Thursday, July 3, 2014

Green Stamps



S&H Green Stamps were trading stamps popular in the United States from the 1930s until the late 1980s. They were distributed as part of a rewards program operated by the Sperry & Hutchinson company. During the 1960s, the rewards catalog printed by the company was the largest publication in the United States and the company issued three times as many stamps as the U.S. Postal Service.  Customers received stamps at the checkout counters of supermarkets, department stores, and gasoline stations that could be redeemed for products in the catalog.

Scratching at the back of my mind
all those green stamps Aunt Florence saved,
a hundred books enough for something good
who had so little.
They were stolen, an inside job,
Her oldest daughter, is what she thought.
So hurt.  The only time I saw her anything but angry.
Green stamps I saved as a teenage bride
In Norman, Oklahoma.
Enough for an attaché case for my husband
to take to work who was having nooners with a long, tall
woman who lived nearby.
Green stamp rewards did not rekindle passion,
as I had hoped.

Green stamps I took that first time
shopping with my new love
He gave them back.
“No green stamps,” he said,
“Never take green stamps.”
After his mother died inside a garage,
The motor running,
He found a box of green stamp books,
Hundreds, each stamp licked and put in place,
Enough for something really, really good,
Her life work, he said.

Never get green stamps,
You can’t depend on green stamps.

1 comment:

Bev said...

I think about S&H Green Stamps a few times a year when I tell the story of my aunt accusing me of stealing them. I used to fill her books, when I was about 9 y/o. So many stamps it took to get a trade-in. I was happy doing it until one day I was shocked by her accusation and lost interest. Wondering if there was a prevailing fear of family members stealing green stamps. Thanks for the pic of the book and your post, Arupa.