[David in San Antonio]

The ink stain in a shirt pocket gave rise to the pocket protector. Made of soft vinyl(?) it rode inside your breast pocket and contained any leaked ink or the usual stripes earned when slipping the pen into and out of place. My father had an industrial hardware store in Long Island City, Queens, near the Steinway Piano company. (Lilien Hardware. “From A Tack To A Telephone Pole” was their unintentionally salacious slogan. At least I think it was unintentional.) His daily uniform was a white shirt and short tie, with a lumber crayon and an assortment of pens, pencils, and a screw gauge card filing the pocket, with the familiar red Milwaukee power tools logo printed across the front overhanging flap of his pocket protector. Pocket protectors seem to have disappeared over the years, along with slide rules and 78 rpm records. For a while TV shows and movies used a pocket protector to signal a character was a square. Who still has a pocket protector in a desk drawer? Bonus points for a photo, especially if it has advertising on it.