Silliness aside.

The sticks mentioned are pictured above, leaning against the cabinet my Sweetie bought at a garage sale and which precipitated this whole waste of your time and mine.

We'll dive in and arrive there in due time.

From the left: My old warhorse that anyone who's bought a big knife from me has seen already in a photo.

It's four feet long and advertises the services of "The Farmer's Union Oil Company" of Coffee Creek, Montana. "For Greater Measure" Could va die?

Actually I've seen one other of these four foot "greater measure" sticks from another outfit so...

Next in the lineup are the two red ones.

I had another partial one of these that I shitcanned and until now, I'd never looked up W. J. McCready Lumber Co.

According to Wiki, he started in Forest Grove and after that... I don't know what.

I think we can reasonably assume that he used red trucks - and that they delivered.

He also gave away a lot of yardsticks - and likely had several outlets hence the lack of address/phone# on my examples.

These two and - and remnant - that I had - we're being used as shims behind some wallboard in a house I remodeled fifteen years ago.

Interesting joint. It'd started as a turkey shed in the thirties, was made into a kinda-house sometime later but then - circa 1949/50 - it was remodeled by a guy, with a toddler, who was on the loose while Dad was working. Don't know from Mom but whoever the younger set consisted of, he/she, delighted in dropping change through the knot holes in in the fir sheathing exposed by Dad's work.

I found almost a buck's worth of change in the stud bays. Almost all pennies, one wartime zinc one, some nickels and one or two dimes. All dated to the late forties.

Pictured next: the wallpaper that had been covering the wallboard shimmed out by those red yardsticks - in the kitchen. There were other more hideous wall coverings but we don't have room for them

Yes. I have a piece of seventy-year old wallpaper. What of it?

Okay.

Next in the lineup is the shortie. He's lost an inch or two in the wars and aside from that I don;t know him from Adam.

He just happened to be on the porch when I walked by. I suspicion that the Mommy had put it out there to guide children in the selection of appropriately sized firewood.

It was a giveaway of the Seattle Trust & Savings Bank, Des Moines branch.

The institution itself went away in the '80's and I'm not sure what it means in the chronology but the phone number is listed as: TAylor-2481.

Last and the inciting item for this foolishness is the one on the far right.

This dates from an unusual time in American History, a time when we actually had a thoughtful decent man - and a scientist - as president. A time when we thought that maybe, possibly, finally and at long fucking last - America could jump ahead to the 19th century and adopt the metric system. The way of doing things that every single other country that weighs and/or measures things has been using (And quite happily) since... as I said the 19th century.

It was a brave new world and one that our own Joe Romania Chevrolet (Still in the same location) was happy to further by giving away this 39 1/2-ish" stick as a gesture of solidarity with the rational people of the world.

Yeah I get it. It's a meter stick.

To get a poignant hit regarding placement in time, see the flip/metric side:

"1977 CHEVYS - NOW THA'T'S MORE LIKE IT"

If only.