CAMINO INSPIRATIONS
  • About me
  • Blog
  • Published Works
  • Get in Touch
  • About me
  • Blog
  • Published Works
  • Get in Touch
Picture

Hello 2

4/9/2019

3 Comments

 
​I have been enjoying talking to my siblings about my next family story:  Do You Remember S&H Green Stamps or My S&H Tea Service. 
 
The memory can be uncertain and problematic. We’re talking about events that happened in 1963 and 1964. My two older brothers remember licking S&H Green Stamps and pasting them carefully into books, but that’s it.  My younger sister remembers collecting the stamps and the tea service, but I’m the only one that remembers the Tea Party! I intend to use all their memories as an illustration of the memory conundrum, and still tell the story as I remember it.  My mother will be the last to interview, which was scheduled for today, but she dislocated her shoulder in a fall yesterday, so that will have to wait.  
 
My mom has some difficulty with words now, but she will recall the details of the events which will help my memory. 
 
When I was at a reception recently and asked what I was writing about, I said green stamps. Two people immediately had stories. One shared that her aunt gave her books of green stamps as a wedding present and she got new towels at the redemption store.
 
Another told of a church that had a theme for each month. Last month it was redemption, and when one of the members was asked what redemption meant to her, she said, “When I was a little girl, I went to the S&H Redemption Store with my mother.”
 
My brother said, “I didn’t know you could buy redemption at a store. Are there any of those left?”
 
Share your stories about S&H Green Stamps.
3 Comments
Denis L Robert
4/9/2019 12:02:50 pm

Elizabeth
What great anecdotes about S & H Greenstamps. Can't wait to read your story once it has been published.

Reply
Roland
4/11/2019 01:47:37 pm

Congratulations from the UK, Elizabeth! Firstly, for the acceptance of your story by Green Briar Review, but also for this website, your blog, and for following through on your resolve to write personal essays and blazing a trail for us all. Good luck with the S&H Green Stamps story. In the UK, we had Green Shield Stamps, based on the success of Sperry & Hutchinson's Green Stamps in the US. Then S&H decided to get into the market here, but since green was already taken, they opted for pink stamps. So, for us it was S&H Pink Stamps. Green Shield stopped altogether in 1991 and the catalog company that had blossomed from it was re-branded as Argos, still a very popular catalog and store front operation.

Reply
Amy Esdale
4/20/2019 11:43:07 am

In the first apartment I ever had after college, my roommate Sophie and I collected green stamps. We bought a harvest gold Gold fondue pot with green stamps. When we moved out, we flipped a coin, and I got the fondue pot! I think the fondue pot is long gone.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.