Picture Post: Mementos Of My Job At Mt. Rushmore

I've talked about this particular job a few times here, and it's about time I got around to doing one more post about it that I've been meaning to do for awhile now.

Back at the end of 2013, I did a post about some memories of having worked at Mt. Rushmore for a couple summers. It was a good job, and there are days when I kind of miss it and regret not keeping it. At the time, though, I had other plans for my life, and had hoped that they were going to work out for me. Such was not the case, though, and life is what it is, and I've tried to move on since then.

An interesting thing about all that is the fact that I still have a few things I know came from that job, because it says so on the label. I've even got pictures to prove it. Before I get to that, though, I suppose I'd better talk a little history.

You'll see on the labels of the bottles in the pictures I'm about to share that it says “AmFac” in a decent point size towards the top. That's short for “American Factor”, the company responsible for the gift shop and dining facilities at the monument in the late 1990s. From what I remember of the orientation stuff they did, this was an evolution of a company started in the late 1800s or early 1900s by a guy called Thomas Harvey. This company provided concessions to guests at various locations across the western United States and in Hawaii. It was, as I understand it, something of a preferred company amongst well-off travellers at the time because they'd have their tours send word ahead to whatever locations they were going to so their crews could have enough acommodations, food, and other amenities ready to go when they got there. There's more to it than that, of course, but I'll leave it to the reader to find out more if they wish.

With that, on to the subject of this post: bottles of lotion and mouthwash I've had since what I'm thinking are the second summer I worked there. I have other stuff around that may be from there and then, but I either can't confirm or didn't have it handy when I sat down to write this:

Obviously, these are not in pristine condition, but they have been travelling with me to various places I've lived for just over 20 years now. Either way, I'm not sure how good they would still be after all this time.

Part of the reason I'm doing this is that other events that are going on in my life right now are making me consider just how much of this “sentimental” stuff I really want to keep around. Regardless of what I decide to do with this ultimately, I want to get at least some of it recorded for history's sake, if not to give myself some reason for having kept it for all this time.

Let's take a closer look at the mouthwash first:

The label has the AmFac Parks and Resorts logo at the top. Like I was saying before, that's because they did hotels and other such sleeping accommodations at their various locations as well as gift shops and dining, and I guess this was stuff they'd put in the guest rooms. It's also labeled as mouthwash at the bottom, which is kind of clear, I think.

Moving on the back:

This is their Fresh and Minty flavor. Not sure how accurate that would have been, and I'm sure its age would show if I tried to use it. The instructions say to put it into a glass before using it. Not sure why, but there you go. The other information on the back says it's a .75 ounce bottle produced by Marietta, out of Cortland, NY. I'm not sure if that was its own hotel company or somehow related to AmFac or what, but like I said, I've had this stuff for a little more than 20 years now, so I don't exactly remember.

Moving on to the lotion, the front label is essentially the same as the one on the mouthwash:

The only real differece is that it says “lotion” instead of “mouthwash”.

The back tells us that it's “botanical hand and body lotion”:

It's like the mouthwash in that I'm not sure how well it would work if I tried to use it. Still, I maybe should try all the same because I need that kind of thing.

And really, with that in mind, I'm thinking I probably should go ahead with it and maybe do a followup once I do. It would be an interesting thing to try, and it would also give me one more thing to post that's not video game stuff. I'll do what I can to have that up in a reasonable amount of time. See you then, folks.