Need a Hankie? When Every Man Had One in His Pocket

I had one of those random childhood memories pop into my head the other day.

Handkerchiefs. Hankies.

If you grew up in the 1950s and '60s like I did, you probably remember them. It seemed like nearly every grown man had a handkerchief stuffed somewhere in his pocket. My dad sure did.

And I'm not talking about some fancy little decorative square tucked neatly into the breast pocket of a suit. I'm talking about a real, working hankie. Sometimes it was white cotton. Sometimes it was patterned. And plenty of working men carried those familiar red bandana-style handkerchiefs.

They had a job to do.

Yep, We Blew Our Noses in Them

Here's the part that might make younger generations cringe. A guy would feel a sneeze coming on, reach into his pocket, pull out his handkerchief and blow his nose into it.

Then he'd fold it over, put it back in his pocket...

…and use it again later.

Yep.

That's what we did. You found a clean spot, folded the used part to the inside, and carried on with your day. Eventually the hankie went into the laundry, got washed, and went right back into service.

Nobody thought much about it.

Today, when we're accustomed to grabbing a fresh tissue, using it once, and throwing it away, stuffing a used hankie back into our pockets sounds a little questionable. But back then? Completely normal.

Paper Wasn't the Problem

It wasn't because America didn't have facial tissues.

Kleenex had been around since the 1920s. Disposable tissues were certainly available by the time I was growing up. But America hadn't yet become quite as disposable as it is today.

A cotton handkerchief was cheap, washable, reusable, and dependable. You didn't need to find a box of tissues because you already had what you needed in your pocket. It was just part of getting dressed.

Men usually had some sort of reminder system with getting dressed: Wallet. Keys. Comb. Handkerchief.

A Gentleman Was Supposed to Have One

There was another side to the hankie that I remember, too. Having one was considered part of being prepared—and even part of being a gentleman. A man might offer his clean handkerchief to a woman or a child. Some men supposedly carried two: one for themselves and another clean one in case somebody else needed it.

And the hankie wasn't limited to noses. It wiped sweat off your forehead. Cleaned your glasses. Wiped dirty hands. Dabbed a little blood off a scraped knuckle. Cleaned something off a kid's face.

The larger bandana versions were practically tools. A working man, rancher, farmer, mechanic or outdoorsman could use one as a sweat rag, dust mask, neck covering, makeshift bandage or whatever else the day demanded. Heck, outlaws wore them in the stagecoach robbing days!

That little square of cotton earned its keep.

Then America Changed

As the decades rolled along, disposable products became cheaper and more convenient. Advertising increasingly emphasized sanitation and the convenience of using something once and throwing it away. Boxes of facial tissues became fixtures in homes, offices and cars. Pocket packs eventually made disposable tissues easy to carry anywhere.

Somewhere along the way, the everyday man's handkerchief quietly disappeared. Not completely, of course. You can still buy them. Bandanas certainly haven't gone anywhere. They don't spend nearly as much time wiping noses as they used to!

But carrying a hankie every day is no longer the almost automatic habit it once was.

Looking back, the hankie was also part of a less disposable world. We washed things and used them again. Moms washed cloth diapers. Bottles were returned. Things got repaired instead of replaced. We didn't call it recycling or sustainability. Mostly, it was just how life worked.

Funny What You Remember

That's what got me thinking about all this in the first place. I can still picture my dad reaching into his pocket and pulling out his handkerchief. There was nothing remarkable about it at the time. It was just something Dad did. Something thousands—probably millions—of dads did.

But more than half a century later, that simple little piece of cloth can bring back a remarkably clear picture of another time. Maybe that's the funny thing about getting older. The big events make the history books. But sometimes it's the smallest things—a smell, an old car, the faint smell of gas in a classic car sitting in the garage, a song on the radio, or a folded handkerchief in your dad's pocket—that bring the past rushing back.

And if somebody nearby happened to sneeze? Just offer:

"Need a hankie?"