CUSTOMS

Business deal protocols have changed drastically, both over the
years and over locations. Back in the teens and twenties most
business dealings in the Midwest and west were conducted over a
handshake and asking for a signed document was somewhat insulting.
Anyone who welshed on one of those handshakes was never again
trusted in that town. Such deals did have disadvantages though,
as when Dad found the accounts receivable of the OMB Mining Co.
largely disappeared when Grandfather died suddenly in 1923,
leaving the company some $80,000 in debt (that's close to $1 M.
in today's dollars). Nevertheless Dad continued that handshake
practice despite getting burned several times, until WW-2 finally
put an end to such naive trustfulness.