Totally Normal in the 1960s: 25 Outrageous Everyday Things That Would Shock Us Now

0:00 Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Strange History Podcast, where we believe

0:03 Speaker 1: the past is a foreign country with shag carpeting, ashtrays

0:08 Speaker 1: in every room, and milk delivered to your door by

0:11 Speaker 1: a man who may or may not be your dad.

0:14 Speaker 1: I'm your host, Amy, and today we're hopping in our

0:17 Speaker 1: Dolorean and zipping back to the nineteen sixties, a decade

0:21 Speaker 1: filled with buttoned up fathers, overly medicated housewives, and an

0:26 Speaker 1: overwhelming societal trust in canned meats. Now, we've already covered

0:31 Speaker 1: the wild world of the nineteen seventies in a previous episode,

0:34 Speaker 1: But the sixties, oh honey, the sixties were where things

0:38 Speaker 1: really got strange. It was a time when chain smoking

0:42 Speaker 1: your way through pregnancy was just motherhood, and ducking under

0:45 Speaker 1: your desk was considered a viable nuclear defense strategy. So

0:49 Speaker 1: grab your jello mold, adjust your bouffont, and prepare to

0:53 Speaker 1: be mildly shocked and seriously entertained. Here are twenty five

0:58 Speaker 1: things that were completely normal in the nineteen sixties but

1:01 Speaker 1: would have people calling HR, the CDC, and probably the

1:05 Speaker 1: FBI today. Totally normal in the sixties. In the nineteen sixties,

1:10 Speaker 1: children were sent to school looking like miniature funeral attendees.

1:15 Speaker 1: Little boys wore neckties to kindergarten, and girls layers of

1:19 Speaker 1: stiff crinoline under itchy dresses even for gym class. If

1:23 Speaker 1: you forgot your bloomers, you just suffered through your graceful

1:27 Speaker 1: tumbling lesson while trying not to expose your underrus Corporal

1:31 Speaker 1: punishment wasn't just legal, it was branded into your elementary

1:35 Speaker 1: school culture. Teachers had names for their paddles, like Board

1:40 Speaker 1: of Education or Mister Discipline, and they displayed them like trophies.

1:46 Speaker 1: Misbehave in class and you might get publicly swatted, then

1:49 Speaker 1: sent home to be spanked again by your neighbor, your grandma,

1:53 Speaker 1: and probably the dog. Church attendance was practically the law.

1:57 Speaker 1: Sunday mornings meant shoe, polish, clip tie, and enough aquinet

2:01 Speaker 1: to start a brushfire. You didn't just go to church,

2:04 Speaker 1: you were watched going to church, and if you skipped,

2:08 Speaker 1: your absence was whispered about over casseroles for weeks. The

2:11 Speaker 1: milkman was real, and he had keys to people's houses.

2:15 Speaker 1: No really, he would just waltz into your kitchen at

2:19 Speaker 1: six am, drop off the glass bottles, maybe pet the dog,

2:23 Speaker 1: and leave you trusted him because he wore a uniform

2:26 Speaker 1: and smiled politely. The fact that so many people looked

2:29 Speaker 1: like the milkman will just leave that one alone. Doctors

2:33 Speaker 1: made house calls like polite vampires. They'd appear at your

2:37 Speaker 1: door with a leather bag, a fountain pen, and possibly

2:41 Speaker 1: a half smoked cigarette. Diagnoses were simple, you've got a

2:45 Speaker 1: bug or your livers angry, followed by a prescription written

2:49 Speaker 1: in handwriting that looked like hieroglyphics. Polio was still fresh

2:53 Speaker 1: in people's minds. You might see kids in iron braces,

2:57 Speaker 1: or remember lining up in school cafeterias for your vaccine,

3:01 Speaker 1: served on a sugar cube like a dystopian candy. That's right,

3:06 Speaker 1: medicine came in cube form and was passed out like snacks.

3:10 Speaker 1: Somehow we survived. Smoking wasn't just accepted, It was classified.

3:15 Speaker 1: Men smoked camels or lucky strikes. Women smoked Virginia slims, long, slender,

3:22 Speaker 1: glamorous and designed to kill you elegantly. Cigarette ads told

3:26 Speaker 1: women they'd come a long way, baby, but they'd better

3:29 Speaker 1: stay thin and fashionable while doing it, and thinness. It

3:34 Speaker 1: was an obsession. Want to lose weight in the sixties

3:38 Speaker 1: just chain smoke, skip meals, and survive on grapefruit and shame.

3:43 Speaker 1: Diet pills were handed out like tic TACs, and magazines

3:47 Speaker 1: openly published articles like is your waistline ruining your marriage?

3:52 Speaker 1: Cars had no airbags, no seat belts in the back,

3:55 Speaker 1: and dashboards made of steel and vengeance. Station wagons had

3:59 Speaker 1: rear face seats in the way back where kids would

4:02 Speaker 1: ride for hours making rude hand gestures to the car

4:05 Speaker 1: behind them. No one ever questioned it. If you were

4:09 Speaker 1: a pregnant woman working as a teacher or stewardess, you

4:13 Speaker 1: could be legally fired for showing the moment your belly

4:16 Speaker 1: betrayed you. It was goodbye paycheck, Hello elastic waistband. Pregnant

4:22 Speaker 1: women were expected to vanish like secret agents until they

4:26 Speaker 1: re emerged six weeks post birth looking fresh as a daisy.

4:30 Speaker 1: Charm school was real and sometimes mandatory. Teenage girls learned

4:35 Speaker 1: how to walk with books on their heads, apply lipstick properly,

4:39 Speaker 1: and answer a phone in a tone that said I'm

4:42 Speaker 1: pretty but not intimidating. Meanwhile, boys were learning algebra. Welcome

4:48 Speaker 1: to equality nineteen sixties style. You could smoke indoors everywhere

4:54 Speaker 1: in theaters, on buses, in college dorm rooms, watching Mary

4:58 Speaker 1: Poppins while someone lit us a behind you was just

5:01 Speaker 1: part of the experience. There was so much secondhand smoke,

5:05 Speaker 1: it's a miracle any of us have lungs. Home movies

5:08 Speaker 1: were silent, grainy, and deeply awkward. You'd set up the

5:12 Speaker 1: projector and sit through thirty minutes of blurry footage of

5:15 Speaker 1: your dad grilling shirtless and your sister crying over a sparkler.

5:19 Speaker 1: No sound, just the hum of the real and occasional

5:22 Speaker 1: comments like oh, that's the fourth of July. Remember that

5:27 Speaker 1: was the year Uncle Ed dropped the firecracker down his pants.

5:31 Speaker 1: Other parents could spank you seriously. If you were caught

5:35 Speaker 1: throwing rocks or mouthing off, your neighbor might give you

5:38 Speaker 1: a swat and then call your parents, who would also

5:40 Speaker 1: punish you. It was community parenting with a side of

5:44 Speaker 1: mild assault. Nuclear war just another Tuesday. Schools held duck

5:50 Speaker 1: and cover drills where kids hid under wooden desks, like

5:53 Speaker 1: a wooden desk would stop a Soviet bomb fallout. Shelters

5:57 Speaker 1: were sold in catalogs like backyard sheds. Atomic anxiety was normal,

6:03 Speaker 1: Even marketed LSD was legal for a hot minute. Psychologists

6:08 Speaker 1: used it in therapy, college students took it as homework.

6:12 Speaker 1: Even Carrie Grant praised it for improving his self image.

6:15 Speaker 1: Imagine trying to pitch microdosing to your therapist today. Oh sure,

6:20 Speaker 1: let me just write you a prescription for spiritual enlightenment.

6:23 Speaker 1: Playgrounds were lawsuits waiting to happen. Ten foot high monkey

6:28 Speaker 1: bars over concrete metal slides that doubled as waffle irons.

6:32 Speaker 1: They would get so hot in the sun, seesaws that

6:35 Speaker 1: could launch a child into orbit. You fell, you bled,

6:40 Speaker 1: you bled, you learned. It was the circle of playground life.

6:45 Speaker 1: Men wore hats all the time. Fedoras weren't stylish, they

6:50 Speaker 1: were standard issue. A man without a hat was either

6:54 Speaker 1: asleep or dead. You tipped your hat, doffed your hat,

6:58 Speaker 1: removed your hat indoors, and lost your hat to the

7:01 Speaker 1: wind like a romantic movie character. At least once a week,

7:06 Speaker 1: stewardesses were chosen by height, weight, and beauty. They had

7:09 Speaker 1: to maintain their figure, stay unmarried, and wear full makeup

7:13 Speaker 1: while serving hot coffee at thirty thousand feet in turbulence.

7:18 Speaker 1: Want to unionize or gain five pounds? There's the door

7:23 Speaker 1: Some rural homes shared telephone lines called party lines. You'd

7:27 Speaker 1: pick up the phone and hear your neighbor already chatting.

7:30 Speaker 1: Privacy was optional. You learned who had gout, who was cheating,

7:35 Speaker 1: and which teenagers were sneaking out all before breakfast. Saturday

7:40 Speaker 1: cartoons often featured violence, smoking, or wartime themes. Kids sat

7:46 Speaker 1: in their pajamas watching combat, then flipped over to bugs

7:49 Speaker 1: Bunny shooting someone in the face with a cannon. Parental

7:52 Speaker 1: controls the off switch. Food safety was pure guesswork. Defrost

7:58 Speaker 1: the chicken on the counter, sure, leave the mayonnaise based

8:02 Speaker 1: salad in the sun for seven hours? Why not? Meat

8:05 Speaker 1: thermometers were for fancy people. If it wasn't green or wiggling,

8:09 Speaker 1: it was good to go. And finally, doors were rarely locked.

8:14 Speaker 1: People left their homes wide open while they ran errands.

8:18 Speaker 1: Neighbors walked in without knocking. Your mail was delivered inside

8:22 Speaker 1: the screen door. The whole town was basically one big

8:25 Speaker 1: communal living room, equal parts cozy and concerning. The nineteen

8:30 Speaker 1: sixties were a time of innocence, innovation, and absolutely zero

8:35 Speaker 1: safety standards. Whether you were drinking tab while watching missile

8:39 Speaker 1: drills or being spanked by a neighbor with a wooden spoon.

8:43 Speaker 1: One thing's for sure, it was a decade that did

8:45 Speaker 1: not believe in helmets or boundaries. Thanks for joining me

8:50 Speaker 1: on this wild ride through this decade, okay, one of

8:54 Speaker 1: history's weirdest decades. If you enjoyed the show, please follow

8:58 Speaker 1: the Strange History podcast, leave us a rating, and tell

9:02 Speaker 1: your most nostalgic story, or just write the name of

9:05 Speaker 1: the show and shaving cream on your bathroom mirror nineteen

9:08 Speaker 1: sixties style. Until next time, lock your doors, wear your

9:14 Speaker 1: seat belt, and as always, keep it strange.