the good old days

The key thing to note about this 1954 film — the narrator is a total bitch. Implying that the popularity problem is obviously completely Barbara’s fault (and, indeed, that the entire need for better habits is based on being disliked by her peers) is pretty cruel. But I do love the implication that gossip is a well-known part of life (contrasted by some other mental hygiene films which claim gossiping is aberrant behavior), and Barbara better get her act together if she doesn’t want to be the subject of discussion.

Frankly, I have a lot of the bad habits Barbara does — at least the ones that apply to being disorganized, or hitting the snooze button. My solution was not to get better habits, but simply to not care much about The In Crowd said about me. There wasn’t much I could have done to counteract glasses and an aptitude for math anyway

The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book: Twelve Steps to a Happy Marriage, from 1938 (reprinted 1949) has an inauspicious title if I ever heard one. It’s definitely going to be all about giving in and being a good cook and sewing your children’s clothes from scratch, snarked my feminist side. Just goes to show I don’t know everything. It had a neat essay from Eleanor Roosevelt… which rather shows just how far we have left to go.

This is not a case of whether you prefer marriage or a career. It is a case of marriage and work together, or no marriage and work alone. Work must go on in either case. For most women there is something so satisfying in creating a home that they do it frequently by themselves….

I know one young couple who were married when the boy was getting twenty-five dollars a week and the girl was getting the same as a stenographer. Both of them went on working. Everything seemed to be going very well, and she managed her two jobs quite successfully. The most successful part of it was the fact that she induced her husband to feel an equal responsibility for the house. I remember that when I dined with them, he put on an apron after dinner and helped wash the dishes as naturally as if that were the normal occupation for a man. When a marriage works out this way, it is very successful, especially if the man has a knack for doing things about the house, because it keeps him busy when his wife is busy.

So often these days, the question of whether women should work outside the home is framed entirely from the viewpoint of married, middle class families, who have the luxury of choosing between one or two incomes.

Of course, when it comes to the mothers of families who work in mills, factories, and stores, we know quite well that there is no question of choice—poverty drives them, and they work because they have to, and only a few would hesitate if they were offered an opportunity to stay at home and look after their home and their children.

I remember visiting a mill town once, and as the women came off the night shift—for there were no laws at that time in that particular state against women’s working on night shifts—they met their husbands going to work on the day shift. We followed one woman home. Tired from the hours in the mill, she nevertheless had to set to work immediately to get the children fed and off to school. Then she had her house to set to rights, washing and ironing to do, and dinner to get for the children and supper to be left for the man when he came back from work as she went on. In the afternoon she snatched a few hours of sleep, and the children who were not in school played unwatched and uncared for. She knew that her home life was not satisfactory, and she did not work long hours in the mill because she wanted to, but simply because there was not enough food to go around unless her earnings supplemented those of her husband.

At least today we have day care available.

The guilt trips from the “should women work” debate are laughably old. There are advantages and disadvantages to each, and it’s tiresome to hear each side snark at the other.

The whole thing is worth reading if you’re interested. The rest of the book isn’t all that bad, either.

Did you ever wonder what it was like in the Old West under the open sky?

It was fairly dangerous, dirty, and disgusting, actually.

As we all know, the Old West was a time when men were men, and appetites were huge.

Um… or that.

As Chairman of National Barbecue Month, Chef Michael Tondow invites you to join him for the month of July! He then takes a few minutes of his time to share with us a recipe for steak, “Scumpy Style.” This involves dousing steak with Kitchen Bouquet — those Old West cowboys never went anywhere without a bottle of bland browning sauce, after all — to create a “seal for the natural meat flavors”, then grilling (presumably until any hint of rare meat is charred out of existence).

Be sure to serve beans in an old-style Western bean pot… to create a chuck wagon atmosphere!

Ugh.

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With only a few hits on Google, Chef Michael Tondow officially exists only in this film. The National Barbecue Association and the Hearth Patio & Barbecue Association are still with us, however, and both insist that May is National Barbecue Month.

Imagine you’re a stay-at-home mom. Daughter’s paper napkin keeps falling off her lap. How on earth will you address this horrifying situation?

The logical answer: get cloth napkins, you lazy idiot. Didn’t you take Home Ec? The “Ec” stands for “Economics”, you know, which should have taught you things like not spending your household budget on paper napkins while it was teaching you how to make cloth napkins. It’s a FREAKIN’ SQUARE OF CLOTH, how hard is that?

Oh, don’t worry though, there’s always the advertising answer: get cloth-like napkins from a startlingly diminutive butler.

The butler is named Manners… ugh…

Another fascinating story with very little information about what’s actually going on, from my family’s archived letters of yore…

Dear Mrs Bagnall–

This evening, in the heat of an argument, I said something which I keenly regret, something I regret, not only because it is not the truth, but because it is not what I believe. The world seems to be making somewhat of a cynic out of me and I forget sometimes that there are some people who are all that they appear to be and could not possibly be covered by my statement of tonight.

If you could realize the respect and regard in which I hold the friendship of yourself and Mr. Bagnall as well as that of Rosalind, you would also realize that I could not intentionally say or think of anything so utterly foreign to that regard as was my much regretted statement of tonight.

Please forgive me as an unthinking, impetuous boy who knows a worthwhile friend when he finds one but who is badly worried now for fear of losing the most sincere, the kindest, the best one of them all.

Honestly, hopefully, and sincerely yours,
Fred D. Morgan

Whatever Fred said, apparently not even this apology would make up for it. Rosalind married a nice boy named Paul about a year later

The Columbia SC Freecycle list has a weird cycle. About every three months, some person will totally miss the point and request something that would be obscenely expensive if bought new. Usually it’s one person asking for something extremely specific; the most recent previously was for an unlocked Sprint-compatible cell phone, specifically a model which retailed for about $500. Cars are the most frequent contender.

For some reason, today had a run of loonies:

• an “entertainment center” (presumably without any electronics, but who knows)
• a television “35 inch for a bedroom” [!] and “a Queen Bed, Washer/Dryer”
• two laptops
• “Washer/Dryer/Refridgerator” and any Magic: The Gathering cards

It is tradition, of course, to label such requests with “NEED” instead of “WANTED”, apparently to emphasize the truly dire nature of the situation. Details are always essential — the laptops must have wireless, for example, because one wants to be able to move to different rooms of her house instead of sit at her computer desk. She really needs that second computer.

Why would I want to give a greedy ill-mannered miser a laptop, huge TV, or washing machine even if I did have one sitting around that would otherwise go to the dump? I’d rather drive the item to their house and make them watch while I took a chainsaw to it instead. THERE’S yer queen mattress…

I have a lot more willingness to work with the people who politely ask for any moving boxes (because they’ve been foreclosed on), or clothes for a six-person family whose house has burned down. I like freecycle, and I’ve sent a computer desk, a kitchen table, and two chairs to (presumably) happy homes elsewhere — but damn, the lazy greedy charity freaks get on my nerves. Time was that asking for charity was the last possible recourse of the desperate. I guess that’s why panhandlers don’t hold out their hats anymore… how would you fit a major home appliance into it?

Office Courtesy: Meeting the Public (1952) reminded me slightly of why I quit a job years ago — I wasn’t willing to put up with the bullshit Barbara has to, although it’s her job to do so and it wasn’t mine.

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I’m amused by the mild undercurrent of familiar touching between the two roommates. I really doubt it’s the impression Encyclopaedia Britannica Films intended to portray, but hey, it’s 1952, an open-minded time that accepted everyone’s sexuality. But we’re here to learn about secretarial attitude, not lesbians!

It’s mildly fun to see Barbara and Ruth sitting there sniping about Mr. Franklin’s secretary (who, frankly, deserves it). Apparently future secretaries were best educated by showing them snarky bitchery. But it also drives home how annoying it really is to be a secretary. Do everything, be cheerful and friendly to everyone… jeez, you even need to swallow your gum whenever the boss walks in the room.

When I worked at a small company, I was eventually moved to a office by the front door. It’s a 30-person company, so I was asked to “chip in” by answering the door and greeting guests (when I objected, I got a lecture on my lack of team spirit). It was incredibly annoying; I constantly having my work interrupted, and it didn’t make it more “fun” if I had a cheerful, positive attitude towards whatever strange visitor was dropping by. (And I did have a cheerful, positive attitude, at least on the outside.) I’m an engineer, not a secretary, and so it was infuriating to be put in that position; it was one of the reasons I was happy to leave.

Shortly after I did move on, they hired a receptionist (who doubled as an HR something) for that office, but had an impossible time finding another manufacturing engineer to do the many things I had done… teaching another valuable lesson, prioritize your employees’ workload based on what you really need. They lost a lot more man-hours by having an incompetent engineer and a cheerful receptionist.

While the title made me think it would be about how to safely make a u-turn, the 1936 Turnabout Man is actually about road rage. I waffled for a while whether to use this for an Etiquette film or a Driver’s Safety film; however, its messages have larger implications for societal etiquette, so you get it on a Tuesday.

The basic plot is simple: a driver magically begins to drive the way he lives his normal life (politely), and conduct himself the way he drives (not politely).

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Reckless, rude driving has an interesting parallel with internet anonymity. In 1930, well before Teh Web, an automobile was the closest you could come to that, since the speed and enclosed vehicle effectively removed you from personal contact with pedestrians and other drivers. When there’s anonymity, it’s easier for the true nature of a person to show itself — through “road rage” or through ignorant, shortsighted, and rude discussions/comments on blogs and forums. I seriously doubt that people were constantly charming to each other before cars and computers (although who knows, I wasn’t alive then), but it must have been riskier to be a total asshole when you had to walk away from whoever you were insulting.

Warning: this is probably irrelevant to anybody but me, my spouse, my brother-in-law, and their parents. Sorry. Ignore unless you’re bored.

When your son graduates from college, the least you can do is go out to dinner with him. Otherwise you are BAD PARENTS. BAD!!! I don’t care how much you stuffed yourself on free cookies at the post-graduation reception, you can sit through one damn meal and have a day that is about HIS success, not YOUR neurotic self-indulgent fear of aging.

Also, when you’re visiting us, and planning on getting into town “sometime today”, could you please give us a phone call to let us know you’ve arrived? Especially considering one of the highways you were supposed to travel on has a few gaping holes in it since Indiana is experiencing extensive flooding. We realize you don’t care much about your sons (ref. previous paragraph) but for some ridiculous reason WE would like to know that YOU are not dead.

Then you ice the cake by calling up the next morning and complaining that we already made plans (in other words, went to work) and dropped our kids off in daycare? True, we could have just left them at home in the hopes that Nana and Grampa hadn’t drowned last night, but I guess I’m just a crazy overprotective bitch secretly devising ways to prevent you from seeing them until four in the afternoon.

Thank you. Please feel free to return to your normal life now, I’m done. At least, I hope I am, because they’re in town for another week.

Don’t drive in Boston. Ever.

This is not to say you shouldn’t visit (or even live in) Boston and surrounding areas. I lived in Charlestown for seven years and visit the area every couple of years; this time, it was for my brother-in-law’s graduation in Cambridge. This meant we were with my mother- and father-in-law, which automatically means the batshit insanity level goes through the roof. (I love them, I really do, but vacationing with them is at least five times as stressful as it needs to be.)

Normally, I’d hop onto the T or a bus and go wherever I need to. Not only is the coverage great, but you don’t have to deal with parking or driving. Parking in Boston or Cambridge is batshit insane, especially when you’re trying to park for a graduation in Cambridge and so are 2400 other graduates’ families. Similarly, local drivers are batshit insane, and it gets worse when they are angry about dealing with hundreds of out-of-town drivers who don’t understand Boston Traffic Ettikit.

However, my in-laws badgered us into driving rather than taking the subway. (”You want to take the kids on the subway? OMG!”) So once again, I got to experience streets with no street signs (”This isn’t Prospect Street!” “HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU TELL?”), green left-turn arrows on the right-most stoplight (?!?), taxi-cabs wedging themselves in wherever they want, rehabilitated amphibious assault vehicles (the “duckboat” tours) randomly cutting me off, and (my personal favorite) at least two cars from oncoming traffic will turn left in front of you when the light turns green.

After every illegal, dangerous maneuver you see, you’ll be granted a cheery wave, a silent “thanks, sucker,” that acknowledges your excellent braking reflexes. I learned to drive in Boston traffic, but I’ve gotten soft after living in Indiana and South Carolina — Boston Traffic Ettikit requires ruthless driving or you’ll never get anywhere. Yielding is for babies and clueless tourists. It took a little while to get back into the rhythm.

We did get to have some fun by trying to lose my husband’s parents in the bad traffic, though… their own fault for deciding to follow us