Tobacco Bags and Windshields

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

I have a question mainly for the older generation. My brilliant grandfather passed away in the 70's just after I turned 9 years old, so I missed out on so many years of learning from him. I have slivers of old memories of riding in his homemade auto that he built from random car parts he found. When it rained, he would wipe a bag of tobacco on the outside of the windshield. (I cannot remember if the car had wipers.)

Would he have been using the tobacco bag to clean the windshield of road grime, or was he using it as a type of RainX or both? As I type this, I now remember he did smoke a pipe briefly at night, so I'm guessing it would have been pipe tobacco that he used on the windshield.

[Jim Koepke]

I have a question mainly for the older generation. My brilliant grandfather passed away in the 70's just after I turned 9 years old, so I missed out on so many years of learning from him. I have slivers of old memories of riding in his homemade auto that he built from random car parts he found. When it rained, he would wipe a bag of tobacco on the outside of the windshield. (I cannot remember if the car had wipers.)

Would he have been using the tobacco bag to clean the windshield of road grime, or was he using it as a type of RainX or both? As I type this, I now remember he did smoke a pipe briefly at night, so I'm guessing it would have been pipe tobacco that he used on the windshield.

Back in my day it was Bull Durham cigarette tobacco. The wet tobacco would make a juice that could clean the windshield and help keep the wipers from streaking.

Bull Durham came in a small cloth pouch with a draw string.

jtk

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

That must have been it - using it for cleaning! I definitely remember the cloth pouch with a draw string. I do have a faint memory of him wiping the blades of my mother's vehicle.

[Kev Williams]

My grandpa smoked Bull Durham for 65 years, and the LAST thing he would've done, would be to use it to wash his Buick's windshield!