On Wed, 6 Dec 2000, Dan Becker wrote:

> "The inset marble plaque reading "Post No Bills Here" can be seen on the
> Ohio Avenue side of the building at the Poplar St. corner.  It is a
> tell-tale reminder of what Mr. Carey undoubtedly considered would be a
> problem for his beautiful new building.  Prior to the age of widespread
> newspaper, radio, and television use, the primary means of advertising was
> through printed handbills.  Advertising was accomplished by literally
> plastering every available surface at eye-level with hand bills.  Telegraph
> poles, buildings, everything was used.  It is not known how effective Mr.
> Carey's admonishment proved to be in keeping his bills down."

When I was a child, age about 7 or 8, I saw a humorous drawing or
political cartoon in which a curb-level sewer grating bore the words "POST
NO BILLS".  I presumed that the word "post" was used in some jocular sense
of "to mail a letter," and the sign was intended to deter individuals from
dropping dunning notices from creditors into the sewer, probably because
all the paper would clog it.  For some time thereafter, whenever I saw a
POST NO BILLS sign, I assumed it referred to a nearby grating or other
opening.

In a similar sewer-related vein, around the same time, we lived in a
neighborhood adjoining Michigan State University in which the majority of
the houses were rented to groups of students (the neighborhood, with lots
of houses from the teens and twenties, is now a historic district).  In
those long ago, sex-segregated days, the students living in a particular
house would consist of all men or of all women.  Certain houses were
always rented to groups of men (the house next door to us only to Chinese
men); certain other houses were always rented to women, or as they were
called in those days, co-eds.

Quite frequently, earth-moving equipment would come into the neighborhood,
and the front yard of one of the student houses would be dug up for a
replacement of the main sewer pipe.  Naturally this was a source of great
interest to a boy of my age at the time.  It didn't take long for me to
realize that these events only took place at the houses rented to women
students.  So, I asked my father about this: why was it that sewers had to
be dug up at houses where co-eds lived?

My father explained that co-eds clogged the sewers by flushing "foreign
objects" down toilets.

I immediately knew what he meant (or so I thought).  I had heard in
elementary school about the weird stuff that turns up at the city sewage
treatment plant, including toys, jewelry, etc.  So, I imagined the
happy-go-lucky co-eds, giggling like crazy, grabbing random objects,
running into the bathroom, and flushing them down the toilet just for fun.

It wasn't until years later that I remembered this and realized what he
had REALLY meant.

Now that I'm a parent myself, I expect to experience some of these
creative misunderstandings from the other point of view.

---
Lawrence Kestenbaum, [log in to unmask]
The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com