Keeping Tab on Some Old Brands

Many of the brands of my youth are gone, lost presumably to changing tastes and perhaps a better informed public.

I used to wash my hair with a shampoo called Body on Tap. It was made with actual beer, which was supposed to be good for your hair. I haven’t seen Body on Tap for years. If it were still around, you’d probably have to keep it locked up in a liquor cabinet. The FDA also might frown upon beer being promoted as a cure for a bad hair day.

Tab, the original diet soda, is still around, but not as popular as it once was. As it turns out, people apparently prefer diet sodas that don’t taste like cough syrup and include warnings about dying lab rats on the side. Imagine that.

I loved Fun Dip, which is basically what you get when you empty a jillion Pixie Sticks into a mountain of sugary dust and then shovel it in with a spoon, also made of sugar. To the best of my knowledge, the packaging wasn’t made of sugar, but it should have been.

We weren’t much for moderation in those days. Charles Chips used to arrive at my doorstep in the equivalent of an oil drum. Charles Chips might still be around somewhere, but I’m certain they don’t come in oil drums anymore.

The bottom line is we’ve probably gotten too smart for suspect additives, mountains of unrefined sugar, gargantuan sizes and alcohol-infused household products. Or maybe the lawyers just smartened up. Either way, these are positive developments.

Nevertheless, I can’t help but have an occasional yearning for one of the most heinous -- yet delicious -- salty snacks of my youth. It was called Bacums. As I recall, Bacums were basically bacon-flavored potato chips. Each chip looked like a miniature slice of bacon. If they were around today, you’d probably confuse Bacums for dog treats. But if Bacums are for dogs, then slap a collar on me and call me Spike. I loved Bacums. I ate them every day. At my high school, you couldn’t find a warm vegetable for a hundred miles, but you could always find a bag of Bacums.

I don’t remember ever giving up Bacums. Luckily, the changing snack food market saved me from myself. But I won’t lie. If I could find one last bag of Bacums, I’d eat them right now, washing them down with a Tab, of course, just for old-time’s sake.