Funny, the things that set you off. I am reading Anne Tyler's The Amateur Marriage. Early in, she mentions a roll of cotton wrapped in blue paper. The setting for the beginning of the novel is WWII, but I remember a roll of cotton in 1960. It was in a box with a red cross, about the size of a pound of butter. Johnson & Johnson, I think. I have cotton and synthetic balls in my bathroom vanity. Can you buy a roll of cotton now? I'll have to visit Reed's Pharmacy to find out.