Sometimes I get tired of having to post "used to be" items. I do like aspects of the modern world, after all :-)—the Internet, central air conditioning, satellite television and radio, central air conditioning, interstate highways...did I mention central air conditioning? :-)

On the other hand, sometimes the lack of things I used to be able to find as a matter of course drives me bats.

For instance, back in the 1970s and earlier I could pop into darn near any Woolworths, or even the local drugstores like Thalls and Douglas Drugs and find something called "cloth tape." It came in several basic colors and was what you used to repair the spines of books. (I suppose it was probably made by Scotch, but for some reason I associate it with Dennison, which, of course, merged with Avery some years ago.) I haven't seen "cloth tape" in years. Scotch does make a clear tape called "book tape" which essentially does the same job but enables you to see the original spine. It comes in four widths.

I can find it online in all four widths at Office Depot and Staples. Office Max has it in one size. I can also find the clear stuff and also what sounds like cloth tape online at library.com and other places.

But in no case can I actually walking into the big-box office supply stores and buy a roll; it all must be ordered online. Office Depot, et. al. are all huge stores. Why can't they make room for something this essential and this small? They sell coffee and snacks for office vending machines, but not something that might be useful in an office?

Wicked bizarre!

I'm probably just going to buy a roll of colored "duck tape" at JoAnn. For all I know, this is the same stuff as the old "cloth tape," although it doesn't look it; the appearance is different. But I was hoping to just pop in somewhere and get the clear stuff and let the (slightly mangled) spine of the old book I bought show through.

(I bought a bound copy of Wide Awake, which ran concurrently with St. Nicholas until SN absorbed it in 1893. The front cover had come off and the back is loose and I'm currently gluing those portions, but need the tape to finish off the outer repair. This collection is from 1889 and has the second half of Five Little Peppers Midway in it as a serial story under the title "Five Little Peppers Further On.")

Labels: books, memories

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 1:27:00 PM

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