Decluttering closets unearths pop-culture treasures

True confessions: I like a neat and tidy house. Just don’t look too closely inside my medicine cabinet, drawers or closets. Even so, there comes a point when I have to admit it’s time to tackle the flotsam and jetsam that comes with good old American consumerism by asking myself:

Will my husband ever wear that leisure suit I bought him back in 1979? Will that bottle of Aleve with an expiration date of 2013 still calm the throbbing in my head? Will I ever again fit into a size 9 pair of jeans?

And so I recently forced myself into a massive cleanout of said closets, drawers, and cabinets. Some of the stuff went to charity, most went straight to the can – either garbage or recycling. Nobody, I presume, is lusting after a 2009 Dancing Cats calendar, or a three-quarters-used-up tube of “Burnt Sienna” lipstick.

During all this archaeological upheaval, however, I did manage to unearth a gem worthy of some future time capsule—an old Superman comic book. Alas, its dog-eared condition means I won’t be cashing in for a yacht along the Riviera anytime soon. Plus, it isn’t really that old – circa 1978, to be exact.

Even so, I was fascinated to see that Superman/Clark Kent from the ‘70s, looks pretty much like the Superman/Clark Kent I remember from the ‘50s though, truth be told, I was more of a Betty and Veronica fan. Same blue hair – Superman, I mean – same infrared vision, same arch enemies, aka “The Atomic Skull” in this particular issue.

Wonder Woman also pops up here. In a full-page, thinly-disguised ad, she lures some clueless kids away from an impending rockslide by tempting them with Hostess Twinkies. “Golly, do I love Twinkies,” says one blue-haired kid, as Wonder Woman pauses with the treats just in time to stop a speeding locomotive.

Also in abundance are the same kind of ads we kids of the ‘50s once perused and pursued. Here’s Charles Atlas and his come-on for “big, useful muscles” – one of several offers in this comic book guaranteeing young weaklings the chance to “see your muscles grow day by day.”

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Then there are the ads for X-ray spectacles, exploding pens, and handshake buzzers, the latter promising to “give your friends the shock of their lives.” What, no whoopee cushions?

For kids more interested in money than pranks, my 1978 comic also offers ways to “make big money,” doing everything from selling greeting cards, to stamping out metal Social Security plates for eager customers. “Everyone wants one. Just show it!” exhorts the ad. Ah, if only we could return to those pre-identity-theft days of yesteryear.

Last, and as it turns out lamentably least, is the ad on the back cover from the American Seed Company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. “Make Money Get Prizes” is the hook, with the idea being kids would send away for free packets of vegetable and flower seeds to sell, then send back the money and claim prizes ranging from cassette tape recorders and chemistry sets to bike speedometers and “instant load” cameras.

Generations of kids did just that – right on up to the mid-‘70s, when, according to a 1981 article in Time Magazine, the little slackers started keeping the packets and whatever money they did earn, rather than turning it in for a prize.

Since 1975, reported the magazine, 400,000 kids had sent away for the seeds but “then pocketed all the sales receipts.” Naturally, the company followed through with stern warnings, sometimes receiving excuses such as, “Our house was broken into … all my money and seeds was taken. (sic) I would like to have the ‘Fireball’ shoe skates. Please send them. I will pay.” You betcha.

“So far this year, American Seed has lost $600,000 through this small-collar crime,” Time revealed in that article from 1981 – the same year the company reportedly went out of business.

Sigh. So much for truth, justice and the American way – at least for those who failed to take Superman’s credo to heart.