Posted on 12/30/2014 3:11:58 PM PST by WilliamIII
A harmless symbol of Christmas cheer was once deemed so risky that the FDA had to regulate it. Tinsel once contained lead, which, as scientists realized in the 1960s, made it dangerous to kids. That prompted a deal between the FDA and tinsel makers to alter manufacturing methods, the American Chemical Society reports in a video. The 1972 change was at first kept secret, Popular Science reports, for fear “that many people preferring the lead variety would stockpile it,” an official said at the time.
Believe it or not, that wasn’t the first time tinsel had posed a threat: One reason lead was used is that some kinds of tinsel used to be flammable
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
Thank you for the kind words!
...we played a game we refered to as “stretch”. Simply said, boys would stand in a circle and toss their pocked knives at the feet of the others until someone falls down.
My two older brothers were playing that but they wouldn’t let me play. They left for school so I got to play anyway. I stuck the knife right in my foot. Mom was not impressed.
Kids rode in the back of pick up trucks...and knew the difference between what and what not to do in the back of a pickup truck.
we played ice hockey, football, baseball and rode bikes without helmets. We would bumper hitch rides to school on the backs of cars when the roads were snow covered. We rode in the back of pick up trucks and built tree forts too. Just don’t tell Mom about that tunnel we dug under the girls locker room at the high school.
and played with gobs of mercury, boxes of blasting caps, set off M-80s, drove fast without seat belts while holding beer cans, and otherwise tempted fate and the rotation of the planet.
And bike rides miles from home. And riding the bus downtown alone to the library for schoolwork. And hiking with two school pals for forty miles on the Appalachian Trail (without a cell phone!).
Oh yeah, about the tunnel, my Cousin swears that he saw Cathy, the Cheer Leader Queen. To this day, all the gang disputes his claim. It makes for good holiday family reunion banter...hehehe
God Bless.
redshawk out.
I remember how it would make your fingers all *black* and all the while, we were eating Christmas cookies throughout the evening. Heh.
We hated that job!
I did all that.
Mercury is really cool.
Oooh, I had forgotten about the black, lol. Mmmm, lead!
The stuff definitely had a trick to it, but once we got going it wasn’t that bad to put up, and we got pretty good at stripping it off and saving it too.
I used to buy extra at the after Christmas sales and put it away with everything else. One year when my kids were little, I needed to open up one of those new boxes to put more on the tree.
Horror! It was some weird plasticky junk that was all wrong. Nope, not the same stuff. So much for that sale. I just thought I had bought a bum brand, so I went out to the store to buy the right tinsel at full price. It didn’t exist! All the tinsel had been corrupted and ruined! I was not amused.
For a couple seasons I was able to scrounge up enough of my old stuff, but once it was unsalvageable, no more tinsel.
That’s my sad tinsel tale. :(
Happy New Year! :)
Happy Healthy New Year to you and yours darling!
OMG!
HAHAHAHAHA!
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