Arkansas Blog

I will add a short rant to what otherwise is likely to be a mundane thread. Kroger infuriates me! In the past 12-18 months, I would estimate that they have discontinued no less than a dozen items that I previous purchased on a regular basis. The reason? In my opinion, it's because they aspire to be Wal-Mart. During that same period they have added many feet of shelf space dedicated to small electronics, kitchen gadgets, and lawn chairs. Wake up! If I want to go to Wal-Mart, I'll go to Wal-Mart (which, BTW, I never set foot in). I expect my grocery store to carry groceries! Now and then I find myself praying that another significant grocery will come into the area. Our two designer groceries are nice, but limited. And, Harvest Foods is...well....Harvest Foods. Help!!

The good old products are often available on eBay, Amazon, and some other sources. Stores don't carry unadvertised stuff like S&S, Camay soap, etc. anymore.

I just checked eBay and saw a seller for S&S.

http://www.amazon.com/Spic-Span-And-Powder/dp/B000LNONUY/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-5397690-9242259?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1184432009&sr=8-1

ARK. BLOG: Thanks. We know, like everything, you can get it on-line. I was hoping to run out and buy some today, though.

Yes...I am sick of grocery stores trying to be Wal-Mart or anything else. If I want a freaking patio set or BBQ grill, I am certainly not going to buy it a Kroger or Harvest Foods. I go there for groceries and cannot stand to find the aisles junked up with these kinds of items. It hasn't done me any good the few times I have complained, though.

I hit post to quickly and meant to add that I wouldn't be surprised if Besser Ace or even Kraftco still had Spic and Span. Besser seems to have everything like that!

Had a similar problem getting Kirk's Castille bar soap, Kroger used to carry it but no more. It is a P&G product, lathers wonderfully & rinses off clean with no oily feeling or scent. Works great even in hard water, which is not a problem around here. Anyway, they have a website where you can order it direct, so I get a case shipped in about once a year, don't have to hunt for it in local stores, and no sales tax! Ain't life grand!

cam, whether you know it or not, you are a neighbor of hugh mann, who is a lifelong devotee of Besser. It was hugh who first took me there, when I was relatively new to LR. I like to go in there even when I don't need anything, just to look at everything they have, poke around in the corners and savor the sights and scents. An historic Little Rock treasure.

Max, I assume you're referring to the Hillcrest Kroger. I know their fancy flagship is in the Heights, but I don't understand why our Hillcrest Kroger has to look like something from Castro's Cuba. Maybe because the local Krogers are HQed out of Memphis? Anyway, I don't think they understand our neighborhoods at all, or care.

Max -

I just called Fred's and they carry S&S. You could also have probably found it at Dollar General or Family Dollar or any of those kinds of discount stores.

"they aspire to be Wal-Mart"

But Wal*Mart's doing the same thing, at least the supercenter in Pocahontas is. They have cut way back on variety and everybody has noticed it. Now they only stock one brand of many things. I think they've determined what is the best seller, and by forcing people to only buy that, they cut back on inventory by not carrying competing products, and they increase their buying power by buying a lot more of the one brand.

In their huge store remodeling last year, they widened the aisles all over the store. I think they gained the space because they don't stock nearly as much stuff as they once did. Maybe I should start going to Kroger to find stuff I can't get anymore at Wal*Mart!

Yo, Nom - I share your pain and frustration with Kroger. It seems to me they drop a lot of stuff in order to use the shelf space for their own brand of the items. And some items just totally disappear.

Kroger is just about on my last nerve and soon may join my boycott list of stores which currently starts and ends with Wal-Mart. I'll remove Wal-Mart from that list just as soon as they unionize so I guess you could say they are "in stone" on that list.

Oh yeah...Kroger has long been edging the way of Box World. I thought they understood that the primary reason Kroger gets my business is because they're NOT Wal Mart. I actually expect Kroger to respond to its customer's shopping desires/needs. And eliminating/reducing product selection to 2-3 major brands only helps Kroger/distributors...not the customers.

I'm going to Fresh Market for the first time...excitement!

My late late father used to always ask for a cleaning product named Bab-O. It must have gone out with Al Smith because no one knew what he was talking about.

It took me several years to figure out to hand him the Ajax when he started hollering for Bab-O.

I've now taken his place as the fossil of the family and my kids give me hell when I tell them to put the tape in the Betamax. All soft drinks are Cokes. They make fun of my telephone with a cord and a dial.

I'm the only person within miles whose car has exposed wipers and round headlights. A room without a table fan is not a room. A stove with pilot-lights is for pussies. I've found snoopy Yard Nazis run if you peer out at them with opera glasses and if your dog won't bite strangers, you own a damn cat.

However one must do these things in private...it is a sure sign of age if one takes up a whole blessedly sun-filled Saturday searching for an old fashioned floor cleaning product. So I caution you for letting that cat out of the bag.

Wal-Mart is filled with wonderful Chinese products that will remove the wax from your floors and honeybees from the environment in one easy process. This younger generation knows not the meaning of the words Spic nor Span so let that product join Bab-O in the dusty regions of geezer memory or risk being know from here on out as Mr.Max AARP. Old age is not for the weak.

This happens to me all the time. Even at Wal-Mart. They stopped carrying the type of coffee hubby likes - those pod things; Folgers, I think; Columbian something . . . I know it when I see it, and it ain't there any more.

Last time I went to Kroger to find it, they didn't have it either! Arrrggghhhh! Agony, agony. . .

And, on the same trip, Kroger didn't have ANY frozen biscuits or rolls. Am I just hitting them at the wrong time, or what?

Plus, I never can find Velveeta in Kroger; they seem to keep it in some hidden section near orange juice or some such.

I also don't like Kroger's lack of choice in ground beef. At least Wal-Mart carries the meat with much lower percentages of fat.

Basically, I despise grocery shopping entirely. I wish someone would shop for me (for free) or that ONE store would carry everything I want without me feeling like the clientele was just released from a nearby carnival or that I have to jockey for a parking place and walk 3/4 of a mile to the front door and back to my vehicle with a cart full of stuff.

Well, the spousal unit and I had to think hard about where we purchased our *bottle* of Spic 'n Span but we've decided it was Home Depot.

Nothing else like it!

Mother used Bon Ami, which of course she pronounced "Bon AMM-EYE." Her infinitely lazier son is satisfied with whatever the maid uses. Anyway, bet you can't find Bon Ami at Kroger's either.

The little yellow chick with its butt still in the eggshell on the label of Bon-Ami fascinated me as a youngun, as did the cow with its whole body inside the Pet Milk can. Both items were perpetually on my grandma's kitchen table, in case somebody was drinking a cup of coffee or needed to clean something. Mrs Tucker, with her glasses perched atop her white hair on the lard tin, was always ready by the wood-burning cookstove, where gradma heated numerous kettles of hot water to bathe her kids (10) and grandkids in.

Aunt Jemima was always there, as was Uncle Ben. I always wondered why that little girl was spilling the salt under the umbrella, until I learned to read and asked what was meant by "When it rains, it pours". That may have been my first science lesson, as well as my introduction to the world of "old sayings".

At that age, I probably thought the world never changed. How wrong I was.

Max,

Dollar Tree, which you overlook, has Spic & Span in a bottle.

Some of you have got me reminiscing again about old products and the radio programs they sponsored.

My mom always used BAB-O (spelled by Ford Bond on our radio "Bee-Ayy-Bee-DASH-OHHHhhhhh...)

Next door, Billy's mom used Spic and Span scouring powder.

Two houses down, Donald's mom used Bon-Ami powder.

People across the street used Old Dutch.

I always tried to get Mom to use up that can of BAB-O and buy either Bon-Ami or Old Dutch instead -- purely peer pressure.

But it took years to use up that can of BAB-O. By that time, World War II had ended and we had moved to another town where my new friends didn't care what kind of cleanser anybody's mom used.

Nevertheless, it seemed strange to see new products coming into the grocery store following the War. Mom brought home a can of powder called Comet, but I liked the radio jingle for Ajax a lot better.

I wonder if Max opens threads like this one because he's really looking for some scouring powder or if he wants to educe nostalgia from those of us who still have a memory. Personally, I love stuff like this. (I still like to put Pet milk in my coffee sometimes.)

Anyone remember this schoolyard jingle?

"Comet, it makes your teeth turn green.

Comet, it tastes like gasoline.

Comet, it makes you vomit.

So eat some comet, and vomit today."

Years ago at West Side Junior High Mr. Luther Baugh, a civics teacher, used to tell certain pupils that were like Bon Ami,

They Hadn't Scratched Yet

My wife uses Bon Ami today and has to order it from out of state.

I have bought Bon Ami at the Hillcrest Kroger very recently; also at Harvest Foods on Cantrell.

I must report that mrs rosso, when asked about Spic and Span availability, wondered aloud why not Mr. Clean?

I am not taking a position...

Can't help with Spic n Span, Bon Ami or Old Dutch -- the standard at our house in the 50s. But I can put you onto a deal on Bab-O. SavABundle, that freight damage outlet at Benton has at least a pallet of Bab-O. Until I saw it there, I don't think I'd seen any since I was a kid.
Remember when all that stuff came in a cardboard can with a metal top and bottom? Ever knock it off into a sink of hot dishwater, fish it out, dry off the container and put it back where it belonged before Mama checked to see how you were doing? She was not happy when it caked up in the can and she had to throw it away. She changed brands after that mess.
As long as we're trashing grocery stores, Brookshire's is one I'll never set foot in again if I can avoid it. Give 'em your life history and maybe your first born and they'll give you a little thingamajig that allows you to buy goods at the prices placed prominently on the shelves. You don't want a little thingamajig or you don't really want someone's computer to know that you bought a coupla cases of beer and some wine coolers when hubby was working out of town? Paper trails, you understand . . . (Personally, I think the thingamajig business was GeorgieBoy's idea, along with the electronic medical records crap he touted.)
Anyway, no thingamajig? You pay the price posted under the big sign in tiny print -- and it ain't cheaper, I'll tell ya that.

How about LSMFT.....Lucky Strike Mean Fine Tobacco.....only with us boys it went Loose Straps Mean Floppy Tits

Maybe I can find an old LSMT advertising sign and present it as a gift to our new Hooters on opening day?

Rosso wrote: "...mrs rosso, when asked about Spic and Span availability, wondered aloud why not Mr. Clean?"

========
Probably because--
"There's no rinsing, There's no wiping, When you clean with Spic and Span...."

Now can Mr. Clean do that?

Seen between Crossett and Bastrop, c 1965:

Forest Fires
Start From Scratch
So Think
Before You Toss
That Match

Burma Shave

Burma Shave signs at the Hackberry General Store in Hackberry, Arizona on Route 66

Big Mistake

Many Make

Rely on Horn

Instead of

Brake

And, Silver Bells, the Bon Ami you find today in stores is not the original
see the Bon Ami web site
http://www.bonami.com/products/

The old Spic & Span in a box that was in the form of granules like Tide or whatever - Do they even make that any more?

I am so proud to see that so many of you also despise Satans Emporium (You may know it as walmart)

Liberal & Proud: Harvest Foods in Clarksville has those folgers pod things. If your hubby is desperate - and I know some coffee makers will ONLY work with those pod thingies -- Email Max and tell him he has my permission to give you my email address, I'll go buy you some and send them to you.

I had to quit drinking coffee but I did notice those pod things the last time I went down that aisle.

The Spic & Span (or is it spic 'n span) you buy in a box and mix up yourself worked a lot better than the liquid. At least back in the day when we had bought an old house in LR and were cleaning/painting/etc. I have some lemon spic & span liquid that gets the job done now, but im not doing anything like cleaning up an old house, thank God.

liberal/proud/and podless, let me knwo about the coffee.