You’re going to recall something else from your childhood?
Right. I guess it was when I was 9 or 10. Also 11, after the war started.
World War 2?
Yeah. When guys my age say “the war,” that’s the one we’re talking about.
Anyway, what I was thinking about was what we called iron-on transfers. They often came inside bubble-gum wrappers.
When we opened them up and unfolded them, we’d find various kinds of images on a thin paper with a dye on one side.
Here you see Santa cartoons, but they could be anything. Like Mickey Mouse. Or Superman. After the war started we might find a U.S. flag or eagle or something patriotic like that.
So what did you do with them?
Okay. That dye would come off on some fabric if we pressed it on with a hot iron.
That could be on a tee shirt, but mostly we put them on sweatshirts. Nowadays you see a lot of sweatshirts already printed with some words and images, but back then it was — using today’s terminology — “do-it-yourself.”
Thanks for the briefing.
I’ve got one more bubble-gum memory. Then, I promise, I’ll move on to something else.
Okay. See you next time.