I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time.

“And when gasoline got too expensive, we took out the windshield and the engine and hitched the car to a horse! We called it a ‘Hoover Wagon.'” An Abe Simpson quote?* Nope—that’s what some folks did during the Great Depression. Reading a 1935 issue of VQR today, I noticed the event was then referred to as “The Great Collapse.”

* “Anyway, about my washtub. I just used it that morning to wash my turkey, which in those days was known as a walking bird. We’d always have walking bird on Thanksgiving with all the trimmings: cranberries, injun eyes, and yams stuffed with gunpowder. Then we’d all watch football, which in those days was called baseball.”

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

One reply on “I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time.”

  1. “I leave these: a box of mint-condition 1918 liberty-head silver dollars. You see, back in those days, rich men would ride around in Zeppelins, dropping coins on people, and one day I seen J. D. Rockefeller flying by. So I run of the house with a big washtub. I just used it that morning to wash my turkey, which in those days was known as a walking bird. We’d always have walking bird on Thanksgiving with all the trimmings: cranberries, injun eyes, and yams stuffed with gunpowder. Then we’d all watch football, which in those days was called baseball.”

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