March 22, 2024 • 33 mins
Holly and Tracy talk about there not being a national divorce law in the U.S. and how to pronounce Nevada. Tracy talks about the ways social rules are necessary but can be used in ways that are exclusionary.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. Am Holly Fry and
I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wilson.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
We talked about divorce ranches. I'm so glad you picked
this me too. I was for a while like, is
there enough information on this?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yes? Their absolutely was.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I feel like I was thinking about it at one point,
and I could be totally making up. I think I
heard an episode of the podcast Criminal that was about
maybe a missing person's case connected to like the Nevada
divorce industry, and I really feel like I was listening
(00:45):
to this while walking on the beach at sunrise on
a day that I had to take my spouse to
the airport at a horrible hour of the morning because
he had planned ahead, and rather than our getting divorced,
(01:06):
I turned that into an opportunity to walk on the beach,
listening to podcasts and drinking coffee as the sun came up.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
That sounds delightful. I have so many thoughts about things
we touched on.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Okay, great.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
First, I want to talk about Rhea Langham, who was
married to Clark Gable.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
On the one hand, she was a very wealthy woman
in her own right. She doesn't need my pity. But
on the other hand, I feel really bad for her
because the way that all shook out is she basically
took care of Clark Gable when he was nobody, and
then as he had his movie contract, and I think
(01:46):
it was MGM really pushed him into stardom. They made
it very clear that Ria Langham was not cool enough
to be his wife anymore. And the press was along
for that ride, where like, as he was seen out
with other women, it almost seemed like she was villainized
(02:07):
of like, uugh, why is this ugly old hag not
letting this poor man go and have the fabulous life
he deserves because he is hot and famous And it's like, ah,
like the whole thing just made me feel lucky. It
was really not cool. Yeah, it was not It was
not cool. I don't like any of that. Listen, I'm
(02:28):
not in their house. I don't know what their marriage
was like, but like, that's a really really gross way
for a woman to be treated in the press.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
I also didn't It never even crossed my mind until
I was researching this that there have at various points
been efforts for there to be a national divorce law.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Right. I just had never thought about it before.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, in part because there have been so many arguments
over the years of like why can Idaho have an
easier divorce than us and we still have to admit,
you know, adhere to its its judgment. Why can Nevada
doy this? Why can any of the states that have
been considered like divorce havens, right right? It made me
think about uh marriages being like states have their own
(03:16):
marriage laws. But the part about whether other states were
going to recognize Nevada's divorces made me think about the
whether other states were going to accept same sex marriages
that had been conducted in states or it was legal,
and that ultimately leaked to a Supreme Court decision because
(03:39):
that was one of the things that I was thinking
of as we were talking about this. Yeah, it's I
just had not ever thought about it that way. I mean,
I had thought about it in terms of marriages, right,
for all the reasons you just listed, but I literally
never crossed my mind, probably because I have not ever
been divorced or been like you know, I never would
have occurred to me like will this still hold in
another place. I'm not well versed in divorce law in
(04:02):
any state at all, but as I remember it growing
up in North Carolina, I remember hearing about people having
to have like a one year trial separation before their
divorce could be finalized, which I think is still how
it works in some states, it is, for sure. I
don't know specific ones, but I know there are still
(04:23):
some where you have to have a pretty lengthy period
after you file where before they will find it, before
it will finalize it, which like if you're for whatever reason,
like whether it is that your the marriage is like
verifiably abusive, or whether you're just unhappy, that just seems
(04:46):
like a very long time. Yeah, Yeah, it's it's so
wild to me too, in reading doing all of the
research I was doing for this. We even talk about
in the episode how divorce had this stigma around it,
but there were still people doing it many times in
their lives. Sure, you know there were people. I mean
(05:07):
we mentioned that Rhea Lanham was on her third marriage
before she even met Clark Gable, and she was not
an outlier really in terms of like I feel like
those rules applied to the lower income pieces of the
economic instruction. Yeah, those rules apply to people who can't
afford to overcome stigma with money, you know, because it
(05:31):
was like one thing after another I would read about like, oh,
this person was on their sixth marriage and blah blah.
I'm like, wait a minute, divorce was stigmatized, and then
you realize it was. It just wasn't for people that
were rich or famous. One of the stories a rabbit
hole I went down while I was working on this
(05:54):
That doesn't really make it its way into the episode
at all, but I don't know, I feel like I
want to talk about it a little. Is Rita Hayworth. Yeah,
I had not done a ton of research into Rita
Hayworth's life.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
It broke my heart.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Oh now, because she's so beautiful, and even now when
someone mentions Rita Hayworth, you think of this like gorgeous,
bubbly movie star who was just like No, her life
was awful. Oh no, she was married five times. It
did not go well any of them. She had what
(06:30):
there's a very interesting thing that goes on where she
may or may not have had a drinking problem, and
she was very irrational and had a lot of irrational
anger behaviors and stuff that weren't diagnosed like starting in
I think around the early nineteen sixties, and they weren't
diagnosed as Alzheimer's until the nineteen eighties. And her daughter
(06:55):
was like, now it all makes sense, Like we just
thought she was an alcoholic, but really she had other
stuff going on. But what I really really want to
discuss is Orson Wells, because, Okay, do you know Rita
Hayworth was Mary Dorson Wells. I did not remember that
Mary Dorson Wells. And like it's one of those things
where when I see pictures of them together, it is
(07:17):
the sweetest thing. They look like the cutest couple on
the planet. They look so into each other. They look
like they are always laughing together, like exactly what you
picture when you're like, what does a cool Hollywood couple
look like? And she even said later in her life
after they had gotten divorced, like he was the love
of my life. I should have not left him, but
like they didn't want the same things. He didn't want
(07:38):
to like settle down and have a homie life and
she did, and that wasn't going to happen. They weren't
neither Any resolution would lead to one of them not being.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Happy, right.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
But what was really really heartbreaking is that when she
said in an interview towards the end of her life
that he had been the love of her life and
that she she really regretted not staying with him, and
he had heard this, and his commentary on it really
broke my heart because he was like, if what we had,
which was sometimes fun, was the best time in her life,
(08:09):
her life had to have been horrifying. I don't know,
because he was like, we didn't have that great of
a marriage, so like, if I was the nicest person
she was ever with, this is a problem. And there
are other accounts of like people that saw her out
with some of her husbands, and one that's just hard
to read of her just being verbally abused by these
(08:30):
people all the time and treated like trash, which she
was like famous and smart and interesting and she was
a very shy person. Anyway, it just broke my heart.
Rita Hayworth, I have new heart feels for you. It
really really did. The last thing I want to end
on because I think it's funny, and we mentioned the
quickie marriage and how you didn't have to do blood
(08:53):
tests or waiting periods, Okay, I got married long enough ago.
I had to take a blood test. Yeah, no blood
test for me, which is hilarious to me anyway, Like
it feels so like such an arcane practice at this
plight that when I tell people we had to take
a blood test, they look at me with quizzical puppy face.
But the funniest part was, because I got married in
(09:13):
nineteen ninety six, some of our listeners probably weren't even
born yet. We asked the nurse who took our blood,
what are you testing for? Because we we had always
heard listen, don't anybody come for me. These are the
things that have always were always rumored about the blood test,
that it was because we live in the South, to
check and make sure you were not too closely related
(09:35):
to Okay, I always thought it was syphilis in it.
It was syphilis and TB and that was it.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And I remember thinking, like we got married, you know,
after the AIDS crisis had come through, and I remember
asking the nurse, like, have you guys never added additional
things like wouldn't that be important information to like get
in the midst of this, and like other things that
you could capture and let couples know is going on,
and she's like, no, it's just a really old law
in the books.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I don't even want to do it, but we have,
And I was like, what.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
It? On the lighter notes of things, A thing I
kept thinking about in this episode, of course, was how
to pronounce the word nevadaa because that's not how I
grew up saying it right. And the only reason that
I say it that way is because I do not
want people from Nevada to be upset with me. Something
(10:33):
that is funny to me is that Nevada is not
the only state where locals pronounce it slightly differently than
a lot of other places. But I feel like Nevada
is the state that has the reputation for being very
focused on it.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And it reminds me.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
A little bit of how there are several states that
call themselves commonwealths oh right, but in my life experience,
other people's experience might be different. In my life experience,
Virginia is the state that cares if you don't call
it the Commonwealth of Virginia. I don't know that I've
(11:14):
ever bumped up against that enough to have a thought
on it, but I see what you're saying, I do agree.
I feel like, with no shade to people from Nevada, listen,
you want what you want. But it is the one
that I feel like residents are more likely to correct
you on pretty vehemently. I will say to people as
(11:38):
if someone says, like, my rules for correcting people are
you only correct people to prevent embarrassment or prevent harm.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
That's my rule.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And so if a friend of mine tells me, oh,
I'm going to go on vacation in Nevada, I'm like, hey,
just so you know, if you don't say it Nevada
people might be upset with you. I know.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
This is also.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Speaking of which speaking of people going on vacation to Nevada,
this is preceding a trip I am making. I have
never been to Las Vegas. Oh yeah, I don't know
how that.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I said that. Surprisingly. I don't know why I said
a surprise.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Because it seems like a place I would go, right, Like,
there's drinking and carousing and giggling and all kinds of
shows and wackiness like, and it's very bright and there's
tons of visual stimulation.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
It seems like a place I would go place.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, I've never been, so I'm going I think by
a four. I don't remember if it's before or after
this episode will air. It's right around when this episode
will air. We'll see if I love it. And then okay,
remember to not say it incorrectly when I anybody asked
me what state I'm in. I mean, all the talk
about the divorce ranches in this episode just made me
(12:53):
want to repeat the several days I spent last year
at a health spa, at the place I have fraught
feelings about, but I so loved just having all my
meals included and continually having access to a swimming pool
and massages. And I was just like, yeah, not the
(13:16):
divorce part, but everything else about these ranches sounds great
to me. It's not my jam. I'm like, is there
a cocktail lounge in the spa? Is there a can
you watch TV? Is there like a movie theater in
the spa? Like I can?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
I can?
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I bring my sewing machine? Like I just I feel
like just sitting and hanging out is never my thing.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yeah, I went on a lot of walks. I love
to go on walks.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, I like going on walks, but I'm usually like,
and now we go do a thing like now we
go to a museum, Like it never feels like I'm
doing a thing when I'm doing a walk, and so
I get like I'm mentally antsy. Yea. Even though I
often enjoy them and I feel relaxed after them, I
think I need more stuff in my vacation. Yeah, which
(14:02):
is probably why most people are shocked when they find
out I have not been a loss fac This is
also why I went by myself. Patrick would not enjoy
a vacation that involved taking walks and meditating and reading
books by the fireplace like that's just not That would
not be his jam. Me either me either. Can I
(14:24):
listen to the book while I am also doing something kooky,
throwing a clay pot, anything, Just something to keep my busy,
busy hands busy. Otherwise I might do crimes. Tracy, you
got to keep me busy.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
No, I envy people that can relax by relaxing, but
that's not how my brain works. We talked about some
etiquette manals this time.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I sure did. I have a running.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
List of things to do episodes like installments of six
Impossible episodes, and the etiquette manuals was not on there
what actually, aside from just my ongoing interest in etiquette
and how etiquette has evolved and what etiquette the role
etiquette plays in society. Besides all of that, toward the
(15:27):
end of February, I saw a piece at a website
called public Domain Review that was about the galateo that
was really interesting and kind of like prompted my brain
of like, what else can we talk about with etiquette?
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Right?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
And that was what ultimately grew into this episode.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
And Man, my.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Relationship with this is I would say, very complicated. On
the one hand, I think society is better if we
have some collective understandings of like, you know, what's rude,
what's appropriate, what's inappropriate. I think this can help all
of us just get along better together because we live
(16:12):
together in the world. And it's really great if sort
of everyone agrees that you should not, for example, take
pictures of strangers and put them on your social media
to make fun of them.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, that seems like a basic one.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
I mean, I feel like it all boils down to
at this point, we are less stuffy than previous generations
have been.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Uh huh, just be cool man.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, that's my incredibly short and non publishable etiquette book
Be Kind, Be Cool, Try not.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
To be dust other people.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
At the same time, a lot of the more specific rules,
like a lot of them have been used to just
reinforce standards that are racist or sexist, or classist or colonialists,
like a lot of stuff that has to do with
things like eye contact, how to speak, how to.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Interact with other people. A lot of that.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
There's increasing awareness that it can be really ablest, like
the idea, oh yeah, that like autistic kids should be
taught to make eye contact when it makes them uncomfortable
or can even be like painful to try to do that,
rather than like, let's change the rule to not focus on,
(17:32):
you know, the whether someone is making eye contact with
you as the arbiter of whether they are a trustworthy
or not.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
There's all so much stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
I will say this, I feel like you and I
have very different takeaways on Emily posts, okay, because you
found reading her very stressful. It's so yeah, and I
found out the ways at opposite really because the even
though yes, obviously very classiest, like her father found it
a town that's still a very upscale community, like she
(18:03):
clearly came from money and only knew that life, But
the prevailing sentiment of her book to me was just
make other people comfortable, and that was more important than
anything else. So I kind of my read was always
like that. There is an unspoken degree of in an
(18:25):
example like you just gave Granted she would have to
update some stuff to mat work, but that she would
be like, well, obviously that doesn't make that person comfortable.
I would never expect that, you know what I mean,
But I think there's an unspoken element of that to
her work. Did you happen to stumble across the story?
We did an episode about her husband's blackmail on Criminalia,
(18:47):
which is why I have more Emily Post under my
belt than I would have, you know, a year ago.
There is a story about how she once was at
a dinner eating the dessert, which was a fruit dessert,
and several raspberries fell off her spoon onto the table,
and how she was utterly mortified, but no one said
(19:09):
anything or even acknowledged it, and how like that was
one a moment of respect for her, like to not
give grief to someone who is of, you know, such
incredibly high rank and financial stature, but also like it
made her it was a lesson to her about like
(19:29):
because they didn't want to make me uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Oh sure, And.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
So for her that was a moment of like, yes,
these rules are in place, but it's not like somebody
goes to dessert jail if they do something wrong, you
know what I mean, Like it's fine. Yeah, yeah, Well,
in her you know, all of the books that we
have talked about have kind of the same core thing.
That's like, try to make other people comfortable, try not
(19:53):
to make other people uncomfortable, and don't be a jerk.
Like that's kind of I can get behind all of that. Yeah,
it was when I would get into this, like the
specific examples that I suddenly would and I think this
is probably more her writing style than the actual rules
that she had in mind.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, I could see that, and.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
And I would be like, oh okay, I felt fine
when it was once when you were introduced to somebody,
the response is how do you do? And then when
it suddenly had a lot of other examples following that
of things not to say, I was like, oh no,
what if I say one of these things? Like that
was sort of where my mind went with it to
nobody's going to make you uncomfortable. Yes, And that's the
(20:37):
Trump rule, right, meaning that it Trump's other things don't
make people uncomfortable and everybody will be fine.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
And those books now have been updated so many times
that I'm sure if I picked one up now and
read it, I would have a totally different experience than
reading the one that was from nineteen twenty two.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
I mean, stilted language will do that to me anyway,
just reading something that's in like the vernacular or you know,
typical sentence structure of I'm like, whoa, this feels very stiff,
and it's really not. But that's the style of writing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I also love that she was not a drinker. She
never drank a single drop of alcohol in her entire life,
but she always offered people cocktails.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
She was like, some people want to drink, and I'm
I'm big on that. Like, whatever your thing is, great,
don't leave anybody out.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
I For some reason, starting on this, I did not
realize how similar so many things in all of these
books were going to be. Like, there's various details that
are different. Right, The basic concept of trying to make
people other people comfortable, try not to be a jerk,
being kind of the through line of all of them.
(21:57):
Something else that struck me was all of the stuff
about making formal visits, which of course I knew was
a thing. Yeah, I didn't quite realize that it persisted
as long as it did in terms of these books
that we have talked about, because like, by the time
(22:18):
I was born, there were times that we made kind
of like formal intentional visits to people which were a
visit because of a thing that had happened, but like
not with quite the formalized systemic focus that came across
in some of these right, and so like I just
(22:41):
didn't realize that it had quite gone on as as
long as that had. The part about I think this
was in Daisy Eyebright about how leaving your card with
people when you're gonna go away.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
For a long time. That cracked me up.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
It cracked me up to you, and it reminded me
of I have a friend that I have dinner with
usually once a week on Thursdays, and we have a
calendar like a meeting invite so that we you know,
just remember that that's because we're busy people. And one
time she had gone away for a couple or three
weeks and I had gone into my phone to like
(23:21):
just remove the meeting for the time that she was
going to be gone, and I accidentally like fumbled my
phone and deleted the whole thing, Like I deleted the
whole recurrence.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
It was all gone, okay, And.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
So after she was back, I was like, oh, yeah,
I'm gonna set that invite back up because I accidentally
deleted the whole thing. And she said, well, okay, that's fine.
Way to trash our whole friendship though, and that made
me laugh so hard. It was clearly a joke, obviously,
it made me laugh so hard, but then it reminded
(23:56):
me of like, uh, you know, forgetting to leave your
card with somebody the way that was framed, and Daisy
Ibright was like, and then your friendship is over. Well,
like I feel like by her rules, nobody would ever
be my friend because I'm a jerk and I don't
mean to be. But like one, I also just think,
like the modern era is very different, obviously, but like
(24:21):
what it made me think about is how one, I
have a close friend who we watch each other's pets
when we travel, and there have definitely been times where
I just assume she has psychically read my mind or
looked at my personal to do list, and then like
the day before we leave or somewhere, I'm like, you're
available for the cats this week? Right, and she'll be
(24:41):
like yes or no, And then there have been a
couple moments where I've had to scramble and be like, okay,
for Cember two, are you available? But also because I
am extremely fortunate and I have friends in a lot
of the places we travel, I am sometimes very bad
about giving peace people everyone involved advanced warning that I'm
(25:03):
com or forgetting to tell someone at all, and then
I get home and they go, wait, you were in
my city.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Ye tell me.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
And it's not at all that I'm trying to avoid
them or like, you know, I literally was just like
everything was frantic right up till the moment we got
on the plane, and then I don't know, my brain
fell out. I didn't remember, and I feel like a jerk,
and I'm sorry this has happened to me too.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Now.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I'm also very lucky because I have a lot of
friends who get that, and they'll be like, no, it's cool.
I just presume like next time around, we'll do something
like it's fine. I do the same thing, and I'm like, yeah,
but the idea of sending around a calling card to
everyone to let them know when I'm traveling is like, oh,
(25:47):
by her law, our friendship has been over multiple times. Yeah,
multiple times.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
One thing that I had marked to talk about in
this behind the scenes is there are some sample menus
at the end of National Capital Code of Etiquette.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Note.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
The following are appropriate menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
and sufficiently elaborate for most occasions. They may be varied
to suit the taste and purse of the hostess. Breakfast
grapefruit cereal with cream, shirt eggs. Those are baked eggs,
broiled lamb shops, hot rolls, buttered toast, French fried potatoes, coffee.
(26:39):
The idea of French fried potatoes for breakfast. I liked
that a lot. I like sometimes when you're at a
hotel and the hotel breakfast includes hash browns that are
really tater tots. And that's what reminded me of that. Oh,
do you know what it makes me think of? What
does it make you think of? The often served in California,
the California breakfast burrito, which often has se yeaheah, yeah,
(27:02):
bring it on, lunch, hotter, cold, consume and cups, salted wafers, olives,
India relish, Saratoga chips, lobster ela, newburg, cold meats with potato, salad, orange, sherbet,
small cakes, coffee. I had to look up what Saratoga
chips were. That is a potato chip, but a black
(27:26):
owned business still exists today. Dinner oysters served on the
half shell, cream of tomato, soup, mixed pickles, salted wafers,
chow chow, broiled black bass, small potatoes, roast chicken or turkey,
mashed potatoes, green beans, corn fritters, tomatoes, lettuce, and asparagus.
Tips served ice with mayonnaise, ice cream, layer cake, candies,
(27:49):
raisin snuts, and coffee. I love that there is coffee
at every meal. Yes please, I don't know. I just
I found these menus delightful. I love reading them. I
loved googling. I was like, what is sarah Tooga chips?
Googling what that was? So yeah, yeah, there are of course,
many many other etiquette manuals. I don't know if at
(28:12):
some point in the future there will be another six
Impossible episodes. Installments of etiquette books, but this one was
a fun one to put together and interesting to see how,
even though he did not actually coin the use of
the word etiquette in English, how much Philip Stanhope, the
(28:32):
fourth Earl of Chesterfield like went on to influence is
the icon of it. Yeah, I think his name came up,
if not in every other book that I read after
that point, or almost all of them.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
So yeah, I want to.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Give a shout out to Ghiovanni Delakaza for making the
case to like stop at the puns of the dad jokes.
I intentionally put this in the episode because you and
I have had some conversations about the puns and the
dad jays. Here's the thing. Other people love them. You
keep telling them, I just please leave me out of it.
I don't know, I am. I have a short I
(29:15):
don't know if it's an attention span or a short
patience level of like memy jokes that get told over
and over and puns like basically anything that someone is
like at the end, you picture them going tadah with
a jazz hand like acknowledge the cleverness, and I'm like no,
And if I see a meme twice I'm done. Please don't.
(29:36):
I don't want to see it again. I sound so mean,
but like, I just hate when that same iteration of
a thing ripples through social media and everyone thinks they
are very witty for telling the same joke that's been
going around for a week, and I'm like, no, you're
wasting to come up with something else witty. You're smart,
So thank you jew money. I'm with you. I also thought,
(29:57):
I mean, obviously extravagant is not vulgar in my opinion,
It's kind and it's a way to show somebody that
they took extraordinary care of you and you appreciate it.
I just feel that's important. Yeah, I believe in tipping
as well as you possibly can, because yes, everyone knows
the system is a mess and servers don't get paid right,
and that is messed up, but it is the system
(30:18):
we live in. As I think about reservoir dogs when
mister Pink is like, you put it to a vote,
and I'll vote for it. But what I won't do
is playball. I will play ball.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
I want.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
I want to take care of those people all the time,
because they take care of me and my ballooney and
my leg. Please make me an absent drink as the coda, though,
I had a sense memory that made me giggle while
we were recording where we were talking about don't keep
saying the person's name over and over in the Post thing,
and I had this instant flash to a very old
(30:49):
episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show when Tyra Banks was
on it and she was talking about how she has
a lot of trouble dating, and it kind of echoed
this to me because she was saying, like, you realize
halfway into the date that, Like, I'm probably misquoting all
of this, this is a memory from like twenty five
(31:10):
years ago, how she would always realize halfway into the
date that they were dating her, not because they thought
she was interesting or smart or witty, but because of
who she was and how she knew was that they
would always call her Tyra Banks. Like they would be like,
what do you want for dessert? Tyra Banks, and she'd
be like, oh, my goodness, I mean, yes, that's my name,
but I And it just gave me such a flashback
(31:34):
to when Emily Post is saying don't say the don't
take a name over and over, and I was like,
oh yeah, because it will make them feel potentially used,
which is an interesting yeah, an interesting take. Make everyone comfortable.
That's all you gotta do. Yep, that's my feeling. Try
not to be a jerk, Try not to bother other people. Definitely,
(31:58):
stop taking pictures of strangers and them on the internet
to make fun of them.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Nothing.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
I have not seen a viral picture of a stranger
on the internet lately, But every time I do, it
bothers me so much. And oh yeah, because it's horrible
privacy and it's mean. Yeah, yeah, there's no reason.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Listen.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I'm a firm believer that stuff comes back to bite you. Yeah,
it always does, whether something happens with that picture and
a person is like, hey, by the way, that's my
you know, beloved family member, et cetera, And now you
are an a greade, a jerk and everybody knows it
or it I mean, that energy will bite you on
the button. Someday you're somebody's picture of like, look at
(32:37):
this ding dong who doesn't know how to act right? Right?
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Don't do it just to everybody, be nice? Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Don't call out when people drop their berries. It's fine. No,
are you haunted by the ghosts of your social mistakes. Yes,
yes I am, and so that is why we will
end behind the scenes a happy Friday. I hope if
you are working with folks, if you are working with
(33:08):
the public out in society this weekend, I hope everyone
has some good manners in talking to you, and I
hope everyone has good manners with everyone. Really, you know,
as much as you're able, try not to be intentionally
cruel or mean or rude to anyone. We'll be back
with a Saturday Classic tomorrow, something brand new on Monday.
(33:34):
And now I will go try to recover from the
ghosts of my past missteps. Stuff you missed in History
Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. Am Holly Fry and
I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wilson.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
We talked about divorce ranches. I'm so glad you picked
this me too. I was for a while like, is
there enough information on this?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yes? Their absolutely was.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I feel like I was thinking about it at one point,
and I could be totally making up. I think I
heard an episode of the podcast Criminal that was about
maybe a missing person's case connected to like the Nevada
divorce industry, and I really feel like I was listening
(00:45):
to this while walking on the beach at sunrise on
a day that I had to take my spouse to
the airport at a horrible hour of the morning because
he had planned ahead, and rather than our getting divorced,
(01:06):
I turned that into an opportunity to walk on the beach,
listening to podcasts and drinking coffee as the sun came up.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
That sounds delightful. I have so many thoughts about things
we touched on.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Okay, great.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
First, I want to talk about Rhea Langham, who was
married to Clark Gable.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
On the one hand, she was a very wealthy woman
in her own right. She doesn't need my pity. But
on the other hand, I feel really bad for her
because the way that all shook out is she basically
took care of Clark Gable when he was nobody, and
then as he had his movie contract, and I think
(01:46):
it was MGM really pushed him into stardom. They made
it very clear that Ria Langham was not cool enough
to be his wife anymore. And the press was along
for that ride, where like, as he was seen out
with other women, it almost seemed like she was villainized
(02:07):
of like, uugh, why is this ugly old hag not
letting this poor man go and have the fabulous life
he deserves because he is hot and famous And it's like, ah,
like the whole thing just made me feel lucky. It
was really not cool. Yeah, it was not It was
not cool. I don't like any of that. Listen, I'm
(02:28):
not in their house. I don't know what their marriage
was like, but like, that's a really really gross way
for a woman to be treated in the press.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
I also didn't It never even crossed my mind until
I was researching this that there have at various points
been efforts for there to be a national divorce law.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Right. I just had never thought about it before.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, in part because there have been so many arguments
over the years of like why can Idaho have an
easier divorce than us and we still have to admit,
you know, adhere to its its judgment. Why can Nevada
doy this? Why can any of the states that have
been considered like divorce havens, right right? It made me
think about uh marriages being like states have their own
(03:16):
marriage laws. But the part about whether other states were
going to recognize Nevada's divorces made me think about the
whether other states were going to accept same sex marriages
that had been conducted in states or it was legal,
and that ultimately leaked to a Supreme Court decision because
(03:39):
that was one of the things that I was thinking
of as we were talking about this. Yeah, it's I
just had not ever thought about it that way. I mean,
I had thought about it in terms of marriages, right,
for all the reasons you just listed, but I literally
never crossed my mind, probably because I have not ever
been divorced or been like you know, I never would
have occurred to me like will this still hold in
another place. I'm not well versed in divorce law in
(04:02):
any state at all, but as I remember it growing
up in North Carolina, I remember hearing about people having
to have like a one year trial separation before their
divorce could be finalized, which I think is still how
it works in some states, it is, for sure. I
don't know specific ones, but I know there are still
(04:23):
some where you have to have a pretty lengthy period
after you file where before they will find it, before
it will finalize it, which like if you're for whatever reason,
like whether it is that your the marriage is like
verifiably abusive, or whether you're just unhappy, that just seems
(04:46):
like a very long time. Yeah, Yeah, it's it's so
wild to me too, in reading doing all of the
research I was doing for this. We even talk about
in the episode how divorce had this stigma around it,
but there were still people doing it many times in
their lives. Sure, you know there were people. I mean
(05:07):
we mentioned that Rhea Lanham was on her third marriage
before she even met Clark Gable, and she was not
an outlier really in terms of like I feel like
those rules applied to the lower income pieces of the
economic instruction. Yeah, those rules apply to people who can't
afford to overcome stigma with money, you know, because it
(05:31):
was like one thing after another I would read about like, oh,
this person was on their sixth marriage and blah blah.
I'm like, wait a minute, divorce was stigmatized, and then
you realize it was. It just wasn't for people that
were rich or famous. One of the stories a rabbit
hole I went down while I was working on this
(05:54):
That doesn't really make it its way into the episode
at all, but I don't know, I feel like I
want to talk about it a little. Is Rita Hayworth. Yeah,
I had not done a ton of research into Rita
Hayworth's life.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
It broke my heart.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Oh now, because she's so beautiful, and even now when
someone mentions Rita Hayworth, you think of this like gorgeous,
bubbly movie star who was just like No, her life
was awful. Oh no, she was married five times. It
did not go well any of them. She had what
(06:30):
there's a very interesting thing that goes on where she
may or may not have had a drinking problem, and
she was very irrational and had a lot of irrational
anger behaviors and stuff that weren't diagnosed like starting in
I think around the early nineteen sixties, and they weren't
diagnosed as Alzheimer's until the nineteen eighties. And her daughter
(06:55):
was like, now it all makes sense, Like we just
thought she was an alcoholic, but really she had other
stuff going on. But what I really really want to
discuss is Orson Wells, because, Okay, do you know Rita
Hayworth was Mary Dorson Wells. I did not remember that
Mary Dorson Wells. And like it's one of those things
where when I see pictures of them together, it is
(07:17):
the sweetest thing. They look like the cutest couple on
the planet. They look so into each other. They look
like they are always laughing together, like exactly what you
picture when you're like, what does a cool Hollywood couple
look like? And she even said later in her life
after they had gotten divorced, like he was the love
of my life. I should have not left him, but
like they didn't want the same things. He didn't want
(07:38):
to like settle down and have a homie life and
she did, and that wasn't going to happen. They weren't
neither Any resolution would lead to one of them not being.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Happy, right.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
But what was really really heartbreaking is that when she
said in an interview towards the end of her life
that he had been the love of her life and
that she she really regretted not staying with him, and
he had heard this, and his commentary on it really
broke my heart because he was like, if what we had,
which was sometimes fun, was the best time in her life,
(08:09):
her life had to have been horrifying. I don't know,
because he was like, we didn't have that great of
a marriage, so like, if I was the nicest person
she was ever with, this is a problem. And there
are other accounts of like people that saw her out
with some of her husbands, and one that's just hard
to read of her just being verbally abused by these
(08:30):
people all the time and treated like trash, which she
was like famous and smart and interesting and she was
a very shy person. Anyway, it just broke my heart.
Rita Hayworth, I have new heart feels for you. It
really really did. The last thing I want to end
on because I think it's funny, and we mentioned the
quickie marriage and how you didn't have to do blood
(08:53):
tests or waiting periods, Okay, I got married long enough ago.
I had to take a blood test. Yeah, no blood
test for me, which is hilarious to me anyway, Like
it feels so like such an arcane practice at this
plight that when I tell people we had to take
a blood test, they look at me with quizzical puppy face.
But the funniest part was, because I got married in
(09:13):
nineteen ninety six, some of our listeners probably weren't even
born yet. We asked the nurse who took our blood,
what are you testing for? Because we we had always
heard listen, don't anybody come for me. These are the
things that have always were always rumored about the blood test,
that it was because we live in the South, to
check and make sure you were not too closely related
(09:35):
to Okay, I always thought it was syphilis in it.
It was syphilis and TB and that was it.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And I remember thinking, like we got married, you know,
after the AIDS crisis had come through, and I remember
asking the nurse, like, have you guys never added additional
things like wouldn't that be important information to like get
in the midst of this, and like other things that
you could capture and let couples know is going on,
and she's like, no, it's just a really old law
in the books.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I don't even want to do it, but we have,
And I was like, what.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
It? On the lighter notes of things, A thing I
kept thinking about in this episode, of course, was how
to pronounce the word nevadaa because that's not how I
grew up saying it right. And the only reason that
I say it that way is because I do not
want people from Nevada to be upset with me. Something
(10:33):
that is funny to me is that Nevada is not
the only state where locals pronounce it slightly differently than
a lot of other places. But I feel like Nevada
is the state that has the reputation for being very
focused on it.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And it reminds me.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
A little bit of how there are several states that
call themselves commonwealths oh right, but in my life experience,
other people's experience might be different. In my life experience,
Virginia is the state that cares if you don't call
it the Commonwealth of Virginia. I don't know that I've
(11:14):
ever bumped up against that enough to have a thought
on it, but I see what you're saying, I do agree.
I feel like, with no shade to people from Nevada, listen,
you want what you want. But it is the one
that I feel like residents are more likely to correct
you on pretty vehemently. I will say to people as
(11:38):
if someone says, like, my rules for correcting people are
you only correct people to prevent embarrassment or prevent harm.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
That's my rule.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And so if a friend of mine tells me, oh,
I'm going to go on vacation in Nevada, I'm like, hey,
just so you know, if you don't say it Nevada
people might be upset with you. I know.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
This is also.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Speaking of which speaking of people going on vacation to Nevada,
this is preceding a trip I am making. I have
never been to Las Vegas. Oh yeah, I don't know
how that.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I said that. Surprisingly. I don't know why I said
a surprise.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Because it seems like a place I would go, right, Like,
there's drinking and carousing and giggling and all kinds of
shows and wackiness like, and it's very bright and there's
tons of visual stimulation.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
It seems like a place I would go place.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, I've never been, so I'm going I think by
a four. I don't remember if it's before or after
this episode will air. It's right around when this episode
will air. We'll see if I love it. And then okay,
remember to not say it incorrectly when I anybody asked
me what state I'm in. I mean, all the talk
about the divorce ranches in this episode just made me
(12:53):
want to repeat the several days I spent last year
at a health spa, at the place I have fraught
feelings about, but I so loved just having all my
meals included and continually having access to a swimming pool
and massages. And I was just like, yeah, not the
(13:16):
divorce part, but everything else about these ranches sounds great
to me. It's not my jam. I'm like, is there
a cocktail lounge in the spa? Is there a can
you watch TV? Is there like a movie theater in
the spa? Like I can?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
I can?
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I bring my sewing machine? Like I just I feel
like just sitting and hanging out is never my thing.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yeah, I went on a lot of walks. I love
to go on walks.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, I like going on walks, but I'm usually like,
and now we go do a thing like now we
go to a museum, Like it never feels like I'm
doing a thing when I'm doing a walk, and so
I get like I'm mentally antsy. Yea. Even though I
often enjoy them and I feel relaxed after them, I
think I need more stuff in my vacation. Yeah, which
(14:02):
is probably why most people are shocked when they find
out I have not been a loss fac This is
also why I went by myself. Patrick would not enjoy
a vacation that involved taking walks and meditating and reading
books by the fireplace like that's just not That would
not be his jam. Me either me either. Can I
(14:24):
listen to the book while I am also doing something kooky,
throwing a clay pot, anything, Just something to keep my busy,
busy hands busy. Otherwise I might do crimes. Tracy, you
got to keep me busy.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
No, I envy people that can relax by relaxing, but
that's not how my brain works. We talked about some
etiquette manals this time.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I sure did. I have a running.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
List of things to do episodes like installments of six
Impossible episodes, and the etiquette manuals was not on there
what actually, aside from just my ongoing interest in etiquette
and how etiquette has evolved and what etiquette the role
etiquette plays in society. Besides all of that, toward the
(15:27):
end of February, I saw a piece at a website
called public Domain Review that was about the galateo that
was really interesting and kind of like prompted my brain
of like, what else can we talk about with etiquette?
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Right?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
And that was what ultimately grew into this episode.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
And Man, my.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Relationship with this is I would say, very complicated. On
the one hand, I think society is better if we
have some collective understandings of like, you know, what's rude,
what's appropriate, what's inappropriate. I think this can help all
of us just get along better together because we live
(16:12):
together in the world. And it's really great if sort
of everyone agrees that you should not, for example, take
pictures of strangers and put them on your social media
to make fun of them.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, that seems like a basic one.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
I mean, I feel like it all boils down to
at this point, we are less stuffy than previous generations
have been.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Uh huh, just be cool man.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, that's my incredibly short and non publishable etiquette book
Be Kind, Be Cool, Try not.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
To be dust other people.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
At the same time, a lot of the more specific rules,
like a lot of them have been used to just
reinforce standards that are racist or sexist, or classist or colonialists,
like a lot of stuff that has to do with
things like eye contact, how to speak, how to.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Interact with other people. A lot of that.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
There's increasing awareness that it can be really ablest, like
the idea, oh yeah, that like autistic kids should be
taught to make eye contact when it makes them uncomfortable
or can even be like painful to try to do that,
rather than like, let's change the rule to not focus on,
(17:32):
you know, the whether someone is making eye contact with
you as the arbiter of whether they are a trustworthy
or not.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
There's all so much stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
I will say this, I feel like you and I
have very different takeaways on Emily posts, okay, because you
found reading her very stressful. It's so yeah, and I
found out the ways at opposite really because the even
though yes, obviously very classiest, like her father found it
a town that's still a very upscale community, like she
(18:03):
clearly came from money and only knew that life, But
the prevailing sentiment of her book to me was just
make other people comfortable, and that was more important than
anything else. So I kind of my read was always
like that. There is an unspoken degree of in an
(18:25):
example like you just gave Granted she would have to
update some stuff to mat work, but that she would
be like, well, obviously that doesn't make that person comfortable.
I would never expect that, you know what I mean,
But I think there's an unspoken element of that to
her work. Did you happen to stumble across the story?
We did an episode about her husband's blackmail on Criminalia,
(18:47):
which is why I have more Emily Post under my
belt than I would have, you know, a year ago.
There is a story about how she once was at
a dinner eating the dessert, which was a fruit dessert,
and several raspberries fell off her spoon onto the table,
and how she was utterly mortified, but no one said
(19:09):
anything or even acknowledged it, and how like that was
one a moment of respect for her, like to not
give grief to someone who is of, you know, such
incredibly high rank and financial stature, but also like it
made her it was a lesson to her about like
(19:29):
because they didn't want to make me uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Oh sure, And.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
So for her that was a moment of like, yes,
these rules are in place, but it's not like somebody
goes to dessert jail if they do something wrong, you
know what I mean, Like it's fine. Yeah, yeah, Well,
in her you know, all of the books that we
have talked about have kind of the same core thing.
That's like, try to make other people comfortable, try not
(19:53):
to make other people uncomfortable, and don't be a jerk.
Like that's kind of I can get behind all of that. Yeah,
it was when I would get into this, like the
specific examples that I suddenly would and I think this
is probably more her writing style than the actual rules
that she had in mind.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, I could see that, and.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
And I would be like, oh okay, I felt fine
when it was once when you were introduced to somebody,
the response is how do you do? And then when
it suddenly had a lot of other examples following that
of things not to say, I was like, oh no,
what if I say one of these things? Like that
was sort of where my mind went with it to
nobody's going to make you uncomfortable. Yes, And that's the
(20:37):
Trump rule, right, meaning that it Trump's other things don't
make people uncomfortable and everybody will be fine.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
And those books now have been updated so many times
that I'm sure if I picked one up now and
read it, I would have a totally different experience than
reading the one that was from nineteen twenty two.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
I mean, stilted language will do that to me anyway,
just reading something that's in like the vernacular or you know,
typical sentence structure of I'm like, whoa, this feels very stiff,
and it's really not. But that's the style of writing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I also love that she was not a drinker. She
never drank a single drop of alcohol in her entire life,
but she always offered people cocktails.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
She was like, some people want to drink, and I'm
I'm big on that. Like, whatever your thing is, great,
don't leave anybody out.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
I For some reason, starting on this, I did not
realize how similar so many things in all of these
books were going to be. Like, there's various details that
are different. Right, The basic concept of trying to make
people other people comfortable, try not to be a jerk,
being kind of the through line of all of them.
(21:57):
Something else that struck me was all of the stuff
about making formal visits, which of course I knew was
a thing. Yeah, I didn't quite realize that it persisted
as long as it did in terms of these books
that we have talked about, because like, by the time
(22:18):
I was born, there were times that we made kind
of like formal intentional visits to people which were a
visit because of a thing that had happened, but like
not with quite the formalized systemic focus that came across
in some of these right, and so like I just
(22:41):
didn't realize that it had quite gone on as as
long as that had. The part about I think this
was in Daisy Eyebright about how leaving your card with
people when you're gonna go away.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
For a long time. That cracked me up.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
It cracked me up to you, and it reminded me
of I have a friend that I have dinner with
usually once a week on Thursdays, and we have a
calendar like a meeting invite so that we you know,
just remember that that's because we're busy people. And one
time she had gone away for a couple or three
weeks and I had gone into my phone to like
(23:21):
just remove the meeting for the time that she was
going to be gone, and I accidentally like fumbled my
phone and deleted the whole thing, Like I deleted the
whole recurrence.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
It was all gone, okay, And.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
So after she was back, I was like, oh, yeah,
I'm gonna set that invite back up because I accidentally
deleted the whole thing. And she said, well, okay, that's fine.
Way to trash our whole friendship though, and that made
me laugh so hard. It was clearly a joke, obviously,
it made me laugh so hard, but then it reminded
(23:56):
me of like, uh, you know, forgetting to leave your
card with somebody the way that was framed, and Daisy
Ibright was like, and then your friendship is over. Well,
like I feel like by her rules, nobody would ever
be my friend because I'm a jerk and I don't
mean to be. But like one, I also just think,
like the modern era is very different, obviously, but like
(24:21):
what it made me think about is how one, I
have a close friend who we watch each other's pets
when we travel, and there have definitely been times where
I just assume she has psychically read my mind or
looked at my personal to do list, and then like
the day before we leave or somewhere, I'm like, you're
available for the cats this week? Right, and she'll be
(24:41):
like yes or no, And then there have been a
couple moments where I've had to scramble and be like, okay,
for Cember two, are you available? But also because I
am extremely fortunate and I have friends in a lot
of the places we travel, I am sometimes very bad
about giving peace people everyone involved advanced warning that I'm
(25:03):
com or forgetting to tell someone at all, and then
I get home and they go, wait, you were in
my city.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Ye tell me.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
And it's not at all that I'm trying to avoid
them or like, you know, I literally was just like
everything was frantic right up till the moment we got
on the plane, and then I don't know, my brain
fell out. I didn't remember, and I feel like a jerk,
and I'm sorry this has happened to me too.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Now.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I'm also very lucky because I have a lot of
friends who get that, and they'll be like, no, it's cool.
I just presume like next time around, we'll do something
like it's fine. I do the same thing, and I'm like, yeah,
but the idea of sending around a calling card to
everyone to let them know when I'm traveling is like, oh,
(25:47):
by her law, our friendship has been over multiple times. Yeah,
multiple times.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
One thing that I had marked to talk about in
this behind the scenes is there are some sample menus
at the end of National Capital Code of Etiquette.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Note.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
The following are appropriate menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
and sufficiently elaborate for most occasions. They may be varied
to suit the taste and purse of the hostess. Breakfast
grapefruit cereal with cream, shirt eggs. Those are baked eggs,
broiled lamb shops, hot rolls, buttered toast, French fried potatoes, coffee.
(26:39):
The idea of French fried potatoes for breakfast. I liked
that a lot. I like sometimes when you're at a
hotel and the hotel breakfast includes hash browns that are
really tater tots. And that's what reminded me of that. Oh,
do you know what it makes me think of? What
does it make you think of? The often served in California,
the California breakfast burrito, which often has se yeaheah, yeah,
(27:02):
bring it on, lunch, hotter, cold, consume and cups, salted wafers, olives,
India relish, Saratoga chips, lobster ela, newburg, cold meats with potato, salad, orange, sherbet,
small cakes, coffee. I had to look up what Saratoga
chips were. That is a potato chip, but a black
(27:26):
owned business still exists today. Dinner oysters served on the
half shell, cream of tomato, soup, mixed pickles, salted wafers,
chow chow, broiled black bass, small potatoes, roast chicken or turkey,
mashed potatoes, green beans, corn fritters, tomatoes, lettuce, and asparagus.
Tips served ice with mayonnaise, ice cream, layer cake, candies,
(27:49):
raisin snuts, and coffee. I love that there is coffee
at every meal. Yes please, I don't know. I just
I found these menus delightful. I love reading them. I
loved googling. I was like, what is sarah Tooga chips?
Googling what that was? So yeah, yeah, there are of course,
many many other etiquette manuals. I don't know if at
(28:12):
some point in the future there will be another six
Impossible episodes. Installments of etiquette books, but this one was
a fun one to put together and interesting to see how,
even though he did not actually coin the use of
the word etiquette in English, how much Philip Stanhope, the
(28:32):
fourth Earl of Chesterfield like went on to influence is
the icon of it. Yeah, I think his name came up,
if not in every other book that I read after
that point, or almost all of them.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
So yeah, I want to.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Give a shout out to Ghiovanni Delakaza for making the
case to like stop at the puns of the dad jokes.
I intentionally put this in the episode because you and
I have had some conversations about the puns and the
dad jays. Here's the thing. Other people love them. You
keep telling them, I just please leave me out of it.
I don't know, I am. I have a short I
(29:15):
don't know if it's an attention span or a short
patience level of like memy jokes that get told over
and over and puns like basically anything that someone is
like at the end, you picture them going tadah with
a jazz hand like acknowledge the cleverness, and I'm like no,
And if I see a meme twice I'm done. Please don't.
(29:36):
I don't want to see it again. I sound so mean,
but like, I just hate when that same iteration of
a thing ripples through social media and everyone thinks they
are very witty for telling the same joke that's been
going around for a week, and I'm like, no, you're
wasting to come up with something else witty. You're smart,
So thank you jew money. I'm with you. I also thought,
(29:57):
I mean, obviously extravagant is not vulgar in my opinion,
It's kind and it's a way to show somebody that
they took extraordinary care of you and you appreciate it.
I just feel that's important. Yeah, I believe in tipping
as well as you possibly can, because yes, everyone knows
the system is a mess and servers don't get paid right,
and that is messed up, but it is the system
(30:18):
we live in. As I think about reservoir dogs when
mister Pink is like, you put it to a vote,
and I'll vote for it. But what I won't do
is playball. I will play ball.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
I want.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
I want to take care of those people all the time,
because they take care of me and my ballooney and
my leg. Please make me an absent drink as the coda, though,
I had a sense memory that made me giggle while
we were recording where we were talking about don't keep
saying the person's name over and over in the Post thing,
and I had this instant flash to a very old
(30:49):
episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show when Tyra Banks was
on it and she was talking about how she has
a lot of trouble dating, and it kind of echoed
this to me because she was saying, like, you realize
halfway into the date that, Like, I'm probably misquoting all
of this, this is a memory from like twenty five
(31:10):
years ago, how she would always realize halfway into the
date that they were dating her, not because they thought
she was interesting or smart or witty, but because of
who she was and how she knew was that they
would always call her Tyra Banks. Like they would be like,
what do you want for dessert? Tyra Banks, and she'd
be like, oh, my goodness, I mean, yes, that's my name,
but I And it just gave me such a flashback
(31:34):
to when Emily Post is saying don't say the don't
take a name over and over, and I was like,
oh yeah, because it will make them feel potentially used,
which is an interesting yeah, an interesting take. Make everyone comfortable.
That's all you gotta do. Yep, that's my feeling. Try
not to be a jerk, Try not to bother other people. Definitely,
(31:58):
stop taking pictures of strangers and them on the internet
to make fun of them.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Nothing.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
I have not seen a viral picture of a stranger
on the internet lately, But every time I do, it
bothers me so much. And oh yeah, because it's horrible
privacy and it's mean. Yeah, yeah, there's no reason.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Listen.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I'm a firm believer that stuff comes back to bite you. Yeah,
it always does, whether something happens with that picture and
a person is like, hey, by the way, that's my
you know, beloved family member, et cetera, And now you
are an a greade, a jerk and everybody knows it
or it I mean, that energy will bite you on
the button. Someday you're somebody's picture of like, look at
(32:37):
this ding dong who doesn't know how to act right? Right?
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Don't do it just to everybody, be nice? Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Don't call out when people drop their berries. It's fine. No,
are you haunted by the ghosts of your social mistakes. Yes,
yes I am, and so that is why we will
end behind the scenes a happy Friday. I hope if
you are working with folks, if you are working with
(33:08):
the public out in society this weekend, I hope everyone
has some good manners in talking to you, and I
hope everyone has good manners with everyone. Really, you know,
as much as you're able, try not to be intentionally
cruel or mean or rude to anyone. We'll be back
with a Saturday Classic tomorrow, something brand new on Monday.
(33:34):
And now I will go try to recover from the
ghosts of my past missteps. Stuff you missed in History
Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Tracy V. Wilson
Holly Frey
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