Metal Band-Aid Boxes and Dime Phone Calls

Back in the day when I was a Scout, every troop sooner or later made emergency first-aid kits out of empty Band Aid cans.

Before you youngsters go “Huh?” let me explain about olden-day bandage containers. They were metal. No I don’t know why. No, I don’t remember when they changed from metal to lightweight cardboard. I’m just telling you they used to be metal.

Now, back to these tiny emergency kits. Each kit contained bandages, aspirin, a tweezers, a tiny bottle of iodine, and a few other miscellaneous items that I can't remember, and a dime.

What was the dime for? Well, an emergency telephone call. Yes, you could make a call with a dime, and no one carried cell phones (if they even existed), and there were pay phones on every corner that hadn’t been vandalized into uselessness. Trust me on this.

You know what, this reminiscing was a bad idea. Just trust me: Bandages were sold in little metal containers and you could make a telephone call at a pay phone with a dime.

Geez.