# Things you remember from your childhood that would be ABSOLUTELY UNTHINKABLE today **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 9, 2009, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561 "2009-04-09T21:05:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/361 "2009-07-01T19:16:51Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > And still a Mexican one, sort of. Go into any grocery store in the country, and you’ll find a chocolate candy bar called “Negrito” (“little black person”), with an illustration of a child with a big afro. “Negrito” (to a Spanish speaker) isn’t quite as insulting as “n\*\*\*\*\*” is (to an English one), but it’s not too far off, and anything of the kind would be unthinkable here in the U.S. I actually bought a box of those when I was in Japan. Just for the novelty of buying a racist mexican candy in Japan. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/362 "2009-07-01T19:25:53Z")
My grandmother used to read me Little Black Sambo when I was little which is considered extremely offensive to black people these days and has mostly been pulled from the shelves. Of course, Little Black Sambo wasn’t black (African) at all. He was Indian and the author lived in India for for much of her life. There aren’t even any wild tigers in Africa. The book may be offensive to Indian people for all I know and I could understand that but it doesn’t bode well intellectually for anyone that thinks it is about people of African descent. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/363 "2009-07-01T19:38:32Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Just after we left Louisiana they opened up a drive through by the glass bar in our town. But they put Saran Wrap over the cup, so it was okay. When I was a kid in Louisiana, drinking and driving (in the literal sense) was perfectly fine. It was technically illegal to be over the limit but you would have to be absolutely shitfaced to get busted for it. My father would let us (very young) kids ride in the back of the pickup because we loved it so much. He would have a twelve pack on the passenger floor and a beer in one hand. He got stopped a few times but the beer and us riding in the pickup bed was never an issue. Even when I was in college in New Orleans in the 1990’s, we still had drive-through daquari shops. Before I moved, they had a “big crackdown” and technically would only sell you the number of people in the car minus one in hopes that the driver would be the one that didn’t get one but that didn’t usually work out in practice. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/364 "2009-07-01T19:52:49Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > My grandmother used to read me Little Black Sambo when I was little which is considered extremely offensive to black people these days and has mostly been pulled from the shelves. Of course, Little Black Sambo wasn’t black (African) at all. He was Indian and the author lived in India for for much of her life. There aren’t even any wild tigers in Africa. The book may be offensive to Indian people for all I know and I could understand that but it doesn’t bode well intellectually for anyone that thinks it is about people of African descent. It’s complex. All you say is true, but in the earliest editions, Sambo still looks like a caricature of an African boy, not an Indian one. His parents look pretty obviously black, and their names – Mumbo and Jumbo – were stereotypical “African” names , and they look African in their depictions. It’s true that there weren’t tigers in Africa, but Edgar Rice Burroughs had one there in his first Tarzan book (later changed to a lion in subsequent editions). See here: [http://www.ferris.edu/JIMCROW/picaninny/](http://www.ferris.edu/JIMCROW/picaninny/) \*We get the modern word “Jumbo” from P.T. Barnum’s elephant, who had his name changed to “Jumbo” because it sounded more “African” than his original name ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/365 "2009-07-01T20:28:36Z")
Actually, the Wikipedia article claims that the very earluiest illustration did show Indian characters, although that doesn’t excuse the names. And the illustration attached to the article doesn’t seem very far removed from pickaninny stereotypes.\* Later editions generally did use African characters: > **[The Story of Little Black Sambo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Black_Sambo)** > > The Story of Little Black Sambo is a children's book written and illustrated by Scottish author Helen Bannerman and published by Grant Richards in October 1899. As one in a series of small-format books called The Dumpy Books for Children, the story was popular for more than half a century. > Contemporary critics observed that Bannerman presented one of the first black heroes in children's literature and regarded the book as positively portraying black characters in both the text and pictures, e... \*I wonder how “Southern Indian” people feel about Sambo and the book. Nobody ever says. Are they offended? ---
**Author:** ![Kalea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b487fb/32.png) [@Kalea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalea)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/366 "2009-07-01T20:56:50Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > Unthinkable now but it happened several times in my public, non-religious elementary school: > > When it rained, sometimes they showed **Johnny Appleseed** in the cafeteria. The main song has lyrics that go like this: The Lord is good to me/And so I thank the Lord/for giving me the things I need/the something something and the apple trees/The Lord is good to meeeeeeee. _Verse 2:_ For every seed I sow An apple tree will grow And soon there’ll be apples there For everyone in the world to share The Lord is good to meeeeeeeeeeee _Bridge_ Here am I Blue, blue sky Doing as I please Living in God’s wilderness Thankful to be free… _Repeat the first verse_ ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/367 "2009-07-01T21:24:37Z")
> [@SSG\_Schwartz](#): > > But it simplifies things when someone asks for a quarter, say for a vending machine that doesn’t take dimes or nickels. Asking for a case quarter means that you won’t have someone offering change that you can’t use. > > Back in the day, I knew a panhandler who used to hang out by a newspaper box that only took quarters, and not nickels and dimes. He would ask passerby for a case quarter to make it seem as though he was trying to buy a paper. When he got the quarter, he would ask the next passerby for the same thing. > > SSG Schwartz I still don’t get the terminology. “A quarter” means the single coin that is worth $0.25. If I didn’t care how many coins I got, I’d ask for “twenty-five cents.” If someone asked me for a quarter, I would either give them the single coin, or say, “I don’t have a quarter, but I’ve got two dimes and a nickel.” Likewise, if my wife said, “Do you have a twenty?” I’d either hand her a bill with Andrew Jackson’s face on it or say, “no, but I have a five, a ten, and five ones.” Still don’t understand why “case quarter” would be necessary, much less where the “case” modifier came from. ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/368 "2009-07-01T21:25:30Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > The main song has lyrics that go like this: The Lord is good to me/And so I thank the Lord/for giving me the things I need/ **the something something** and the apple trees/The Lord is good to meeeeeeee. … the sun and the rain and the apple trees… 🙂 We sing this at my preschool all the time as grace before snacktime. It is a church-based school, though. ---
**Author:** ![SSG\_Schwartz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SSG\_Schwartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SSG_Schwartz)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/369 "2009-07-02T00:46:10Z")
> [@toadspittle](#): > > I still don’t get the terminology. “A quarter” means the single coin that is worth $0.25. If I didn’t care how many coins I got, I’d ask for “twenty-five cents.” > > If someone asked me for a quarter, I would either give them the single coin, or say, “I don’t have a quarter, but I’ve got two dimes and a nickel.” Likewise, if my wife said, “Do you have a twenty?” I’d either hand her a bill with Andrew Jackson’s face on it or say, “no, but I have a five, a ten, and five ones.” > > Still don’t understand why “case quarter” would be necessary, much less where the “case” modifier came from. I guess my mind works differently. If someone asks for a quarter, or a dollar, or even a ten spot, I will give them the amount they ask for, not paying attention to how I made it. I grew up in the South, and still had not heard of a “case quarter” until about the early 80’s. [Urban dictionary](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=case%20quarter) seems to support my definition, but does not really explain why it is a case quarter. SSG Schwartz ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/370 "2009-07-02T01:47:53Z")
I used to manage an apartment complex for the mentally ill. One of our residents (who had a dual MI/MR diagnosis) had the hobby of walking door to door through neighborhoods and apartment complexes asking “Do you have a case quarter for two dimes and a nickel?”, and if the answer was yes he’d trade and go to the next door to ask “Have you got two dimes and a nickel for a case quarter?” It gave him pleasure and hurt nobody and he was so obviously ‘impaired’ that nobody ever called the cops (though to my knowledge he wasn’t breaking any laws anyway). ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/371 "2009-07-02T02:52:20Z")
So, back during my senior year in high school, I was the school newspaper editor. I saved all the papers from the time I started school to the time I graduated, and I’m going to be scanning all of them in as part of a Class of '84 effort to save and share the ephemera we might have held on to for 25-plus years. I’m looking though some of the old papers and thought “wow, this would NEVER see the light of day nowadays”, at least those that weren’t published under my watch. Let’s see … - Ethnic jokes. (none racial, but still …) - A final edition one year where various teachers were “scissorshopped”, for lack of a better word. Nothing extraordinary in that, except for the minstrel lips on a black teacher. (This was an integrated public high school, FWIW.) - Liquor store ads. (The drinking age was 18 in NYS until 1992.) - Open reference to the “special” students as “romps”. (The school required passing a difficult exam for admission, but was still required to have a certain number of mentally challenged students.) (Okay, there were references to romps under my watch in some of the personal ads.) - Articles literally cut and pasted from other sources. (Copyright? What’s that?) - Christmas editions with no reference to Hanukkah. (The school had a good amount of Jewish students.) ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/372 "2009-07-02T05:50:25Z")
Where does the term “romps” come from? ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/373 "2009-07-02T12:13:58Z")
High school pep rally- about 1979: Our rival is a school whose cartoon mascot is a “Kentucky colonel” caricature, whose flag is the Stars & Bars (there’s only been a fuss over that in the past decade), and whose team name is “the Rebels”. We are “the Cubs”- our mascot of course being a big “Bear Cub”. Pep rally skit- Hooded robed Klansman (supposed to represent “the Rebels”) chases our black cheerleader who is rescued by the Cub who beats down the Klansman. Even then, I was amazed. Btw, I have no doubt that said cheerleader probably wrote the skit! * * * Mid-1970s: For several years, the Evangelical, near-Fundamentalist church I attended had a full-blown monster-costumes, Haunted-House, creepy-decorations Halloween party. NOT a Harvest Party or a Hallelujah Party, but a HALLOWEEN Party. Then one year, they didn’t have it & no one would say why. J’accuse Mike Warnke! ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/374 "2009-07-02T14:28:55Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > Where does the term “romps” come from? This is all coming back to me after 25 years: the “special” kids were bussed in for a few hours every day to take a wood shop class, and then bussed back to another school. Students called that wood shop the “Romper Room”, and thus the word “romps” for the inhabitants. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/375 "2009-07-02T16:26:00Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > Until very recently, it was perfectly legal for a driver to drink a beer while driving in Montana and Wyoming, (and in Montana you could also have a loaded 357 Magnum on the seat next to you) provided the driver was not above the .08 legal limit. > > I think there are still a few states where the passengers can have an open alcoholic beverage, but not the actual driver. Of course, it seems there are a few loopholes for a driver who is pulled over with a beer; he can just pass it to his passenger while the cop is none the wiser, right? (all this assumes the driver is not over the limit) > > Am I missing something? > > Have all these laws allowing passengers to drink been done away with? When I left West Virginia in 2004, there was still no state open container law per se. There was a post-prohibition era law against drinking liquor or wine in a vehicle, but beer was specifically exempt. However, most municipalities had their own city open container ordinances that made it illegal. So you had a hodge-podge of different jurisdictions treating it differently, and if you got pulled over, even though you wouldn’t get a ticket for drinking the beer, you could be damned sure that you would be doing field sobriety tests. That made it not worth it. I remember that each year the state lost federal highway money for not having a comprehensive open container policy, so they have probably changed it by now. But who knows.. ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/376 "2009-07-02T20:34:18Z")
Back in the days…, Halloween sure was loads of fun then. In 1981 three black girls at my school dressed as Klansmen and everyone thought it was hilarious. Then I went home from school and dressed as one of the Munich terrorists. I had a damn fine time lunging out the front door with my toy AK47 and hand grenade yelling “Freeze! Ziz is a terror attack! Accept zee candy or you vill die!” every time a little kid showed up. Later I gave the terrorist outfit to my brother, who I’m sure had a jolly time roaming the neighborhood unescorted by any adults while dressed as a terrorist. ---
**Author:** ![Ronald\_C.Semone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cc9497/32.png) [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/377 "2009-07-02T21:35:37Z")
[quote=“FriarTed, post:373, topic:492561”] High school pep rally- about 1979: Our rival is a school whose cartoon mascot is a “Kentucky colonel” caricature, whose flag is the Stars & Bars (there’s only been a fuss over that in the past decade), and whose team name is “the Rebels”.QUOTE] Are you really sure it was the “Stars & Bars” and not the later and more common “Southern Cross” which is the flag most people think of when they think of a Confederate flag? ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/378 "2009-07-02T21:45:00Z")
It’s pretty much been covered, but… [ul] [li]Smoking was EVERYWHERE.[/li][li]Candy cigarettes.[/li][li]Corporal punishment was MUCH more common.[/li][li]Going into any house or building under construction. My mother instigated this. The houses were unlocked until they installed the appliances. Her father was a builder and this was apparently totally acceptable.[/li][li]My parents having cocktail and bridge parties, and my sister and I would roam around serving cheese and crackers.[/li][li]School served fish every Friday.[/li][li]We could see the Nike missile base on the next mountain from the school playground. We all knew it was there to protect us from the Russians invading.[/li][li]Women would go out wearing big pink curlers. The modest ones would put a scarf over it all.[/li][li]Girlfriends and boyfriends holding hands was considered poor behavior. My mother told me never to do it (when I was too young to have a boyfriend anyway!).[/li][li]Drills in school to go out in the halls to simulate protecting ourselves from the Russian planes with nukes.[/li][li]Fallout shelters.[/li][li]Cars did not have seat belts in back and the heater did not heat up the back, so we used a blanket.[/li][li]Group showers in gym were mandatory unless having your period. The gym teacher parked herself outside the shower and checked off our names as we came out. If we were menstruating we had to walk up to her and say “PERIOD!” She said she was checking for health reasons.[/li][li]Going into Washington Square Park to get high (that was later… 🙂 ).[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/379 "2009-07-03T05:58:57Z")
We don’t need no education… School was a hoot back then too. We had a couple senile teachers–one got lost in the cafeteria and a student had to go look for her and another had the hots for Stalin. This was years after he died. Then there was the social studies teacher, who weighed roughly 400 pounds and freely admitted to smoking dope. One day he didn’t show up for school and the substitute said he was sick. “No way” said a few of the students. " We saw him staggering out of a bar drunk last night!" The substitute insisted he was just sick, and the next day he showed up to work looking fine. It was a long time before I wondered what a group of 14 years olds had been doing at a bar in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2009, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561/380 "2009-07-04T12:05:33Z")
[quote=“Ronald\_C.Semone, post:377, topic:492561”] > [@FriarTed](#): > > High school pep rally- about 1979: Our rival is a school whose cartoon mascot is a “Kentucky colonel” caricature, whose flag is the Stars & Bars (there’s only been a fuss over that in the past decade), and whose team name is “the Rebels”.QUOTE] > > Are you really sure it was the “Stars & Bars” and not the later and more common “Southern Cross” which is the flag most people think of when they think of a Confederate flag? You’re right. I actually never thought about there being a difference. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-remember-from-your-childhood-that-would-be-absolutely-unthinkable-today/492561.md?page=20)