# 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:** 43
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2021, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/845 "2021-04-05T23:22:01Z")
> [@Jaguars](#): > > On one local route the highest note of the jingle was flat and sounded hilariously off the first time you heard it. Presumably that was meant to trick someone into running outside and angrily demonstrating how to play the note correctly… ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2021, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/846 "2021-04-06T03:33:43Z")
> [@Jaguars](#): > > Milk trucks delivered in NZ until about the early 2000s I think. Oddly, [home milk delivery is making a bit of a comeback in certain areas of the US](https://www.americandairy.com/news-and-events/dairy-diary/dairy-farming/delivering-milk-the-old-fashioned-way.stml), where a local dairy farm has enough of a customer base to support it. Back from the dustbin! ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2021, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/847 "2021-04-06T03:47:16Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > My 1790 farm house (which is still on a farm) is chockablock with discarded ideas made, well, not flesh, but wood and brick anyway. This reminded me that the old 1902 ‘Middle-class Victorian’ (a young survivor of the Great Quake of 1906) where I used to live in the SF Bay Area had a [California cooler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_cooler_(cabinet)). It had been partially enclosed when they added electricity, with just a little pantry nook left which also held the breaker box. The back had been partially filled with insulation, but still had the exterior vent to the outside of the house. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2021, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/848 "2021-04-06T03:55:24Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Oddly, [home milk delivery is making a bit of a comeback in certain areas of the US](https://www.americandairy.com/news-and-events/dairy-diary/dairy-farming/delivering-milk-the-old-fashioned-way.stml), where a local dairy farm has enough of a customer base to support it. Back from the dustbin Clan Piper gets its milk delivered. The milkman has been doing it steadily for 20 years, and apparently got big boost in business in covid-times (that’s when we signed up with him). ---
**Author:** ![Drummond\_Bays](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8edcca/32.png) [@Drummond\_Bays](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drummond_Bays)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2021, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/849 "2021-04-13T17:36:28Z")
Heh, the 4 or so seconds to leave your name was sometimes all we needed as kids! “John’sHouseTwoO’Clock” “AtTheMallPickMeUp” “SleepingOverAtBrad’s” ---
**Author:** ![Drummond\_Bays](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8edcca/32.png) [@Drummond\_Bays](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drummond_Bays)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2021, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/850 "2021-04-13T17:58:49Z")
Just rounding the long-distance finaglery 185-area, we never did that specifically, but up untill about 2000 or so there were a few oldschool payphones here in toronto that could still receive calls. We had the numbers and locations memorized, in the days of pagers this was priceless information. Never had any reason to call LD, but recalling this makes me wonder if those payphones could receive a collect call. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2021, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/851 "2021-04-13T18:04:28Z")
> [@Drummond\_Bays](#): > > Never had any reason to call LD, but recalling this makes me wonder if those payphones could receive a collect call. I knew a guy in my college dorm at the University of Wisconsin (around 1984) whose girlfriend was studying abroad in France. He discovered that at least one payphone in the dorms (in the lobby of the cafeteria) could be used to accept collect calls, so she’d call him collect, at that number, from Paris, a couple of times a week. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2021, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/852 "2021-04-13T20:07:59Z")
There was also the trick of calling person-to-person to yourself after a trip to let someone know you had arrived at your destination safely. The recipient would not take the call, so it was free. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2021, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/853 "2021-04-13T20:19:50Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > This reminded me that the old 1902 ‘Middle-class Victorian’ (a young survivor of the Great Quake of 1906) where I used to live in the SF Bay Area had a [California cooler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_cooler_(cabinet)). If you watch the show _Restored_ on the DIY network, the host is always finding old California coolers. I saw an extant one in an old Spanish bungalow on a house tour in Ojai. Great idea. ---
**Author:** ![Drummond\_Bays](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8edcca/32.png) [@Drummond\_Bays](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drummond_Bays)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2021, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/854 "2021-04-13T20:48:26Z")
Hahhahahah, man. The 90"s weren’t quite the 70’s, but I know that feeling well! I used to keep a “scapegoat” in my wallet, the rest would be somewhere sweaty, smelly, and personal! Luckily,nothing ever happened! ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.winston_oboogie/32/2945_2.png) [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Winston_OBoogie)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2021, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/855 "2021-04-13T21:10:15Z")
> [@romansperson](#): > > When I signed my first car loan, the contract read _“\< My Name \>, Spinster”_ . This was in 1986. I was 24. > > Lovely. My wife and I married in 1990. We signed papers to purchase a house, etc. before the marriage, and everything she was signing said “Winnifred O’Boogie, Spinster”. The guy handing us the forms was very apologetic, and very embarrassed. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2021, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/856 "2021-04-13T23:22:35Z")
> [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](#): > > My wife and I married in 1990. We signed papers to purchase a house, etc. before the marriage, and everything she was signing said “Winnifred O’Boogie, Spinster”. The guy handing us the forms was very apologetic, and very embarrassed. This just triggered a memory for me. I had a work-study job in college (1980s) with the University of Wisconsin Extension. There was a project I was working on for them at one point, which had me going through the property tax rolls for some county in Wisconsin. The listings of the owners would read like: “JOHN J SMITH ETUX,” “JAMES R MILLER ETUX” – a significant number of the owner lines had that “etux” word, and I couldn’t figure out what it meant. And, then, my two years of high school Latin kicked in: it was an abbreviation for “et uxor,” or “and wife.” In other words, there were a _ton_ of these tax records in which the wife, as a co-owner of a property, didn’t even have her own name on the legal record of the tax roll – she was just “and wife.” 😛 ---
**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:** [April 14, 2021, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/857 "2021-04-14T00:08:24Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > she was just “and wife.” 😛 Which raises the fascinating question of whether her ownership interest could be extinguished by the husband swapping her for “et uxor version two.” The very primitive past was not so very long ago. As we 60+ folks have told about in thread after thread. ---
**Author:** ![Drummond\_Bays](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8edcca/32.png) [@Drummond\_Bays](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drummond_Bays)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2021, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/858 "2021-04-14T17:01:17Z")
I’m going to guess you’re in the US by the businesses listed. If you are in a metropolitian area, always consider Asian grocery stores, some even have fast food. A lot of them, here anyway proudly state “we are open everyday.” ---
**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:** [April 14, 2021, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/859 "2021-04-14T17:36:40Z")
> [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](#): > > My wife and I married in 1990. We signed papers to purchase a house, etc. before the marriage, and everything she was signing said “Winnifred O’Boogie, Spinster”. Our HOA bylaws state that if a woman is the owner of a home, then her husband or father can vote her interests at the annual meeting. There is an implied “with her permission”, but since you can assign a proxy to vote for you already I never saw the need for that clause. Formed in the 1960’s. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2021, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/860 "2021-04-14T18:30:10Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > There was also the trick of calling person-to-person to yourself after a trip to let someone know you had arrived at your destination safely. The recipient would not take the call, so it was free. In a similar vein, when I was a kid my father worked out of an office in the house _and_ we had only the one line in the home – phone calls were a lot less common back then. The number on his business card was for a hired answering service who would then forward the call to the house and take a message if it did not get picked up. When he was on the road, once or twice a day he would place a person-to-person call to the service and ask to speak to “Joe Sam.” This was code to see if there were any messages under his real name, If not, “Sorry, Mr. Sam is not in to take the call,” and the call was free. If he had messages they would accept the call to give the messages to him. The messages were infrequent enough he was money ahead. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2021, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/861 "2021-04-14T20:48:10Z")
Some of the discussions about women not being listed as homeowners reminds me of something that happened when my sister got married. The phone for their first residence was listed under her name, because the phone company wouldn’t open an account in his name. After all these years (this was in the late 70’s) I don’t remember why. I also remember that the phone book listing only had her initials instead of her full name, which was common back then. ---
**Author:** ![mtnmatt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a3d4f5/32.png) [@mtnmatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mtnmatt)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2021, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/862 "2021-04-14T20:58:15Z")
This might fit well here. I’ve been watching Leave it to Beaver in the mornings while I’m waiting to start my work day, and noticed in the credits they include “Miss Billingsley’s dresses by X.” At that time, Barbara Billingsley was a 45 year old woman, on her third marriage. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2021, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/863 "2021-04-14T21:33:43Z")
> [@mtnmatt](#): > > “Miss Billingsley’s dresses by X.” > > At that time, Barbara Billingsley was a 45 year old woman, on her third marriage. I have a vague notion that actresses were routinely addressed as “Miss,” regardless of age or marital status. ---
**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:** [April 14, 2021, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/864 "2021-04-14T22:16:00Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I have a vague notion that actresses were routinely addressed as “Miss,” regardless of age or marital status. And Billingsley was her first husband’s name, so Mrs B would have been wrong in any case. Since actresses seldom changed their professional names when they got married, “Miss” was a good choice right up until Ms was invented. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703.md?page=42) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703.md?page=44)