# In the dustbin of our cultural history **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 10, 2020, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703 "2020-12-10T00:57:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 33
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/643 "2021-02-03T17:12:41Z")
Dustbin of cultural history: Remember when it was “unprofessional” and even illegal for doctors and lawyers to advertise? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/644 "2021-02-03T19:48:55Z")
And prescription medications weren’t allowed to advertise! ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/645 "2021-02-03T19:54:18Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > Dustbin of cultural history: Remember when it was “unprofessional” and even illegal for doctors and lawyers to advertise? > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > And prescription medications weren’t allowed to advertise! As far as I know, this all still applies in Germany. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/646 "2021-02-03T21:10:07Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > As far as I know, this all still applies in Germany. So how do Germans know how to treat their “moderate to severe” ailments? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/647 "2021-02-03T21:17:41Z")
Yes, I had to learn it by myself, and i am still not good at it. Instead of worthless cursive, teach the kids keyboarding. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/648 "2021-02-03T21:38:26Z")
A friend of ours is a rabid MJ’er. Female, 62, has been playing for years. The local club in our little town has about 30 members, 2-3 of them male. The MahJohngg community in the US is huge. I spent a couple of months trying to learn it but gave up. It’s a fascinating, VERY complicated game, and IMO extremely difficult to master. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/649 "2021-02-03T21:47:58Z")
“We’ll be right back. Don’t touch that dial!” ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/650 "2021-02-03T22:04:58Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > So how do Germans know how to treat their “moderate to severe” ailments? 😉 My half-joke answer: we trust our doctors to prescribe the right stuff. The factual answer: we almost all have governmental health insurance and have to pay only about € 5 for any prescription or nothing if you have a low income, so there’s no incentive to advertise prescription drugs. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/651 "2021-02-03T23:44:43Z")
All girls went to home economics class in the 8th grade. All boys went to wood shop. The only cross-gender elective that I can recall was typing, which I took. The class was almost all girls, and I was faster than all of them. 😃 It also turned out to be the most useful class I ever took in high school. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/652 "2021-02-04T00:45:15Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > The class was almost all girls, and I was faster than all of them. 😃 It also turned out to be the most useful class I ever took in high school. Useful because you got to meet a lot of girls, or useful because you learned to type? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![aurora\_maire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aurora_maire/32/328_2.png) [@aurora\_maire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurora_maire)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/653 "2021-02-04T02:22:19Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > Telephones were heavy and rugged because they were not sold, only rented, and the telephone company provided free repairs. So it was in their interest to have a telephone that never failed. In 1990 my house burned. I went to the AT&T store to close my account. They had no sympathy for me and wanted to charge me some outrageous amount for the phone. As it happened, we were replacing our phones at work. I took an old one and burned it to a crisp on a bar-b-que grill. I took the charred remains to the store and they didn’t charge me. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/654 "2021-02-04T04:07:27Z")
> [@aurora\_maire](#): > > I took the charred remains to the store and they didn’t charge me. 🙂 You are my kind of person. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/655 "2021-02-04T04:09:32Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Useful because you got to meet a lot of girls, or useful because you learned to type? I wished then it had been the former, but not to be. Turns out, typing has been much more useful than most girls have been. ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/656 "2021-02-04T04:11:10Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Turns out, typing has been much more useful than most girls have been. Too many errors per minute or you don’t have the _right touch_? ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/657 "2021-02-05T15:43:33Z")
You ask the pharmacist. Pharmacists throughout Europe are an excellent resource for help with minor ailments. Not only will they sell you the appropriate medication, but they will point you to the own-brand at half the price of the heavily advertised products. If your problem is, embarrassing they always have a private room available. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2021, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/658 "2021-02-06T16:28:53Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > Remember when it was “unprofessional” and even illegal for doctors and lawyers to advertise? Dad was a small-town attorney. The high-school had a club called “Radio Workshop” where we did a half-hour on a local radio station. My younger brother wrote up a ditty for him using the _Addam’s Family_ theme song and tried to talk him into sponsoring the program. Dad wisely declined. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2021, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/660 "2021-02-08T23:35:03Z")
> [@XOldiesJock](#): > > Even more fun was DXing on the AM band late at night… you might also pick up some 1,000 watt station from a thousand miles away. I was excited when I got my own room (this was Wisconsin in the mid-60s). I’d turn on my old bakelite radio before I crawled under the covers, and when the tubes finally got warmed up, I could pick up _“KAAY … Little Rock, Arkansas!”_ The cool thing about that, aside from getting a far-off station, was [Beaker Street](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaker_Street)… a late night show full of hippie music and weird commentary and explicit comedy. > The strong nighttime signal of 50,000 watt, clear channel KAAY meant that it was possible to regularly listen to the station’s nighttime programming in a wide area of the midwest and south. KAAY’s late-night “footprint” gained fans as far west as Wyoming… north to… Manitoba and south as far as New Orleans… This strong broadcast signal enabled _Beaker Street_ to deliver the music of the… counterculture to many smaller cities and towns in America, where such music could not otherwise be heard over the air waves. I remember one midnight-on-a-school-night, hearing “And now, from Mozart… to the Mothers.” ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2021, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/661 "2021-02-08T23:57:19Z")
K-Double A-Y was a legendary Top 40 station and Beaker Street was indeed groundbreaking for a station like that, especially in Little Rock Ark. I couldn’t hear it in the Northeast because of WBAL in Baltimore on the same frequency, 1090 kc. However, I lived in Kentucky for a year in the 1970s and could hear it loud and clear. They were still doing the Progressive thing late at night even then. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2021, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/662 "2021-02-09T14:32:29Z")
KAAY now has a Christian radio format these days. I had no idea they played rock music back in the day. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2021, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/663 "2021-02-09T20:58:11Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > For a while, back in the '50s, my mom and a few friends played mah-jongg every Friday night. Does anyone still play that? My daughter and her wife play mah-jongg with her mother in law and grandmother in law every Monday night, or they did until the pandemic. I am sure they’ll start up again when they can. However, with their friends, they play D&D, which I guess has undergone a revival of sorts. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703.md?page=32) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703.md?page=34)