Researching the forgotten, overlooked, and slightly strange corners of everyday history.
For a while, drive-in theaters did more than show horror movies. Spook shows brought skeletons, stunts, all-night monster marathons, and sometimes costumed creatures roaming between the cars. Here’s how these…
This week on A Little Off the Ordinary: musical cows, the old gas-station ding-ding hose, the mystery of sweet milk in vintage recipes, and a stop at the Terror Glow…
What was a roadside lunch room? These small highway stops fed hungry travelers with sandwiches, pie, ice cream, regional favorites and quick meals before they got back on the road.
How did everyone see the screen at a drive-in theater? The answer was built into the parking lot, where raised ramps and graded rows tilted cars toward the screen and…
Top milk once meant the richer milk taken from the top of a bottle after the cream had risen. Here’s what old recipes meant by it and what to use…
Earl trades surfboards for military discipline with No Time for Sergeants, Andy Griffith’s hilarious 1958 comedy featuring Don Knotts before Mayberry.
A 1921 poultry show turned into a strange celebration when newlyweds found their chicken pen decorated with old shoes, tin cans and rewritten nursery rhymes. Then someone swapped a 14-pound…
In 1897, a Coney Island police-station doorman locked an 18-pound codfish in a jail cell for safekeeping. An hour later, the cell was open and the fish was gone —…
Why did drive-in movie theaters sell mosquito coils at the concession stand? They were a simple answer to summer-night bugs, open car windows, and outdoor moviegoing. Here’s how the coils…
Why did some old milk bottles have a strange bulge near the top? It was designed to collect the cream that rose from non-homogenized milk. Here’s how cream-top bottles worked,…