Basic Instructions by Scott Meyer for November 14, 2014

I could never quite understand some people who wish they live in a time before indoor plumbing.

either that or fresh bear grease!

An optimist says: “This is the best of all possible worlds.” The pessimist replies: “You’re right.”

Regardless of the era.

They had infomercials then, too, but you had to see them in person.“Bartholomew, how do you maintain such a grizzly beard?”

I imagine 19th century dentistry was horrible.

I can think of plenty of things I need more than I need a jar of pickled herring. A jar of some decent food, for instance.

Victorian London wasn’t particularly nasty, for the most part. Victorians had a horror of bad smells and dirt. It forced them to keep the windows closed, because one real evil was soot from coal fires that would drift in. The other major pollutant was noise. Imagine the noise of hordes of iron wheeled wagons and carriages and the horse hooves.

And ewalnut, you have no idea. Dentistry was indeed terrible. Between bad teeth (dentures was so bad, people took them out to eat) and STD’s, it’s a wonder they could stand to get close enough to each other to reproduce.

The Dickens you say!

We had a “horse apple” fight in Chicago in the mid 30s.That was a great neighborhood.