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  1. Stanley Doble

    We walk the walk but do we talk the talk?

    I get funny looks and comments when I use words like 'vexed' or 'mountebank' but only from the older, smarter people. They know what I mean but are surprised to hear such words. With the younger ones it rolls off them like duck water because they don't know what I am talking about to begin with.
  2. Stanley Doble

    Terms Which Have Disappeared

    "gun mob" = team of pickpockets, "gun moll" = female shoplifter. From the yiddish "goniff" or thief. Nothing to do with guns. (to bartender) Slip a bromo in my coke Eddie. I'm picking up a cannon mob at the Ambassador in half an hour. - S.J. Perelman
  3. Stanley Doble

    Terms Which Have Disappeared

    I use the term heebie jeebies all the time. The best definition was supplied by Isaac Asimov in a detective novel. Do you ever feel like something awful is going to happen but you don't know what? You've got the heebie jeebies.
  4. Stanley Doble

    Suspenders and a belt?

    I knew an old time mechanic (born in 1901) who wore belt and suspenders with his work britches, but no socks. He never wore socks.
  5. Stanley Doble

    Terms Which Have Disappeared

    A few years ago when some private individuals started talking about building their own space ships, some NASA engineers warned them that there was no practical way to shield humans from the radiation in outer space, which we are normally protected from by the atmosphere. They said they would...
  7. Stanley Doble

    Reading on paper or screen

    Read it slower. It looks like Coca Cola but it has the kick of Bourbon if you don't guzzle it.
  8. Stanley Doble

    Reading on paper or screen

    +1 for "Reaching For The Moon" reference.
  9. Stanley Doble

    Reading on paper or screen

    As I get older and eyes and muscles get weaker reading from a computer screen gets more appealing. Easier than holding a heavy book and magnifying glass. I suppose I could just give up reading. No I couldn't.
  10. Stanley Doble

    the life of workers living in hotels back around 1890 - 1940's

    Patent medicines were popular. You could consult the druggist free of charge, and try what he recommended. There were amateur doctors who treated people free or for very small fees. Granny doctors, herb doctors, neighborhood midwives, shading into trained professionals like Swedish massage...
  11. Stanley Doble

    the life of workers living in hotels back around 1890 - 1940's

    That is obviously a very old sign. You can see where it was covered by a billboard and partly painted over, then exposed when the billboard was torn down. From the style of lettering it was probably painted about 1920.
  13. Stanley Doble

    the life of workers living in hotels back around 1890 - 1940's

    In the 1890s apartments were a rather new idea. A lot of people lived in cheap hotels and rooming houses or boarding houses. Lowest cost, respectable living might be a room in a hotel or rooming house and a meal ticket. A meal ticket cost $2 or $3 and entitled the bearer to a week's worth of...
  14. Stanley Doble

    depression cooking

    As a funny side light. Some years ago I read an interview with a woman who worked in settlement houses in the eastern US. These were charitable organizations aimed at helping new immigrants fit into American society in the late 19th and early 20th century. She said they did a lot of good work...
  15. Stanley Doble

    depression cooking

    Mark Twain wrote a piece in the 1870s about sharpies who were doctoring up cottonseed oil and selling it as olive oil. Also about oleomargarine being substituted for butter. Both olive oil and butter were common items in grocery stores and were both in danger of being adulterated. Have seen a...
  16. Stanley Doble

    T-Shirts in the 1930s - 1940s

    Buddy Ebsen wears a Mickey Mouse jersey in Broadway Melodies of 1936 in his role as a comic dancer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxjEqgNIFqI Sing Before Breakfast I thought it was a T shirt but it's not. I can't think of an actor wearing a T shirt in a movie before WW2 except possibly an...
  17. Stanley Doble

    I used to live in a whore house!

    Are you bragging or complaining?
  19. Stanley Doble

    Moving to the 40s

    Educated people are gullible. Not necessarily stupid, but easily led and convinced they know it all. You can tell an educated person that the country is doing great and prove it with all kinds of bogus and meaningless statistics. A peasant will look around at all the unemployment, poverty...
  20. Stanley Doble

    Boat table lighter made in Occupied Japan

    That is a very cool lighter. Have you tried to find a value for it? Occupied Japan indicates it was made between 1945 and 1951 under the MacArthur administration. I hear there are collectors of Occupied Japan goods but don't know any details.
  21. Stanley Doble

    Water

    Around here if someone's well runs dry in the summer they get a tank truck load of water delivered. They put it in the well or cistern. The water comes from the nearest town's water purification plant.
  22. Stanley Doble

    Water

    I buy my water from a store where they sell water conditioners, hot tubs etc. They have their own reverse osmosis water on tap. I bring my own jugs and fill them up, as I said, $3 for 5 gallons. The glass jugs I buy at yard sales and thrift stores for $5. The kind they sell for making wine. I...
  23. Stanley Doble

    Water

    Sanitary water supplies for cities have been a priority since the 1850s. The Croton aquaduct and reservoir were a source of pride as well as ample pure, fresh water for New Yorkers in the late 1800s. The usual method of getting pure water was from a deep well, or by piping it from some river...

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