So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Fading Fast]

It depends on where you were living. In the ethnic neighborhoods of Boston and Brooklyn, being a Protestant meant being a distinctly untrusted minority. Religious and sectional tensions between Catholics and non-Catholics ran extremely high in Northeastern cities in the years before the war, to the point where street violence was not uncommon. Followers of Father Coughlin, organized under the banner of "Catholic Action," would stand on street corners selling Coughlinite newspapers -- and would often assault pedestrians who declined to buy, especially if they looked Jewish, while police officers, who might very well be Coughlinites themselves, looked the other way.

Growing up in NJ, I remember the strong group identity of Catholics versus Protestants being, overall, a generational thing - my parent's and, even more so, my grandparent's generation had those feelings. But it was more of a middle and upper-middle class thing.

In my family, being of no religion and my father having grown up very poor and in an "ethnic" part of town where all the "ethnic" kids (Italians, Germans, Irish, Jewish, Polish, etc.) played together - he had friends his entire life from all background and religions and, while they made fun of each other in a way that is not politically correct today, they were true friends who were there for each other.

So I saw a little of both growing up as we lived in a neighborhood like the show "The Wonder Years," where there were some who had my father's outlook - we are all a bunch of mutts, find good people, whatever their "background - and some who were very much about their group / religion / ethnicity staying together.

But at the kid level in the '60s and '70s, there was much, much less of that "my group versus your group" attitude (although some kids absolutely felt that way) and more of a "that stuff doesn't matter" attitude. In high school, kids from different ethnicities and religions would date and their concerns would be about how either their parent's or grandparent's would feel - but they themselves didn't care. Again, that was my experience, in my neighborhood, in NJ at the time - can't speak for anywhere else.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The children of the Era in those neighborhoods held largely to those attitudes. Their parents, many of whom were largely first generation immigrants who arrived in the US around the turn of the century, were something else again -- it's that generation, especially Irish immigrants born in the 1880s-1890s, that contributed the bulk of the Coughlinite cult. There were also a lot of young toughs, born in the 1900s and 1910s, who were less interested in theology or ideology than in keeping "their women" away from "those people." Mixed marriages in the prewar years meant crossing religious or ethnic lines as well as racial ones.

in my own childhood, I lived in an area which was almost entirely homogenous -- nearly everybody was of Scotch-Irish descent, and religion was divided strictly along lines of social class -- middle class people were all Congregationalists, and working-class people were all Methodists. This went back many generations, to when the followers of John Wesley broke away from the Ulster Scot Presbyterians at the end of the eigtheenth century, and it remains the rule among native-borns in my hometown to this day.

There were only a couple of Catholic families in our town, and one Jewish family, and nobody bothered them -- they were considered a bit exotic, but nobody particularly cared. We reserved our dislike for each other -- the Congregationalists were considered stuck-up wine-swilling snobs by the Methodists, and the Congregationalists considered the Methodists clam-digging teetotaling riff raff.

 

[BlueTrain]

There were church people and there were religious people and they weren't necessarily the same. I could see the R.C. church across the street and up the hill from my front door. I was even on speaking terms with the pastor. One of neighbors was Italian and went everyday. But three or four doors away was the Primitive Baptist church. Both are still there. We, however, attended a small Methodist church in the east side of town, probably because I think the family used to live over there but I'm not sure. The "big" Methodist church seemed to be considered to be above us or something. I was baptized in yet another denomination. When I met my wife up here in Northern Virginia, I was able to guess which church she belonged to on the second guess. Her uncle, who is a clergyman, actually attended the church that was my first guess.

In spite of knowing a few people born overseas, all of whom were my father's age or older, I otherwise didn't grow up knowing anyone who was very different from me.

 

[BlueTrain]

I have a pet theory about immigrants, which includes immigrants from other parts of the country, too.

When there are only a few immigrants, such as when a soldier brings home a wife from a foreign land, or when a family from anywhere else, particularly from overseas, moves into a neighborhood, they are a novelty, in a manner of speaking. But when a critical point of passed, whenever that might be, they begin to be perceived as a threat, either as a threat to the local job market or the "American Way of Life" or whatever. They're different and that's all that's necessary. There goes the neighborhood, people start saying, and worse things. It takes a couple of generations for the differences and the attitudes to change and mellow. Even then, the differences will persist if you only notice them.

As an example, in the coal fields of southwestern West Virginia, there were a lot of immigrants, chiefly from Italy. There were also other immigrants from the Middle East but I don't think they worked in the mines and they were not there in large numbers. But people who had originally been living there worked in the mines, too. But the immigrant families never lived back in the hills as did the ones whose ancestors settled the country before the Civil War. The immigrant names persist in the little towns around there and there are enough to support a Roman Catholic church. I can't say what the relationship was in those cases between the immigrants and the original settlers. But in any case where there is a boom or a new industry being developed, the industrialists, the developers, the mine and factory operators nearly always have to bring in more workers to the consternation of people who already live there. There will always be tensions, no matter where the outsiders come from.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I have a pet theory about immigrants, which includes immigrants from other parts of the country, too.

When there are only a few immigrants, such as when a soldier brings home a wife from a foreign land, or when a family from anywhere else, particularly from overseas, moves into a neighborhood, they are a novelty, in a manner of speaking. But when a critical point of passed, whenever that might be, they begin to be perceived as a threat, either as a threat to the local job market or the "American Way of Life" or whatever. They're different and that's all that's necessary. There goes the neighborhood, people start saying, and worse things. It takes a couple of generations for the differences and the attitudes to change and mellow. Even then, the differences will persist if you only notice them.

This is the history of America in a nutshell. If you can be categorized into a group, there will be another group to hate you.

 

[BlueTrain]

It's called the last one in syndrome.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I created quite the scandal among my ethnic Irish- American family when, at age 17 and while still enrolled in a Jesuit prep school, I renounced my Catholicism for Evangelical Protestantism. That played out for about 12 years, and I eventually settled in as a mainline (PCUSA) Presbyterian. Haven't attended church in years, but if I had to state in which church I hang my hat, that (30- plus years later) would be it.

I heard someone say that, if regarded as a denomination in itself, "former Catholic" would be the third largest in the US. Had a lot of resentment against the Catholic Church in my youth, but that's dissipated with time (although James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan trilogy is still a favorite read). There were worse ways to be raised: the nuns in school did impart a sense of right, wrong, and social responsibility. And the current pope seems like a nice enough fella. Doubt I'd ever go back, though. I've made my peace to it-- and sad to say it's my Catholic friends who decided to stay who gripe the loudest about what they see "wrong" with their church. Old age has me dealing with the lesson that all organized religion is an opiate of the masses to some extent- but, if people need it to find meaning, balance, perspective, and to be better individuals, I say more power to 'em.

 

[EngProf]

As a person from another country (The South), we had things a bit different here. As late as the fifth grade I clearly remember having a prayer after lunch and then the teacher would hand out actual hymnals and we (the whole class) would sing church songs.
If we had any representatives in the class of any other than one of the world's Three Great Religions: Baptist, Methodist, or Church of Christ, I wasn't aware of them. (in our locality that was the reality of it)

I was probably the least-religious person present (always a devout agnostic), but as was stated above, it was a cultural thing and it didn't bother me to participate. Praying (or not) was a non-issue and I liked the songs.

I was theoretically Methodist, and had 14 years of perfect attendance in Sunday School, but that was more because I enjoyed the theological/historical/political discussions than from actually being religious.

 

[LizzieMaine]

6 years of Methodist Sunday School here, but I quit when I was 10 because I didn't think I was getting enough actual education out of it -- I wanted to actually study the Bible, not mess around painting plaster Pilgrim figurines for Thanksgiving. I did get a Revised Standard Version when I finished my sixth year, and although I actually prefer the American Standard, it's been pretty well read over the years since.

The Northeast has always been far more secular than the rest of the country, and Maine specifically is the least-religious state in the Union. This was true even in the Era -- for many people religion was more an ethnic identification than a spiritual one. One may consider themselves a member of a particular denomination because that's what their family always was, without ever actually attending church or practicing the liturgical aspects of the faith. In our family, our Methodist beliefs were expressed primarily by the absolute absence of alcohol from the household. In adult life, though, I became very interested in the Methodist Social Creed of the early 1910s, which was quite a militantly left-wing document for its time, and though I haven't been to church since my sister's wedding in 1988, I still consider it my "home faith."

My mother had a good friend who was Church of the Nazarene -- an evangelical offshoot of 19th Century Methodism -- but resolutely refused to be converted. She attended her friend's church once and when the altar call came she stood up and said "that's enough for me," and walked out the door.

 

[MisterCairo]

What's rubbed you up the wrong way of late?

Those little bits of bone they leave in tinned salmon.

 

[Stearmen]

Every time the temperature rises above 90F, people around here get down right mean!

 

[swanson_eyes]

Every time the temperature rises above 90F, people around here get down right mean!

That must be why I had so many cranky customers yesterday.

 

[Trenchfriend]

This week, german summerheat +30°C will come.

 

[Fading Fast]

Advertising that is so aggressive and obviously a lie, that it insults your intelligence.

While, I love butter, I also have butter-substitutes to keep my cholesterol in control (although, the more I read on all this, the less I'm sure it really matters). I don't really like them, but understand what they are - a (in theory) healthier alternative to butter that trades taste for health benefits. Okay, got it. I also get that companies are going to try to make them taste better / more like butter.

But in truth, they don't succeed. All's fine so far until we had to switch brands as our local store stopped carrying our go-to fake butter, so instead, we picked up "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!" (yup, the insulting exclamation point is in the brand's name). This stuff - like all butter substitutes - does not taste at all like butter, not at all, not one bit.

It tastes like all the other butter substitutes - some blandish, solidified, fake-fat like spread. So why the insultingly obnoxious brand name? Maybe it drives sales, but I came away put off by the event because it is such a blatant lie. It's no better or worse than the other lousy tasting butter substitutes, but on principal (dear God, did I just write that), I am not going to buy it again.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I hate, on general principle, any product or service that markets itself with an exclamation mark in the name. I'll decide when I'm excited, thankyouverymuch.

 

[Stearmen]

I was in my bright orange truck today, when a silver car did a left turn in front of me, I did have to get on the brakes pretty hard, but not a complete panic stop! So finally, a silver car did not see me, guise I deserved it, for all the times I pulled in front of silver and grey cars.

 

[Zombie_61]

This week, german summerheat +30°C will come.

You're lucky. It was 105°F (40.5°C) here today, and will likely be above 90°F (32°C) for the next 10 days at least.

 

[GHT]

I hate, on general principle, any product or service that markets itself with an exclamation mark in the name. I'll decide when I'm excited, thankyouverymuch.

An English town in the county of Devon. Note the suffix.

 

[skydog757]

"This product is packaged by weight, not volume. Some settling of the contents may have occurred during shipment." There's about half a box of cereal in there . . .

 

[Stearmen]

When stupid reality shows put subtitles on for a man with a mild Southern accent!