Straight Dope Message Board

[teela brown]

Wearing pantyhose and knee-high nylons looks to be pretty much extinct. That is, except for dinosaurs like me. I don't wear dresses anymore, but I do like the knee-high socks that are made of pantyhose fabric for when I wear dress slacks.

I've stopped wondering why folks would like to go bare-footed inside their shoes. The time or two I tried that, my feet would get sticky and damp and gross, and stick to the insides of the shoes. Gah. 51

[CairoCarol]

The whole ritual of college acceptance has changed wildly with the internet. Back in the 70s, you anxiously awaited snail mail to find out if you'd gotten into the colleges you applied to. We all said, "You'll know before you open the envelope - if it's thick, it's an acceptance with lots of papers for you to fill out reserving your place, and if it's thin, it's a rejection letter." The thought of having to wait for notification to come via the post office seems quaint now.

Come to think of it, the entire college application process has changed a lot. Back when I prepared for college applications, the idea of taking an SAT prep course bordered on ludicrous; you just went in and took the test cold (test prep services existed, but were considered rather dubious and certainly not an essential part of the middle-to-upper-class experience). And there was no Common App, nor did there need to be. 52

[enipla]

Anybody have a phone book? Or Yellow Pages?

I just took my 2019 4Runner in for it's required (by Toyota) service. The 10,000 mile check up on a new car. They changed the oil. This was the cars FIRST oil change. If I recall, it used to be a good idea to get the oil changed on a new engine more like at 1000 miles.

Oh, and the oil? Not your standard 10-30w or 10-40. It's zero weight oil. 0w. Must be like water. Got some seriously tight tolerances going on there. 53

[ThelmaLou]

Originally Posted by Beckdawrek

I went mail something the other day. I didn't wanna drive across town to the main post office. Where are all the mail boxes?

Can't you put outgoing mail in YOUR mailbox for the postal worker to pick up? (I believe you live in the country, but you do have a mailbox, right?)

I'm asking because a friend of mine (my age-- almost 70) thought you had to go to the post office to mail anything. While visiting her in St. Louis a few years ago, I had something to mail, and I put it in her mailbox. She had never heard of this and actually said to me, "I hope the mailman knows what to do!" What did she think the flag on the mailbox was for?

Since that incident happened, I've been wondering-- is this not common knowledge, i.e., that you can put outgoing mail in your own mailbox and put the flag up, or clip the outgoing piece to the letter slot cover, and the postal worker will pick it up and take it to the post office for you? 54

[hajario]

Originally Posted by ThelmaLou

Since that incident happened, I've been wondering-- is this not common knowledge, i.e., that you can put outgoing mail in your own mailbox and put the flag up, or clip the outgoing piece to the letter slot cover, and the postal worker will pick it up and take it to the post office for you?

That’s exactly what I have always done. 55

[kayaker]

Originally Posted by Chingon

Confirmation bias

No, I still see plenty of confirmation bias. 56

[Musicat]

Originally Posted by ThelmaLou

Can't you put outgoing mail in YOUR mailbox for the postal worker to pick up? (I believe you live in the country, but you do have a mailbox, right?)
<snip>
Since that incident happened, I've been wondering-- is this not common knowledge, i.e., that you can put outgoing mail in your own mailbox and put the flag up, or clip the outgoing piece to the letter slot cover, and the postal worker will pick it up and take it to the post office for you?

That's exactly what I have always thought. But when I lived in Los Angeles, I had one postal worker claim he wasn't supposed to pick up mail at a residence; he would only do it for me to be nice. Perhaps he was just a disgruntled postal worker who was on his way to a breakdown. 57

[Esprise Me]

Most houses in the suburb where my parents live have those mailboxes you can't get your hand inside, so that wouldn't work. I'm grateful to live in an apartment with an outgoing mail slot. 58

[Esprise Me]

I was born in 1983, so I don't remember much from that time period, but I do remember frequently being unsupervised in public (not just in my neighborhood) with my friends as an older child. Starting around when we hit double digits, we'd get dropped off at the mall, the beach, or Disneyland* for hours. We had watches and a plan for when and where to get picked up, and change for a pay phone in case of an emergency, but our parents had no way to reach us. Now Disneyland doesn't allow that anymore, malls are shuttering left and right, and I seriously had to defend a parent in court for allowing her child to get sunburned at a water park.

*Back then, the cheapest annual pass was less than $100; several of us got them as our big-ticket birthday or Christmas gift every year. It also only took about 20 minutes to get there from almost anywhere in Orange County. 59

[F. U. Shakespeare]

Originally Posted by DorkVader

This was my experience with the funeral of both of my grandmothers, right down to the Packers logo, except that not even the minister was wearing a suit.

Lets see, in the last 10 years, there have been the two funerals, a wedding (preacher, groom, and groomsmen wore suits also), 3 court appearances, at least one of which I beleive my wearing a suit had a favorable impact for my side, since the judge verbally noted that I was the only one wearing a suit (who wasn't a lawyer or court officer) and one meeting with my attorney, myself, my exwife and her attorney. He hilariously kept insisting that I MUST have just OODLES of money because I wore a 3 piece suit to the meeting. He simply would not beleive that the suit was a gift from my wife and her sister, was a decade old and had been worn a grand total of 8 times including that meeting. I wore a suit! Nevermind that it's the only one I have, I wore it and they were going to find and take half of that money I had hidden.

Such is the power of a suit these days.

I'm friends with an immigrant family who have all become naturalized U.S. citizens. When I accompanied one of them to the ceremony, I was not only the only person there in a suit, but in the bathroom, a man with an African accent asked me if I was a lawyer. 60

[FairyChatMom]

Regarding communal showers in school - for me it was late 60s/early 70s and unless you were on your period, you showered. The rare exception was when class ran long and the teacher realized you'd never make your next class.

At our local community college, you can get a gym/pool membership. It amazes me the number of people who go into the toilet stalls to change rather than use the locker room with its benches. That made it fun when you needed to use the toilet and discovered that the floor was wet from (I hope) some woman who changed from her dripping bathing suit in there. Then again, on at least a couple of occasions, women brought they young sons in there. 61

[F. U. Shakespeare]

I'm 60, and when I was college age, people who chose careers in medicine or law would routinely be told by peers, "Ah, you just wanna make a lot of money!" (I actually heard it a few times myself, majoring in engineering.)

There seemed to be an ethos in the baby boom counterculture that lower-paying work which paid less (school teaching, social work, etc.) was a higher calling. "Following your dream" was also considered more enlightened than making big money.

It was easier to feel this way amid the economic prosperity that early baby boomers graduated into. If you got pretty much any college degree before around 1965, you would be able to get a middle class job right away.

Within a few years, you couldn't expect to get a decent-paying job with a philosophy degree. So it was less common for people to be scorned for choosing a practical career to avoid taking poverty vows.

Today, people studying to become physicians are generally looked at as being devoted to service rather than money-grubbers. (Admittedly, less so with aspiring lawyers.) This may be due to changes in the compensation for physicians: AIUI certain specialties (surgeons, anesthesiologists) are still paths to wealth, while general and family practice are not. (Still not poverty though).

But I can't remember the last time I heard anyone criticize a young person for thinking about income potential in choosing a career. The sixties have been over for a long time. 62

[Crafter_Man]

Originally Posted by madsircool

Alcohol was much more prevalent in the workplace and popular media until around the advent of MADD and drunk driving awareness.

I recall that "day drinking" was much more common in the 70s. People would drink beer while cutting the grass, working on a car, etc. 63

[Ambivalid]

Originally Posted by Crafter_Man

Just last week I saw a man jogging without a shirt on. Back in the 1970s it was very common to see a man walking around bare chested. Today it's a very rare occurrence.

Idk. I went to SoCal a couple years ago, San Bernardino to be exact, and the fucking senior citizens (men) jogged shirtless and buff. So im thinking confirmation bias. 64

[Crafter_Man]

Originally Posted by Ambivalid

Idk. I went to SoCal a couple years ago, San Bernardino to be exact, and the fucking senior citizens (men) jogged shirtless and buff. So im thinking confirmation bias.

Yes, perhaps when it comes to jogging. But I recall men just going about their business all day without a shirt on. I don't see that as much nowadays. 65

[hajario]

Originally Posted by Esprise Me

Most houses in the suburb where my parents live have those mailboxes you can't get your hand inside, so that wouldn't work. I'm grateful to live in an apartment with an outgoing mail slot.

How do they get their mail out? 66

[thorny locust]

Originally Posted by Crafter_Man

Perhaps it's my imagination, but I swear women's facial expressions have changed over the past 40 years. Women used to smile more. Now the "stone/cold/serious" face seems to be the norm.

Originally Posted by nelliebly

About the smiling thing: I smile at almost everyone I pass on the street. I notice people who seem to be over 40 smile back much more often than younger folks, who rarely make eye contact. It was just about 40 years ago that the whole stranger-danger, kids-on-milk-cartons hysteria started. I think we scared the smiles out of 'em.

I think there's at least two things that may be involved.

One is that women used to be taught that we must smile, it was rude to refuse to do so. Smiles have a lot of different meanings in humans, and this one really seems to me to be/have been the "submissive smile", which means 'I'm being nice, I'm not challenging you, please don't hurt me.' (Humans are weird: there's also a smile which means 'I'm in charge/I'm dominant here/I'll attack you if I feel like it.') -- at any rate, women are I think a lot less likely to believe that we owe the general public a smile, and/or mustn't show a 'serious' face to the world.

The other may have to do with location, and in particular with population levels. In at least some small towns it's still common (for people of any gender) to smile or nod or wave at pretty much everyone on the street. When there are a whole lot of people on the street, this doesn't work, and people are a lot more likely to wear a carefully neutral expression and avoid eye contact.

Originally Posted by madsircool

Community showering

Originally Posted by Musicat

.Really? Where in LA or the USA was that a thing?

Originally Posted by Colibri

In a thread on the subject, I've mentioned that when I was in college at Cornell in the early 1970s men's swimming classes were held in the nude (only the instructor wore a suit), and suits were optional during men's hours at the pool at the gym. From the thread, this was not unusual at the time or in earlier decades.

Nudity in a single-sex context used to be pretty commonly accepted.

The grade school I went to, in the 1950's and very early 1960's, had no doors on the toilet stalls. (They were also entirely unprepared for puberty in even twelve-year-olds; it was assumed that none of us was menstruating yet. That age has definitely shifted.) An all-girls summer camp I went to had a naked moonlight swim every summer, pre-pubertal and pubertal children separately. Nudity was optional but common IME in adult women's locker rooms. At the University of Rochester, in the early 1970's, the women complained that men had a time set aside for male-only use of the swimming pool during which the men could swim naked; the university's response was to set an equal time period for women to do likewise, and quite a few of us did.

During the tail end of my time in college, and for some years thereafter, I knew a lot of people in various states in the USA who went casually naked in mixed-gender groups whenever swimming anywhere you wouldn't get arrested for it, and sometimes in communal showers such as at campgrounds etc. It seemed, for a while, to be getting a lot more common; and then, for whatever reason, just started heading in the other direction -- in at least one case the same group of people started covering up around each other, when they hadn't before. I never did figure out why. It was the same summer; we hadn't all suddenly become significantly older and saggier. 67

[Procrustus]

Originally Posted by Crafter_Man

I recall that "day drinking" was much more common in the 70s. People would drink beer while cutting the grass, working on a car, etc.

Around here that would not be uncommon. Day Drinking during the work week, however, has surely tapered off. When I started practicing law, several judges had lunch every day at the lounge across the street from the courthouse. This was in the 80s. I was told that in the 60s and 70s it was even more widespread.

ETA. As for communial showers, we were expected to shower as a group from 5th grade on. 68

[BrickBat]

I remember my mother sending me to the store to buy cigarettes for her on many occasions. I was 9 or 10; Early 70s.

Just a few years older ( 12 13-ish ) my uncle would give me a few dollars, have me go down the hill to the corner store to buy him a 6-pack of Budweiser, and said get an ice cream cone and a soda for myself if I wanted. Mid 70s.

In both cases, the smell and taste of beer/acohol was vile to me...Back then. The smell and taste of tobacco was and still is vile to me. Absolutely no worries of us kids indulging ourselves in gateway behavior. 69

[ivylass]

Remember when a video camera would shoot a computer screen and you'd get that rolling effect from the monitor?

I noticed a few months ago while helping a friend with a video shoot that it's not a thing anymore. He confirmed the equipment nowadays has banished that particular phenomenon.

Having a drink during a business lunch seems to have gone by the wayside. 70

[chappachula]

The title of the thread is small subtle changes....so here's a pretty small one:
People used to put a pencil behind their ear.

You would sometimes see somebody working with a clipboard, and after he stopped writing,
he'd put the pencil behind his ear for a minute,till he used it again.






(hey, I told you it was a pretty minor change...anybody got anything else smaller? 71

[Guinastasia]

Originally Posted by Tamerlane

"Not at all" apparently is increasing common, with occasional exceptions for swim days in schools that have a pool( and even then sounds like kids rinse off with their suits on, which was verboten by some teachers at my school ). Which I don't find surprising because even in my day many kids tried to dodge it because they found it embarrassing. To the point where sometimes gym teachers would stand by the locker-room doors and check if you had wet hair as you left.

That's exactly how it was when I was in high school (early-mid 90s). There just wasn't time to shower, unless it was after swimming, and then it was just really quick to wash your hair and maybe warm up a little after getting out of the pool.

Plus we rarely, if ever, broke a sweat. 72

[TimeWinder]

Originally Posted by enipla

Anybody have a phone book? Or Yellow Pages?.

I get a couple of different yellow pages "delivered' every year, but they're third-party things that go straight into recycling (once we've found them under the landscaping, on the roof, in the middle of the driveway, or wherever they landed).

The "white pages," though isn't just gone, but there's a whole societal change since then. Can you imagine what people would say today if you suggested that every single person's name, address, and phone number should be printed in a book and delivered to every household? Privacy advocates would get it shut down instantly, and the company that did it would probably be out of business. 73

[kayaker]

Originally Posted by Crafter_Man

I recall that "day drinking" was much more common in the 70s. People would drink beer while cutting the grass, working on a car, etc.

Heh, guess I'm old fashioned. 74

[Colibri]

Originally Posted by thorny locust

At the University of Rochester, in the early 1970's, the women complained that men had a time set aside for male-only use of the swimming pool during which the men could swim naked; the university's response was to set an equal time period for women to do likewise, and quite a few of us did.

I mentioned this in a previous thread on the subject. Some women at Cornell became annoyed that men were allowed to swim naked while they had to wear ugly one-piece tank suits. (This was about 1972.) But allowing this was complicated by the fact that the pool at the women's gym was overlooked by big plate-glass windows on the second floor that anyone had access too. Nevertheless, my girlfriend and several of her friends decided to "liberate" the women's pool by going in suitless. They alerted me to when they planned to do it so I went to witness the historic occasion. But at the appointed time I heard a big commotion but no one came out of the locker room. It seems one of the lifeguards saw them coming and blocked them from going in. I don't think they got nude swimming hours while I was still at the university.

During the tail end of my time in college, and for some years thereafter, I knew a lot of people in various states in the USA who went casually naked in mixed-gender groups whenever swimming anywhere you wouldn't get arrested for it, and sometimes in communal showers such as at campgrounds etc.

This was my experience in the early 1970s as well. At Cornell there was a secluded part of one of the gorges where everyone went skinny-dipping in warm weather. (We would make fun of the bug-eyed middle aged townie men who would perch at the top of the cliffs and ogle the goings-on.) On an overnight camping field trip from the University of Oregon in 1972, everyone of both sexes went in skinny-dipping in a nearby stream (although it was after dark). 75

[Colibri]

Originally Posted by Two Many Cats

I think this has a lot more to do with people hating the way their bodies look, as opposed to any notion of being naked is shameful, or prudery.

But even attractive young people with good-looking bodies seem to be more reluctant to get naked even in front of others of the same sex these days. If people are more embarrassed about not having an attractive body now, that would seem to run counter to the modern promotion of the idea that no one should be ashamed of how their body looks. 76

[Colibri]

Originally Posted by chappachula

The title of the thread is small subtle changes....so here's a pretty small one:
People used to put a pencil behind their ear.

You would sometimes see somebody working with a clipboard, and after he stopped writing,
he'd put the pencil behind his ear for a minute,till he used it again.

(hey, I told you it was a pretty minor change...anybody got anything else smaller?

Is chewing on a toothpick to look like a tough guy still a thing? 77

[furryman]

Originally Posted by TimeWinder

I get a couple of different yellow pages "delivered' every year, but they're third-party things that go straight into recycling (once we've found them under the landscaping, on the roof, in the middle of the driveway, or wherever they landed).

The "white pages," though isn't just gone, but there's a whole societal change since then. Can you imagine what people would say today if you suggested that every single person's name, address, and phone number should be printed in a book and delivered to every household? Privacy advocates would get it shut down instantly, and the company that did it would probably be out of business.

I got white pages and yellow pages up until 2017. I figured they stopped because they weren't making money. 78

[digs]

Originally Posted by Colibri

Is chewing on a toothpick to look like a tough guy still a thing?

For us it was a kitchen match... I can still taste that lingering "flammable" taste. But back then, none of us were rich enough to have lighters. And those books of paper matches were so limp they sometimes didn't work, so this way you could always light something.

Add me to the "all the boys showered together" and walked around the locker room naked. Middle and high school and college. We just didn't care, didn't think about it, and I don't remember anyone making a comment about anyone else's privates.

A month ago, we had a bunch of middle schoolers come use the pool at my college. This one kid wouldn't take his suit off. Not til he'd spent his entire time after swimming constructing an elaborate tent using two beach towels with the corners shoved into locker doors. That didn't work, a corner would fall out and he'd start over.

Finally after everyone was gone, a teacher came in to get this kid: "Iggy, everyone's on the bus, C'mon!"... poor Iggy was still in his swim trunks, hadn't taken a shower or gotten dressed yet. 79

[Ambivalid]

Originally Posted by Colibri

But even attractive young people with good-looking bodies seem to be more reluctant to get naked even in front of others of the same sex these days. If people are more embarrassed about not having an attractive body now, that would seem to run counter to the modern promotion of the idea that no one should be ashamed of how their body looks.

I blame social media. 80

[bibliophage]

Quite a few people used to let their dogs roam around the neighborhood unsupervised all day. This was especially common in the various small towns and rural areas where I've lived most of my life. Although I live in a rural area now, I haven't noticed any unsupervised dogs around here in about 10 years. We still see cats roaming about but not dogs. 81

[kenobi 65]

Originally Posted by kayaker

Heh, guess I'm old fashioned.

Whiskey old fashioned or brandy old fashioned? 82

[Esprise Me]

Originally Posted by hajario

How do they get their mail out?

There was a mailbox about a mile away that I could ride my bike to, but my parents ran a small business, so they usually brought our personal outgoing mail to the office for pickup. 83

[jnglmassiv]

Does anyone roller blade/inline skate anymore? I was reminded about this yesterday at a garage sale where they were selling a pair.

Similarly, 'member when trucks had like 30 different licence plates over the front? They're all apportioned now, good for the trucking companies but terrible for kids playing the license plate game. 84

[eschereal]

Originally Posted by Esprise Me

There was a mailbox about a mile away that I could ride my bike to, but my parents ran a small business, so they usually brought our personal outgoing mail to the office for pickup.

No, the question was: how do they get their own mail out of their own mailbox that no one can get a hand into? 85

[kenobi 65]

Originally Posted by eschereal

No, the question was: how do they get their own mail out of their own mailbox that no one can get a hand into?

I suspect it's not a mail box, but a mail slot in a door or wall.

Also, while mailboxes that are detached from the house (like so) typically do have that red flag which one raises to indicate to the carrier that you have outgoing mail to be picked up, mailboxes which are attached to an exterior wall on your house (as mine is) typically don't have such a flag. 86

[Esprise Me]

You open the back with a key. 87

[Two Many Cats]

Originally Posted by Colibri

If people are more embarrassed about not having an attractive body now, that would seem to run counter to the modern promotion of the idea that no one should be ashamed of how their body looks.

Are you kidding? That promotion, as you call it, has barely had time to even be considered a fad. It hasn't even begun to percolate into the public consciousness. The relentless tide of perfect body worship has been pounding popular culture for decades. 88

[Colibri]

Originally Posted by Two Many Cats

Are you kidding? That promotion, as you call it, has barely had time to even be considered a fad. It hasn't even begun to percolate into the public consciousness. The relentless tide of perfect body worship has been pounding popular culture for decades.

Are you kidding? I get 20,000,000 hits for body-shaming, and 15,000,000 for fat-shaming. "Body image" has risen steadily since 1940.

The point is that although popular culture might still value a perfect body, it's less so than in the 1950s and 1960s when people were less shy about being naked in a locker room or communal showers. 89

[Guinastasia]

Originally Posted by kayaker

Heh, guess I'm old fashioned.

I only see "day drinking" at parties and get togethers. Not just sitting around on my own. 90

[dorvann]

Originally Posted by RealityChuck

More TV: original network dramatic/comedy programming on Saturday night.

Also the major TV networks (ABC/CBS/NBC) having Saturday morning cartoons for 3 to 4 hour blocks. 91

[Procrustus]

Originally Posted by Napier

Waiting in line at the bank to deposit your paycheck and get cash for your pocket, and having to do so between 9 or 10 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. Now paychecks are automatically deposited, you can use a debit card instead of carrying cash, and you can get cash out of ATMs.

My first job paid employees in cash, in an envelope with what would now be called a paystub. 92

[dorvann]

The Boy Scouts has experienced a major declines in membership since the 70s.

The Boy Scouts of America membership peaked in 1973 with over 4 million youth; in 2017 it was 2.3 million--a decline of almost 50%. And with the population increase between 1973 and 2017, fewer percent of boys are involved. 93

[eschereal]

Originally Posted by kenobi 65

I suspect it's not a mail box, but a mail slot in a door or wall.

Also, while mailboxes that are detached from the house (like so) typically do have that red flag which one raises to indicate to the carrier that you have outgoing mail to be picked up, mailboxes which are attached to an exterior wall on your house (as mine is) typically don't have such a flag.

ISTR we would put letters in the box so that they stuck out under the lid, and the carrier would know to pick those up because that was not how he stuffed the box. Most often, we did that with mis-throws and the letters that we would strike a line across the address and write “not here”, as applicable. 94

[dorvann]

Originally Posted by enipla

Anybody have a phone book? Or Yellow Pages?

Anyone still have a road atlas for that matter? 95

[dorvann]

Originally Posted by ftg

This is quite noticeable here. There's a wooded area with a creek next to us. The kids used to play there a lot. They beat down trails and such. Now, the only trail is one the deer use. There was a time the kids used to cut thru the yards and then thru the woods to get to the other side of the neighborhood. But they don't even do that any more.

I can't even yell at the kids to get of my lawn anymore.

When I was ten years old there was whole group of kids (9 to 12 years old) just wandering all over our small town(both on foot and on our bikes). In summer we'd bike the two miles from the downtown to the town beach on our local lake.

Or sometimes we would all load ourselves into the bed of a pickup truck and one of our relatives would drive us there. (That would be 6 to 7 kids in the back and the police wouldn't bat an eye.) 96

[eschereal]

Originally Posted by dorvann

Anyone still have a road atlas for that matter?

We went a traveling this summer and had a large stack of paper maps – the free ones printed by the state.

Reminds me a an exchange from some other forum thing

How did people find their way around before they had google?
We used maps.
No, I mean before google.

97

[thorny locust]

Originally Posted by Colibri

The point is that although popular culture might still value a perfect body, it's less so than in the 1950s and 1960s when people were less shy about being naked in a locker room or communal showers.

That's not my impression of the 1950's and 60's; which is when I grew up. (I was born in the early 50's.) I think the demand for physical "perfection" has gotten much worse since then, and starts at much earlier ages. 98

[jaycat]

Originally Posted by dorvann

Anyone still have a road atlas for that matter?

Sure do. And it never fails me (unlike the GPS, which tends to get quite confused out in the boondocks). 99

[Mr Downtown]

Originally Posted by Musicat

Checking locally, besides mislabeling at least two street names

Tell me what street names are wrong so I can fix them in OpenStreetMap, source of the basemap. 100