Robby Raccoon
Trash Digger
It was probably the hottest, most humid day of the year. My back was soaked with my pack absorbing sweat as it ran down me in little streams and oiled-up my glasses when my longish hair brushed over the lenses (as it always does,) thus making it hard to see correctly.
I was poking around an area where some remains to a demolished building were dumped. Across the dirt road from it were mounds of dirt that did contain one 1910s debossed brick and part of a May 2nd insulator. I didn't think that the dumped building, though, went back very far do to all the plastic. It looked like a little kid had been playing in there awhile ago, too-- plastic toy-remains, a sippy-cup, and other items strewn near wrecked bricks to the walls and foundation. A bit beyond them, the remains of an old plastic kid's lawnmower lay next to a whiskey bottle that I dated to 1955. Let's hope that he wasn't mimicking his parents, but instead that he stumbled on it and was playing with it.
Looking around, I had to crawl on hands and knees with my small shovel under bushes and low trees regaining the ground that must have once been cleared.
Coming out of this, I got up and spotted something in the ground. What could it be?
I could read that it said "URI" and looked to be some sort of condiment jar partially buried. Maybe a small pickle jar.
Gently popping my shovel into the ground, I slowly lift it up and analyze the mud covering it-- it was raining quite violently only hours before, and I was unfamiliar with the area. Seeing that the mud contained no rocks or particles of sand, I held the bottle up and could read SAMPLE. Gently brushing off mud, I got SPECIMEN and uncovered the rest of URI.
URINE SPECIMEN BOTTLE, read it. Who would have guessed?
So I thank God for the odd find and wrap it in some paper then put it in my pack and continue exploring.
It was made by Kimble Glass Company of Vineland, New Jersey-- they used the K in an elongated hexagon mark from 1947 to post-1990. The bottom also reads GLASCO and MADE IN U.S.A. and has a 2 on it.
I'm guessing 1940s-1950s, for my 1950s-born mom recalls always having used plastic for urine specimens and never glass. Fun story, I guess.
The Mouth (Click blue.) The back has measurement-increments.
I was poking around an area where some remains to a demolished building were dumped. Across the dirt road from it were mounds of dirt that did contain one 1910s debossed brick and part of a May 2nd insulator. I didn't think that the dumped building, though, went back very far do to all the plastic. It looked like a little kid had been playing in there awhile ago, too-- plastic toy-remains, a sippy-cup, and other items strewn near wrecked bricks to the walls and foundation. A bit beyond them, the remains of an old plastic kid's lawnmower lay next to a whiskey bottle that I dated to 1955. Let's hope that he wasn't mimicking his parents, but instead that he stumbled on it and was playing with it.
Looking around, I had to crawl on hands and knees with my small shovel under bushes and low trees regaining the ground that must have once been cleared.
Coming out of this, I got up and spotted something in the ground. What could it be?
I could read that it said "URI" and looked to be some sort of condiment jar partially buried. Maybe a small pickle jar.
Gently popping my shovel into the ground, I slowly lift it up and analyze the mud covering it-- it was raining quite violently only hours before, and I was unfamiliar with the area. Seeing that the mud contained no rocks or particles of sand, I held the bottle up and could read SAMPLE. Gently brushing off mud, I got SPECIMEN and uncovered the rest of URI.
URINE SPECIMEN BOTTLE, read it. Who would have guessed?
So I thank God for the odd find and wrap it in some paper then put it in my pack and continue exploring.
It was made by Kimble Glass Company of Vineland, New Jersey-- they used the K in an elongated hexagon mark from 1947 to post-1990. The bottom also reads GLASCO and MADE IN U.S.A. and has a 2 on it.
I'm guessing 1940s-1950s, for my 1950s-born mom recalls always having used plastic for urine specimens and never glass. Fun story, I guess.
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