When I was a little girl, my mom had this all-purpose soap called Fels-Naptha. We never washed with it, but it was Mom's remedy for any stain, and when I got poison ivy or oak (which I did quite regularly), she would make a lather of it and let it dry to dry up the blisters. It worked, too.

When I became a wife and mom, Fels-Naptha was a part of my household. Since my husband works for the railroad, he often came home with stains on his clothes, and the Fels generally took it out. It was also good for washing my son's neck one summer. I only remember one summer when he was resistant to washing, but Fels took the grime off before church.

One bar of Fels lasts a long time, so I only bought one at a time. A partially used bar moved from Ohio to Indiana with me six years ago, and since I am now without stain-making children and my husband does more supervising than laboring, it took it this long to get down to chips. No problem, right? I would just go out and buy another bar.

Wrong! Even though I live in a rather small city, I thought that certainly the local supermarkets would carry Fels, but they did not. I looked everywhere. I even tried to convince myself that I would get the same stain-removing power with Lava, but it didn't turn out that way.

So I resorted to the net, and I am now the proud owner of two bars of Fels-Naptha that will probably last me until I don't care about stains anymore unless we retire close to the grandkids. The Vermont Country Store had them; two bars cost a little over six dollars. With shipping, it was a little over twelve dollars.

I know that's a lot to pay for two bars of soap, but I can't tell you all the memories that came back when I opened that box and smelled it. That is just another bonus to add to the fact that I know that it works.

I don't have anything against trying new or improved products, but I will be sad if Fels disappears completely. It is sad to see old products go by the wayside when they do a good job.

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