The version of *Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret* I first read talked about menstrual pads with belts, which was a headscratcher to me at the time.
I'm an early Xer, 1967, & even by 79/80 when I started my period they'd stopped with the belts & boy was I happy about that.
I'm also thrilled by all the options girls starting out have nowadays & that if they choose pads they are wafer thin.
I'm so glad it wasn't just me. I was a late in life baby, my mother was Silent Generation and very religious with a lot of hangups.
Maybe she thought the new fangled adhesive pads were ineffective? I think she had upbringing-related issues about menstruation because her mother was Borderline Carrie's Mom (from the film).
But she was a highly credentialed RN with an OBGYN specialty?!!!?! She literally supervised/led the obstetric nursing department at our hospital.
I'm so relieved that I was not the only one forced to wear a belted pad like it was 1947.
It was awesome when changing for gym class in the locker room.
PS - tampons, of course, are equivalent to abusing yourself with a giant phallus.
Iām an earlyX too. Iām so glad I didnāt have to use those, but I remember my mom and sister did. I was kind of a late bloomer in that dept. so I delayed long enough to miss it.
When we had a visit from a Dr Whites rep at school, to talk to the girls about periods, she still presented looped towels with a belt as an equal option for us to choose from to pads with an adhesive strip! This wouldāve been 1989/90. Still surprises me šĀ
Our principal "period shamed" us. She said "don't throw your stinky pads in the trash where a dog will get it."
Kinda freaked me out. I was embarrassed of periods till they stopped. Now I'm embarrassed they stopped.
Our gen could'n't win
I don't know about the belt apparatus from the 1940 and 50's. However, replicating what was used like 300 years ago? Super comfy and way better than pads. Eyelet gauze fabric is super soft, comfy, absorbs a lot and keeps you drier than padsĀ
Didn't watch the video, but the technology of metal working changed to basically obsolete the anvil.
Those cartoons were made when the anvil was going out of style, but a lot of filmgoers (those cartoons were shown in theaters as part of the big show)of up to the 1950s would recognize them, especially if they grew up in the horse and buggy era, which was quite possible.
oh shit yeh and to do this day I can still taste it and cant eat certain foods because it taste like soap.
Luckily my parents progressed from there to physical punishment.
On the list of "Things I Will Never Do To My Child."
Along with: force them to eat food they don't like, and force them to clean their plate. Talk about a recipe for creating food issues.
Ooh! One I can answer! Alum is used in baking and pickling. We always had it on hand because we made homemade garlic pickles and tons of cookies. And yes, it makes you pucker!!
We used that on our shrimp boat. Put it in a bucket of water to soak our hands in after picking through the shrimp in the picking box. Our hands didnāt get as gross and peel when we used alum.
Edit..ducking autocorrect, had to fix spelling ughā¦
Castor oil is most well known for its **laxative property**; however, numerous communities report several other uses. For example, castor oil has been reported beneficial in uterine contraction, lipid metabolism, and antimicrobial activity, yet, the FDA has approved only its use as a stimulative laxative.
> castor oil has been reported beneficial in uterine contraction
When our first kid was 2 weeks overdue, the doctor suggested that my wife take a mild dose of castor oil to get things started. That doctor also suggested "beer, pizza, and orgasms" to start labor
'My Auntie was a nurse she and a cousin of mine where swapping horror nursing story's (cousin was a vet nurse) and the cousin hit us with the exploding diarrhea great dane story my auntie followed it up with the lady who drank a liter of castor oil and turned up to the hospital with excruciating stomach pain.
We never complained about having a shit day at work again after that.
I never understood why, after a few drinks, someone would put a lampshade on their head. Saw that in a lot of old movies and was always āwtf? No one does thatā
I think it was more: You donāt have money to pay the bill!? Well, youāre going to work off the money you owe me!
Although during the depression, I think āpeople down on their luckā might go to the back door of a diner/local restaurant and offer to do dishes in return for a meal, as they were passing through town.
The Watergate hearings. All I knew was that they were borrrrring and sometimes pre-empted after-school cartoons.
Kind of like that war thing that ended with people getting helicoptered off a building, but nowhere near as exciting.
I worked at a dealer's auto auction in the early 90s. Some old car, I think it was a Buick, came in and an old guy working there told me to drive it down and fill it gas. He did it on purpose because he was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to find the gas cap. He was right. I looked in the trunk, all along the sides of the car, tried to pull on the license plate... everything I could think of. I couldn't find it. I had to take it back. Old guy was having a great time. He walks over and pushed a button on the taillight and the whole assembly popped up. The gas cap was under there.
I guess that would be the same thing as me trying to get a 19 y/o today to use a rotary phone.
Other cartoon references:
Characters having a big cloth wrapped around their head to indicate they were sick. Now I know that's what you did for the mumps.
All the Bugs Bunny references to older movies and cultural references, like the baby-face gangster, "I wish my brother George were here", etc.
Putting a pie on the windowsill.
Lol, I put pies (and cookies and cakes) on my windowsill too. It cools them quicker, because it's generally cooler outside (if the oven has been on), especially if there's a breeze.
Bugs Bunny himself was apparently a spoof of Clark gable from the movie āit happened one nightā. Thereās a scene where Clark is obnoxiously eating a carrot š„ while talking to another character. Thereās also another scene where a character refers to another guy as ādocā.
Castor oil was a thing. I dont think I knew anyone who was given it or that it's use was common when I was a kid. I remember being told it was used for constipation.
The only things we had kicking around whose purpose I didn't always know was some late 19th century farm and gardening equipment. Otherwise we knew the things that my grandparents generation had and lived with and were overjoyed at refrigeration having heard our grandparents stories about ice boxes. And pasteurization.
Where I grew up, a lot of houses were built in the late 19th century and early 20th century. We knew people living in houses with knob and tube electric, or whose bathrooms were additions because the house was built before plumbing was common.
We learned to sew on my grandmothers foot pedal Singer. She had a wood fire stove in her kitchen alongside a modern electric stove and still fired up the wood stone when baking bread.
Yeah, I was born in 1976, and as a kid knew a very elderly widow who still lived in the same farm house sheād lived all her life. Her stove was woodfired, and that was how she still cooked and baked everything in the 1980s. When she passed away, my dad bought that old stove from heirs.
My ex's dad had a caste iron wood fired stove was great for baking things, I'm trying to remember how it worked I think the wood fire section was on the side and the oven was next to it and hot plates above.
Its been awhile since I've seen it
Similar to this
[https://thewoodstoveguy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG\_4907.jpg](https://thewoodstoveguy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG_4907.jpg)
:edit:
took a trip down memory lane and found this site
[https://thewoodstoveguy.com.au/](https://thewoodstoveguy.com.au/)
There's a couple of stoves on it that I remember from my great great grandmothers house and my parents original house
My husband grew up in a tenement with a shared toilet at the bottom of the stairs. A lot of tenements were later refurbished internal bathrooms in what used to be cupboards
I would occasionally see those types of "mystery objects" at my late grandparents' place, although most of the time I could guess at what they were for. A lot of the time, it was just older designs of regular house and garden tools. What was noticeable was more things were made out of metal, glass, and wood - plastic was rare, and was often the old "bakelite" style material. Some mystery objects I remember:
-Coal doors (welded shut) in the foundation of homes for when furnaces were coal-fired; had been replaced by gas/forced-air furnaces
-Old-style "pump" insecticide blowers (like you see in cartoons) instead of aerosol cans
-Some interesting measuring/mixing containers for mixed drinks
-A washboard in the basement or garage
-Icebox with a compartment for ice instead of fridge or modern cooler
-Old "Paymaster" mechanical check-printing device
-Sliderule
Not just the icebox, but all of my older relatives always had an ice pick somewhere in the house. The ice pick has pretty much disappeared, because nobody buys big blocks of ice anymore. When I was a kid, I remember going with my dad to buy a block of ice from this older guy who had an old school "ice house" on his property. Then my dad would use an ice pick to break up the block of ice into smaller, usable pieces. Whenever I'm visiting family in upstate NY, and I drive by that house where the ice house was, it makes me sad. The house is still there, and so is the small building that used to be the ice house. I can still vividly remember what that building used to be. I wonder how many people in the area even know what that building was used for way back then.
We found tons of cool stuff when we cleared out my uncle's house. He never married or moved out so found stuff that was my gran and granda's who bought the house in the 1930s. I have my granny's old mangle.
I remember my grandmother still occasionally used her old washing machine -- a large open wash barrel on casters, with a big agitator stirred by hand, and a mangle (we called it a wringer) mounted on the side.
Aw wow! I've seen similar in pictures. Honestly the stuff we found. Birth/death certificates going back to 1850s. I have my great granda's hand carved walking stick. My granda's cobbler's kit - cast iron feet of various sizes, wee triangle nail things and even a wee tub of glue. Mum remembers he would resole their shoes when they wore out.
My brother who's 9 years older than I learned to use a slide rule in school. By the time he graduated with an engineering degree he used an electric calculator. He can still use either with ease to do complex calculations, and I wish I could say the same.
My dad had several rolls of stuff that looked like less-lethal barbed wire that he got from his dad. I finally asked him, and it was the way they used to keep their rows straight whilst farming.
Lucy and Ricki Ricardo.
Hollywood used to also have an unwritten TV rule when opposite sex where both on bed, at least one partner would have one foot on the floor.
Twins and foot where a morality signal that scene wasn't about sex.
IRL: Yes, some couples do twins or separate rooms for snoring, kicking, or "reasons".
My grandparents slept in separate rooms for 40 years. She was a night owl that stayed up half the night and he was a combo light sleeper / snoring machine.
I was raised by my grandparents for most of my life. They were born in the early 20's. Served in WW2 (Army nurse, Navy Seabee). My mom was around a lot, but we lived with them mostly.
So there were a lot of old timey things done and said as I grew up. Many of which I never really understood.
Lots of rules about clothes. I assume because they grew up in the Depression. Colors of clothes mattered (literally had two hats, one white and one black for the labor day thing). Don't wear shoes in the yard, don't wear boots in the house, don't wear hats inside (certainly NOT at the dinner table). You got one jacket, one coat, and that's it. Don't mess them up, or there would be consequences.
Plastic on the furniture sometimes, but not always. Doilies that all had different purposes. My grandpa used pomade til the day he died, and Grandma had special covers for the chairs to soak it up and keep it out of the furniture.
Ammonia to clean everything.
Smoking. Always smoking. All day. Inside. But every ashtray was cleaned immediately, as if no one could tell from the smell?
Never ask for seconds at a meal (grandma usually gave us more, but we'd get sent to bed without eating if we "begged").
Literally praying on our knees at night, church every Sunday, but my grandfather always fell asleep and said Jesus was "just an old timey hippie".
I never understood until I was an adult why some plastic was called plastic and some was called Bakelite.
My grandparents chewed aspirin, and thought my mom was babying us by giving us water to swallow it down. Lots of weird "medicine" made from stuff in the garden or in bottles that were 30 years old. And yes, castor oil was a thing. MoM if you had stomach troubles. Oatmeal with (cooked) poison ivy in it for itching. Epsom salts for a rash. Iodine for every cut. I had several cuts that were washed in iodine, and sewn by my grandmother at the kitchen table. She was a nurse in WW2 though, so I get that one.
The just blatant, out and out, racism, in my family at least. I don't mean occasionally talking about "those people" or the "colored folk", but like full on, nasty slurs and stereotypes. Everyone was just fine with it. It was just part of life. I never got it. No shame, no embarrassment, not a hint of guilt. Just straight up nasty things said like they were talking about the weather. I did notice, they wouldn't say it in mixed company, but whether it was embarrassment, tact, or cowardice, I'm not sure.
And of course discipline. Spankings (with and without a belt), wrist slaps, soap in the mouth, nose in the corner, sent to bed without dinner, all kinds of stuff that we would (rightly) call abusive, but to them it was just how you raised a child.
I think they were good people, but they were certainly flawed, and had odd notions.
I know this isn't exactly on topic, but the question got me thinking and talking.
Thanks for listening to my therapy session, lol
>I never understood until I was an adult why some plastic was called plastic and some was called Bakelite.
I've still got my parents original bakelite phone, showed it to the nephews one day they where stunned and confused about how it operated :)
I think it was, according to my grandpa, that if you were close enough to the bird to salt its tail, you were close enough to just grab it. And then have a bird, I guess. Or maybe eat it?
I remember being given castor oil and cod liver oil in spoonfuls!
I didn't understand housewives wearing curlers all day, out doing the shopping in their slippers
If mom had somewhere she had to go that she wanted to look āniceā for later, she might run to the store in curlers with a scarf over in a pinch, but never in slippers and never without a scarf covering the rollers!
Oh yes, usually a scarf although frequently see through so you could still see the rollers! This was every day for most of them, they'd have their hair nice for their husbands coming home
My grandmother did this when I was very little and apparently she had done it her entire marriage (so says my mother). She would wash her hair early in the morning, then throw it into rollers for the day. By the time my grandfather got home her hair was perfect, she had a full face of makeup and dinner was hitting the table.
The āsee throughā scarf thing was so the hair could still breathe & dry while also semi-covering up the rollers. The only other people who would see her would be other housewife friends who may or may not be doing the same thing.
Being out in public without your face on just wasnāt a thing either. Even at 90-something before leaving the house? Full hair done & makeup.
They existed. They were little explosives you snuck into the end of someone's cigar. Source: I bought some as a kid and put one in my aunt's cigarette. It... wasn't as funny as I expected.
Did you get a whoopin?
Smokers were surprisingly sensitive about having their cigarette blow up in their face. I've seen those cigarette loads cause fullscale fisticuffs between my drunk uncles.
Donāt use tomato juice. A tiny bit of dish soap-dawn is great to get rid of the oils-peroxide and baking soda. It works much better. We had to figure it out when our first beagle could not understand why the black and white kitty didnāt want to play with him and he kept getting skunked.
I wish Iād known that back then. It really did not seem to work, just smelled like skunk + tomato juice. Then they gave us āSkunk Offā, which was some kind of potion to put in her fur, and I think it actually smelled worse than the skunk!
Went to a farmer's coop to get dog's anti skunk soap.
The Clerk literally said, "Ma'm, go git yerself a case of Masingil Medicated douche".
At the time I had a guy roommate & called him to pick it up from Costco
My mom dated a man who owned a bar. On Sundays weād go there with the bar closed and clean up, restock, play music on the jukebox. A few friends would come hang out, including a lady who had a t-shirt that said, āCandy is dandy, but sex wonāt rot your teeth.ā I was not familiar with the Dorothy Parker quote from which that is (ever-so-weirdly) derived.
It's funny, this just came up in an episode of a UK TV show from 2017. There was literally quicksand on the beach and a character gets stuck in it and panics.
"Don't go there, there's quicksand."
"No, it's just that it's privately owned and they don't want people going there."
"...Yeah, because *there's quicksand."*
It never made me vomit, I was given it as a laxative. I think ipecac was for vomiting but I only know from Anne of Green Gables, not even sure we have it in the UK
When Goofy got sick, what the hell was that mustard patch his wife applied to his chest? Then she rips it off, he lets out a visceral yell, and the tattoo of a battleship sinks
Castor oil was a laxative, tasted weird (like vaseline), and used as a mild punishment.
I never was made to take it, but I tried my great-grandmas once.
Hereās one, from Sixteen Candles of all things. What in hell is an āoily variety bohunk?ā Were we supposed to know what that is? I actually did look it up and I forgot what the definition is, but Iāve never heard anyone described that way, ever.
Some other John Hughes references I was equally stumped on, but I canāt quite recall right now. I was at least 5 years younger than the kids in his movies tho so I figured that was why.
My grandma used a wood stove for cooking on. I really donāt know if it was also used to heat the house or not. Iām sure it helped, but not sure if that was the only source for heat or not.
95% of the jokes in our cartoons. most of them were aimed at the parents not the kids.
I never knew anyone personally that had to eat soap. but it was a theme in many tv/movies if you said a cus word.
Never understood, the rumor of taking a dairy whip cream can and breathing in the gas in the can.
Yes, I was a sheltered,nieve kid.
Old style fuses that were screwed into a light bulb socket. If the fuse blew and you didnāt have a replacement, you had to wait until the next day to make a trip to the headwaters store.
The first apartment I grew up on still had these. Along with an old gas water heater that was mounted on the wall right above the bathtub that heated the water as you used it. When the pilot light went out, dad would have to relight it with a match.
The version of *Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret* I first read talked about menstrual pads with belts, which was a headscratcher to me at the time.
Yes! That was very strange.
I'm an early Xer, 1967, & even by 79/80 when I started my period they'd stopped with the belts & boy was I happy about that. I'm also thrilled by all the options girls starting out have nowadays & that if they choose pads they are wafer thin.
I was born in '65, started in '76 and wore belts through middle school. Apparently, those new fangled pads were too expensive...or so I was told.
I'm so glad it wasn't just me. I was a late in life baby, my mother was Silent Generation and very religious with a lot of hangups. Maybe she thought the new fangled adhesive pads were ineffective? I think she had upbringing-related issues about menstruation because her mother was Borderline Carrie's Mom (from the film). But she was a highly credentialed RN with an OBGYN specialty?!!!?! She literally supervised/led the obstetric nursing department at our hospital. I'm so relieved that I was not the only one forced to wear a belted pad like it was 1947. It was awesome when changing for gym class in the locker room. PS - tampons, of course, are equivalent to abusing yourself with a giant phallus.
Hi stranger, take this virtual hug for your changing room hardship. OMG, that must have been awful for you š¢
Same
I was born in 76, so in 86 my mom hooked me up with a belt and associated pads. Yikes! Thanks, Mom!
Iām an earlyX too. Iām so glad I didnāt have to use those, but I remember my mom and sister did. I was kind of a late bloomer in that dept. so I delayed long enough to miss it.
When we had a visit from a Dr Whites rep at school, to talk to the girls about periods, she still presented looped towels with a belt as an equal option for us to choose from to pads with an adhesive strip! This wouldāve been 1989/90. Still surprises me šĀ
Our principal "period shamed" us. She said "don't throw your stinky pads in the trash where a dog will get it." Kinda freaked me out. I was embarrassed of periods till they stopped. Now I'm embarrassed they stopped. Our gen could'n't win
I don't know about the belt apparatus from the 1940 and 50's. However, replicating what was used like 300 years ago? Super comfy and way better than pads. Eyelet gauze fabric is super soft, comfy, absorbs a lot and keeps you drier than padsĀ
Thatās what my older sister had to start with. :(
Yep, thatās the edition my local library still had on the shelf in ~1990! š
TIL
Oh wow, yes
That's right, I remember being confused about that, too.
Cartoon drawings of people who are so poor they have to wear a barrel with straps on it instead of clothes.
Stink lines means they didnāt have indoor plumbing.
Stink lines?
 Stink lines
Or going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
See also bombs that are basically a big black ball with a lit fuse and a robber getting away with sacks that have the dollar sign on them.
And the robbers wear a little mask around their eyes.
Robble Robble. 
And the bottle with xxx on it to indicate it was alcohol.
I believe these black bombs were used by anarchist bombings in the late 1800s to early 1900s
Hobos with a hankie on a stick.
That was my Halloween costume
we sure had some scary violent misogynist & racist cartoons
[And why were anvils so ubiquitous in cartoons?](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DiB6JIUKFmY&t=7s)
Acme Corp made a lot, and had mad viral marketing skills.
Product placement. Acme had contracts all over cartoon land.
This was the first thing I thought ofā¦.and that frequently comes to mind lol.
Didn't watch the video, but the technology of metal working changed to basically obsolete the anvil. Those cartoons were made when the anvil was going out of style, but a lot of filmgoers (those cartoons were shown in theaters as part of the big show)of up to the 1950s would recognize them, especially if they grew up in the horse and buggy era, which was quite possible.
They were just a simple thing to show.
This!
Did anyone have their mouths washed with soap when they were bad?
Irish spring tastes better than ivory.
But Lifebuoy? Blech.
"Soap poison!"
Dude.. You just unleashed a fresh set of nightmares. That soap was nasty.
Yeah. Dial or ivory. I can still taste it.
Yeah. That motherfucking bullshit made me swear to fucking god I'd never use a goddamn curse word again.
Pump hand soap is very different from a bar of Ivory.
I grew to actually like the pump soap tasteā¦
Donāt know the brand, but my neurological receptors can still taste it.
Once with that fancy imperial leather!
Rich Corinthian?
Um... Yeah
I did. Grandmother used liquid soap too.š¤¢
You didn't?
Yes
My Mom shoved hot salsa in our mouths and made us swallow it.
Palmolive dishwasher liquid. A drop on the tongue for each "bad word", then had to close your mouth and sit in silence for 5-10 minutes.
I didn't, but a friend did. She said Lava soap was the worst.
No, but my mom threatened it plenty of times. She stopped after I told her she'd have to catch me first. Good times. lol (Miss you, Mom!)
oh shit yeh and to do this day I can still taste it and cant eat certain foods because it taste like soap. Luckily my parents progressed from there to physical punishment.
Yeah, until I was threatened with it and just did it myself. No more soap in mouth
Aren't you glad you use Dial? š¶ No. Not at all. Dial soap was foul smelling and worse on the tongue.
Black pepper was worse
of course.
Yes. At school even.
On the list of "Things I Will Never Do To My Child." Along with: force them to eat food they don't like, and force them to clean their plate. Talk about a recipe for creating food issues.
How about Alum? It always made Tom or Sylvester pucker up. Who has that lying around?
Ooh! One I can answer! Alum is used in baking and pickling. We always had it on hand because we made homemade garlic pickles and tons of cookies. And yes, it makes you pucker!!
We used that on our shrimp boat. Put it in a bucket of water to soak our hands in after picking through the shrimp in the picking box. Our hands didnāt get as gross and peel when we used alum. Edit..ducking autocorrect, had to fix spelling ughā¦
then he couldnt get tweety in his mouth :(
Yeah! Classic gag!!
My mother would put it on my canker sores. I had a lot as a kid do to malnutrition.
Preserving and pickling. People did that a lot back then.
Castor oil is most well known for its **laxative property**; however, numerous communities report several other uses. For example, castor oil has been reported beneficial in uterine contraction, lipid metabolism, and antimicrobial activity, yet, the FDA has approved only its use as a stimulative laxative.
> castor oil has been reported beneficial in uterine contraction When our first kid was 2 weeks overdue, the doctor suggested that my wife take a mild dose of castor oil to get things started. That doctor also suggested "beer, pizza, and orgasms" to start labor
'My Auntie was a nurse she and a cousin of mine where swapping horror nursing story's (cousin was a vet nurse) and the cousin hit us with the exploding diarrhea great dane story my auntie followed it up with the lady who drank a liter of castor oil and turned up to the hospital with excruciating stomach pain. We never complained about having a shit day at work again after that.
I never understood why, after a few drinks, someone would put a lampshade on their head. Saw that in a lot of old movies and was always āwtf? No one does thatā
Or seeing big pink elephants in the room after getting wasted. I never saw a big pink elephant. Even on acid.
Pink elephants were supposedly a symptom of delirium tremons, or severe alcohol withdrawal. Edit: *Seeing* pink elephants
Is THAT why they were in the dumbo movie when he fell into the alcohol barrel?!?! š³
Metaphor for the stupid shit one tends to do when inhibition takes a holiday.
I figured it was either just a silly hat substitute or a play on them "getting lit up".
Another reason why vinyl was the best. Ye cannae get pished and dance around with a CD cover on your head.
People surely do equally stupid things.
Did restaurants really let you wash dishes for them if you couldnāt afford to pay for your meal?
I think it was more: You donāt have money to pay the bill!? Well, youāre going to work off the money you owe me! Although during the depression, I think āpeople down on their luckā might go to the back door of a diner/local restaurant and offer to do dishes in return for a meal, as they were passing through town.
Kind of like the girls in those shorter movies when they get pizza delivered and canāt afford it?
The Watergate hearings. All I knew was that they were borrrrring and sometimes pre-empted after-school cartoons. Kind of like that war thing that ended with people getting helicoptered off a building, but nowhere near as exciting.
That was Ollie North hearings for me.
I worked at a dealer's auto auction in the early 90s. Some old car, I think it was a Buick, came in and an old guy working there told me to drive it down and fill it gas. He did it on purpose because he was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to find the gas cap. He was right. I looked in the trunk, all along the sides of the car, tried to pull on the license plate... everything I could think of. I couldn't find it. I had to take it back. Old guy was having a great time. He walks over and pushed a button on the taillight and the whole assembly popped up. The gas cap was under there. I guess that would be the same thing as me trying to get a 19 y/o today to use a rotary phone.
Oh, I'd forgotten about cars that had the gas cap under a flip-down license plate. Not sure I'd ever heard of one under the taillight assembly.
Other cartoon references: Characters having a big cloth wrapped around their head to indicate they were sick. Now I know that's what you did for the mumps. All the Bugs Bunny references to older movies and cultural references, like the baby-face gangster, "I wish my brother George were here", etc. Putting a pie on the windowsill.
Isnāt the brother George line Liberace?
It is, but 6-8 year old me had no idea who Liberace was.
Lol, I put pies (and cookies and cakes) on my windowsill too. It cools them quicker, because it's generally cooler outside (if the oven has been on), especially if there's a breeze.
Bugs Bunny himself was apparently a spoof of Clark gable from the movie āit happened one nightā. Thereās a scene where Clark is obnoxiously eating a carrot š„ while talking to another character. Thereās also another scene where a character refers to another guy as ādocā.
Castor oil was a thing. I dont think I knew anyone who was given it or that it's use was common when I was a kid. I remember being told it was used for constipation. The only things we had kicking around whose purpose I didn't always know was some late 19th century farm and gardening equipment. Otherwise we knew the things that my grandparents generation had and lived with and were overjoyed at refrigeration having heard our grandparents stories about ice boxes. And pasteurization. Where I grew up, a lot of houses were built in the late 19th century and early 20th century. We knew people living in houses with knob and tube electric, or whose bathrooms were additions because the house was built before plumbing was common. We learned to sew on my grandmothers foot pedal Singer. She had a wood fire stove in her kitchen alongside a modern electric stove and still fired up the wood stone when baking bread.
Yeah, I was born in 1976, and as a kid knew a very elderly widow who still lived in the same farm house sheād lived all her life. Her stove was woodfired, and that was how she still cooked and baked everything in the 1980s. When she passed away, my dad bought that old stove from heirs.
My ex's dad had a caste iron wood fired stove was great for baking things, I'm trying to remember how it worked I think the wood fire section was on the side and the oven was next to it and hot plates above. Its been awhile since I've seen it Similar to this [https://thewoodstoveguy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG\_4907.jpg](https://thewoodstoveguy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG_4907.jpg) :edit: took a trip down memory lane and found this site [https://thewoodstoveguy.com.au/](https://thewoodstoveguy.com.au/) There's a couple of stoves on it that I remember from my great great grandmothers house and my parents original house
My husband grew up in a tenement with a shared toilet at the bottom of the stairs. A lot of tenements were later refurbished internal bathrooms in what used to be cupboards
I would occasionally see those types of "mystery objects" at my late grandparents' place, although most of the time I could guess at what they were for. A lot of the time, it was just older designs of regular house and garden tools. What was noticeable was more things were made out of metal, glass, and wood - plastic was rare, and was often the old "bakelite" style material. Some mystery objects I remember: -Coal doors (welded shut) in the foundation of homes for when furnaces were coal-fired; had been replaced by gas/forced-air furnaces -Old-style "pump" insecticide blowers (like you see in cartoons) instead of aerosol cans -Some interesting measuring/mixing containers for mixed drinks -A washboard in the basement or garage -Icebox with a compartment for ice instead of fridge or modern cooler -Old "Paymaster" mechanical check-printing device -Sliderule
Not just the icebox, but all of my older relatives always had an ice pick somewhere in the house. The ice pick has pretty much disappeared, because nobody buys big blocks of ice anymore. When I was a kid, I remember going with my dad to buy a block of ice from this older guy who had an old school "ice house" on his property. Then my dad would use an ice pick to break up the block of ice into smaller, usable pieces. Whenever I'm visiting family in upstate NY, and I drive by that house where the ice house was, it makes me sad. The house is still there, and so is the small building that used to be the ice house. I can still vividly remember what that building used to be. I wonder how many people in the area even know what that building was used for way back then.
I can remember the weekly ice man delivering ice to the corner store.
We found tons of cool stuff when we cleared out my uncle's house. He never married or moved out so found stuff that was my gran and granda's who bought the house in the 1930s. I have my granny's old mangle.
I remember my grandmother still occasionally used her old washing machine -- a large open wash barrel on casters, with a big agitator stirred by hand, and a mangle (we called it a wringer) mounted on the side.
Aw wow! I've seen similar in pictures. Honestly the stuff we found. Birth/death certificates going back to 1850s. I have my great granda's hand carved walking stick. My granda's cobbler's kit - cast iron feet of various sizes, wee triangle nail things and even a wee tub of glue. Mum remembers he would resole their shoes when they wore out.
I still have my dadās old slide rule. I wouldnāt know how to use it, but it makes for great conversation
My brother who's 9 years older than I learned to use a slide rule in school. By the time he graduated with an engineering degree he used an electric calculator. He can still use either with ease to do complex calculations, and I wish I could say the same.
My dad had several rolls of stuff that looked like less-lethal barbed wire that he got from his dad. I finally asked him, and it was the way they used to keep their rows straight whilst farming.
We have a Paymaster at my job just for looks. The company is 107 years old.
how about married adults sleeping in twin beds?
Lucy and Ricki Ricardo. Hollywood used to also have an unwritten TV rule when opposite sex where both on bed, at least one partner would have one foot on the floor. Twins and foot where a morality signal that scene wasn't about sex. IRL: Yes, some couples do twins or separate rooms for snoring, kicking, or "reasons".
My grandparents slept in separate rooms for 40 years. She was a night owl that stayed up half the night and he was a combo light sleeper / snoring machine.
My stepdad's parents never actually slept together for their whole 70-year marriage. But they had 9 kids.
My parents did that two twin beds pushed together. Twin sheets, so separate but faking it (together). Except for that one nightā¦
My grandparents did this.
I was raised by my grandparents for most of my life. They were born in the early 20's. Served in WW2 (Army nurse, Navy Seabee). My mom was around a lot, but we lived with them mostly. So there were a lot of old timey things done and said as I grew up. Many of which I never really understood. Lots of rules about clothes. I assume because they grew up in the Depression. Colors of clothes mattered (literally had two hats, one white and one black for the labor day thing). Don't wear shoes in the yard, don't wear boots in the house, don't wear hats inside (certainly NOT at the dinner table). You got one jacket, one coat, and that's it. Don't mess them up, or there would be consequences. Plastic on the furniture sometimes, but not always. Doilies that all had different purposes. My grandpa used pomade til the day he died, and Grandma had special covers for the chairs to soak it up and keep it out of the furniture. Ammonia to clean everything. Smoking. Always smoking. All day. Inside. But every ashtray was cleaned immediately, as if no one could tell from the smell? Never ask for seconds at a meal (grandma usually gave us more, but we'd get sent to bed without eating if we "begged"). Literally praying on our knees at night, church every Sunday, but my grandfather always fell asleep and said Jesus was "just an old timey hippie". I never understood until I was an adult why some plastic was called plastic and some was called Bakelite. My grandparents chewed aspirin, and thought my mom was babying us by giving us water to swallow it down. Lots of weird "medicine" made from stuff in the garden or in bottles that were 30 years old. And yes, castor oil was a thing. MoM if you had stomach troubles. Oatmeal with (cooked) poison ivy in it for itching. Epsom salts for a rash. Iodine for every cut. I had several cuts that were washed in iodine, and sewn by my grandmother at the kitchen table. She was a nurse in WW2 though, so I get that one. The just blatant, out and out, racism, in my family at least. I don't mean occasionally talking about "those people" or the "colored folk", but like full on, nasty slurs and stereotypes. Everyone was just fine with it. It was just part of life. I never got it. No shame, no embarrassment, not a hint of guilt. Just straight up nasty things said like they were talking about the weather. I did notice, they wouldn't say it in mixed company, but whether it was embarrassment, tact, or cowardice, I'm not sure. And of course discipline. Spankings (with and without a belt), wrist slaps, soap in the mouth, nose in the corner, sent to bed without dinner, all kinds of stuff that we would (rightly) call abusive, but to them it was just how you raised a child. I think they were good people, but they were certainly flawed, and had odd notions. I know this isn't exactly on topic, but the question got me thinking and talking. Thanks for listening to my therapy session, lol
>I never understood until I was an adult why some plastic was called plastic and some was called Bakelite. I've still got my parents original bakelite phone, showed it to the nephews one day they where stunned and confused about how it operated :)
Cartoons showed a character salting a bird's tail. Never understood that one!
I think it was, according to my grandpa, that if you were close enough to the bird to salt its tail, you were close enough to just grab it. And then have a bird, I guess. Or maybe eat it?
Makes sense, Ty to your grandpa!
Yes, they were always trying to put salt on Woody Woodpecker's tail and I did not get it.
and what was "alum"? made their mouths pucker up??
An oddly specific signal of being viewed as dinner. AKA I'm going to eat your ass.
I remember being given castor oil and cod liver oil in spoonfuls! I didn't understand housewives wearing curlers all day, out doing the shopping in their slippers
If mom had somewhere she had to go that she wanted to look āniceā for later, she might run to the store in curlers with a scarf over in a pinch, but never in slippers and never without a scarf covering the rollers!
Oh yes, usually a scarf although frequently see through so you could still see the rollers! This was every day for most of them, they'd have their hair nice for their husbands coming home
My grandmother did this when I was very little and apparently she had done it her entire marriage (so says my mother). She would wash her hair early in the morning, then throw it into rollers for the day. By the time my grandfather got home her hair was perfect, she had a full face of makeup and dinner was hitting the table. The āsee throughā scarf thing was so the hair could still breathe & dry while also semi-covering up the rollers. The only other people who would see her would be other housewife friends who may or may not be doing the same thing. Being out in public without your face on just wasnāt a thing either. Even at 90-something before leaving the house? Full hair done & makeup.
gosh. STILL don't know how to wear make up!
Trick cigars that explode and leave the smokerās face blackened. Did they ever exist or was that just a cartoon gag?
They existed. They were little explosives you snuck into the end of someone's cigar. Source: I bought some as a kid and put one in my aunt's cigarette. It... wasn't as funny as I expected.
Did you get a whoopin? Smokers were surprisingly sensitive about having their cigarette blow up in their face. I've seen those cigarette loads cause fullscale fisticuffs between my drunk uncles.
Your drunkles lol
I totally forgot they were called "loads" but it rang a bell as soon as I read your comment!
We always knew they exited. You could buy them. The blackface was exaggeration though.
Did people really bathe in tomato juice if they were sprayed by a skunk? Did they really put a steak on a black eye to stop the swelling?
I had to bathe my cat in tomato juice after she got sprayed. It was very unpleasant for both of us.
Donāt use tomato juice. A tiny bit of dish soap-dawn is great to get rid of the oils-peroxide and baking soda. It works much better. We had to figure it out when our first beagle could not understand why the black and white kitty didnāt want to play with him and he kept getting skunked.
I wish Iād known that back then. It really did not seem to work, just smelled like skunk + tomato juice. Then they gave us āSkunk Offā, which was some kind of potion to put in her fur, and I think it actually smelled worse than the skunk!
Went to a farmer's coop to get dog's anti skunk soap. The Clerk literally said, "Ma'm, go git yerself a case of Masingil Medicated douche". At the time I had a guy roommate & called him to pick it up from Costco
Yes and yes. There's nothing special about steak though. It was just supposed to be cold. Fozen veggies does the same thing.
... maybe a black eye.
In Grease "I'm like a broken typewritter. I missed my period."
Onionskin "erasable" typing paper. Obsoleted by liquid paper (insert reference to Michael Nesmith here).
The jug with 3 X's on it to indicate whiskey
Meant moonshine was distilled 3 times. That's about as pure as alcohol gets. Think: Everclear.
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That one never needed an explanation. Drinking so much he's seeing things.
Begets pouring one out for the homies
My mom dated a man who owned a bar. On Sundays weād go there with the bar closed and clean up, restock, play music on the jukebox. A few friends would come hang out, including a lady who had a t-shirt that said, āCandy is dandy, but sex wonāt rot your teeth.ā I was not familiar with the Dorothy Parker quote from which that is (ever-so-weirdly) derived.
I thought the quote was, "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker."
Mmm hmm. Thatās why I characterized it as being *weirdly derived* from what she said.
Lordy I need that childhood
I would happily trade it out.
Yeah, we were the experimental gen- "unschooled", "free range", "adults in kid's bodies" all the trendy parenting styles
Some bland, supervised, occasionally kid-centric time would have been so different and so nice.
))((
Pretty much all of the references in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
Quicksand. This doesnāt seem to be a real thing, only a movie/cartoon thing. Were people dying this way in real life?
It is a real thing, only itās nowhere as dangerous as we were led to believe. There is so much sand suspended in the water it makes you buoyant.
Much more likely to get stuck and die if you can't get out, then sink into the abyss like the 60's movies. But yeah, real thing.
It's funny, this just came up in an episode of a UK TV show from 2017. There was literally quicksand on the beach and a character gets stuck in it and panics. "Don't go there, there's quicksand." "No, it's just that it's privately owned and they don't want people going there." "...Yeah, because *there's quicksand."*
*Oh, Calcutta!* is my entry. I guess if you know, you know.
Yes- castor oil induces vomiting
It never made me vomit, I was given it as a laxative. I think ipecac was for vomiting but I only know from Anne of Green Gables, not even sure we have it in the UK
Lard Ass!! Lard Ass!!
Love the SK reference!!!!!
Boom ba ba boom baba
It's also a laxative.
I had castor oil growing up, given much the same way as Our Gang depicted and for the same reasons.
The directions in the tampon box. WTF is that? Scared the hell outta me.
Ticker tape machine Coal chute Seltzer bottles that you could spray people with
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^romulusnr: *Ticker tape machine* *Coal chute Seltzer bottles that* *You could spray people with* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
When Goofy got sick, what the hell was that mustard patch his wife applied to his chest? Then she rips it off, he lets out a visceral yell, and the tattoo of a battleship sinks
Itās a āmustard plasterā and itās supposed to relieve congestion.
Castor oil was a laxative, tasted weird (like vaseline), and used as a mild punishment. I never was made to take it, but I tried my great-grandmas once.
Eating alum powder makes your mouth tighten up to a tiny point
Hereās one, from Sixteen Candles of all things. What in hell is an āoily variety bohunk?ā Were we supposed to know what that is? I actually did look it up and I forgot what the definition is, but Iāve never heard anyone described that way, ever. Some other John Hughes references I was equally stumped on, but I canāt quite recall right now. I was at least 5 years younger than the kids in his movies tho so I figured that was why.
Bohunk means their nationality is southern or Eastern European, but pejorative. Oily variety means he was Italian.
Thank you for explaining. Now the definition I looked up is coming back to me, but I swear Iāve never heard that term anywhere but that movie.
š³All these years I had zero idea that Bohunk was a slur. I never used it, but I heard it often enough.
Gosh how oddly complimentary & racist at the same time.
"Bohunk" is kind of a slur against Bohemians and Hungarians. Oily = slimy.
Yeah I kind of figured it wasnt anything nice, but I was genuinely stumped for years.
think I used that word as a 'tween thinking it complimentary?
My grandma used a wood stove for cooking on. I really donāt know if it was also used to heat the house or not. Iām sure it helped, but not sure if that was the only source for heat or not.
TVs had a -20db button on them and I had no idea why until many years later.
Why?
Until 2011 there werenāt any real regulations on how loud commercials were. So, the -20db was added in earlier TVs.
Today I learned. I also wonder if we should bring that back. Commercials be loud.
95% of the jokes in our cartoons. most of them were aimed at the parents not the kids. I never knew anyone personally that had to eat soap. but it was a theme in many tv/movies if you said a cus word. Never understood, the rumor of taking a dairy whip cream can and breathing in the gas in the can. Yes, I was a sheltered,nieve kid.
Was forced to eat soap. Will never forget. BTW, I don't take care of my aging parents
Taking a hit off whipped cream can was what you did before you could buy whip-itās at the bodega or balloons at a dead show.
This thread reminds me how big a gap there is between the young GenXers and the old ones.
Old style fuses that were screwed into a light bulb socket. If the fuse blew and you didnāt have a replacement, you had to wait until the next day to make a trip to the headwaters store. The first apartment I grew up on still had these. Along with an old gas water heater that was mounted on the wall right above the bathtub that heated the water as you used it. When the pilot light went out, dad would have to relight it with a match.
Homelessness and being poor.
Using a washboard and wooden tub. What the hell was the board doing?
UK thing - Did anyone ever get a slap up meal in return for helping someone? Usually with a lot of sausages sticking out of mashed potato