…
The Good American consumers were sick and tired of the paste conspiracy.
The one where the stick doesn’t fully reach the bottom of the jar. And you’d have to reach in with your fingers, but the opening was to small. so you’d have to use a paint brush and your teacher would get mad at you…
oh my. you are bring back childhood trauma with this post.
Wintergreen??? Where was all this minty-fresh tasting paste when I was but a wee sprout in the garden of life? Had the paste of my youth been so fragrant, I might have actually eaten some.
Our paste smelled nasty, like it was kept in the dark, back corner of a closet in the old folks home.
Nooooooooooo! Stay away from Elenfair. She’ll trip over something big and nasty and hurt herself and then take you down with her, down into the giant Vat O’ Paste she has strategically placed for just this occasion.
Hey! Don’t you go a’finger pointin’ at me, mister. I had my fair share of paste just a few short years ago. We had buckets of the stuff, buckets I tell you.
We didn’t use no stinkin’ little stick, neither, we had full-size brushes. Some even used rollers!
What’s that? What ever was I doing with so much paste? Well, I, and my fellow Marines, were pasting paper targets onto frames so we could shoot the centers out of them.
Nothing like the clumpy, chunky paste that runs down your hand ask you slap it around…ahhh, the smell…ahhh, the cool slimey feeling…
Did I eat any? Nope, that there was Guvmint prop’ty, t’aint for eating, it’s for holdin’ things.
Elly