A Pennsylvania kid in 1958 could ride in a truck bed, spray DDT on tomatoes, and sleep in pajamas that could catch fire in seconds. Nobody thought twice about any of it. Much of that normal 1950s life is gone now, not because tastes changed but because regulators outlawed it. These are 15 normal things…
A Florida childhood in the 1960s came with a set of hazards that parents today would never sign off on. None of it felt unusual at the time. It was just what growing up looked like before a few decades of safety lessons caught up with the state. These are the things Florida kids did…
A Pennsylvania grandmother calls the flight attendant on her daughter’s trip a “stewardess” and means it as a compliment. A grandfather still says a neighbor “gypped” him on a used mower and would be startled to learn where that word comes from. Neither of them is trying to offend anyone. These words were the ordinary…
You used to hear an older relative complain and think, “It’s really not that bad.” Now you’re making a suspiciously similar argument. You haven’t adopted every opinion they had. But a few everyday aggravations are starting to make their case for them. These are the things that annoy Tennesseans and Americans across the country the…
A line cook slides a plate of home fries down the counter at four in the morning, past three off-duty nurses and a cab driver still counting their last fare. Nothing about that counter is an accident. Every plate, every cup, and every rule at the counter traces back to a piece of New York…
Florida’s hurricane season runs until Nov. 30, according to the National Hurricane Center, which leaves about seven more weeks of it for anyone unloading a moving truck from New York this weekend. The storms are only the start. Some of the changes that follow put money back in your pocket, and a few take it…
New Mexico State University Extension is blunt about how chile season ends: Not gradually, but in one hard freeze that kills the plants. There’s not much warning. So growers and home cooks spend the season’s last weeks racing that first freeze. These are the things New Mexicans do before green chile season ends for the…
U.S. Postal Service workers experienced more than 5,200 dog attacks nationwide last year. A loose dog is the obvious warning; a carrier reads plenty more about a house before ever touching the porch steps. These are the things West Virginia mail carriers know about a house before anyone answers the door. 1. A Mailbox Left…
Nebraska has almost 44,500 farms that average nearly 1,000 acres apiece. That’s room for a whole different childhood. These are the things kids in rural Nebraska do after school that city kids never experience. 1. Driving Alone at Fourteen Nebraska hands out a School Permit that lets a kid drive completely alone to and from…
Before sunrise on Highway 182 outside New Iberia, a line of trucks stacked with cut sugarcane crawls toward the mill, and drivers already know to give it room. Fall arrives on a different schedule in Louisiana than the rest of the United States. These are the things Louisianans do every fall that out-of-staters never expect….
