Poof, go the words of our youth, the words we’ve left behind. We blink, and they’re gone . . . We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeful times. For a child each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age. We at the other end of the chronological arc have the advantage of remembering words that once did not exist . . . and are heard no more, except in our collective memory. It’s one of the advantages of aging. — Richard Lederer
My eldest nephew, John Jones, is only seven years younger than I, and we grew up near one another in small-town Knightstown so that we share many memories of the neighborhood and the townspeople. We attended school at the old Academy building and the adjoining high school, were taught by the same teachers, played the same games, knew the same songs and attended basketball games at what is now called “The Hoosier Gym” because the movie “Hoosiers” was filmed there. My generation called the Superintendant of Schools, L. E. Rogers, “Old Eaglebeak,” and John’s generation called him “Chrome Dome.”
We speak a common language that younger people might not understand. Words date one as much as one’s wrinkles. My word processor’s spell checker doesn’t recognize some of John’s and my expressions. You are in your elder years if you know or use these words. In our day we said things like:
Heavens to Murgatroyd . . . Heavens to Betsy . . . jalopy . . . Hunky Dory . . . carbon copy . . . You sound like a broken record . . . Hung out to dry . . . best bib and tucker . . . Gee whillikers . . . holy moley . . . in like Flynn . . . Living the life of Riley . . . knucklehead . . . Not for all the tea in China . . . I’ll be a monkey’s uncle . . . This is a fine kettle of fish . . . knee high to a grasshopper . . . fiddlesticks . . . see you in the funny papers . . . We wore beehive, pageboy and D.A. hairstyles . . . knickers . . . fedoras . . . poodle skirts . . . saddle shoes . . . pedal pushers . . . We used “swell” and “neat” where people say “cool” these days.
I asked my twenty-something grandsons to send me a list of the above words that they didn’t know. Among the words that they didn’t recognize were Heavens to Murgatroyd and Betsy, best bib and tucker, the hairstyles, poodle skirts and saddle oxfords.
The beehive hairstyle was reminiscent of that of Martha Washington. During the fifties some boys wore the D A hairstyle. (D A stood for a duck’s rear end.) The rather long sides of their greased hair were combed to the back of the head. The eldest grandson wrote that there was a trailer park at Pleasant Lake called “Living the life of Riley.” William Bendix starred in a popular radio show during the 1940’s called “The Life of Riley.”
When I was a teeny bopper full skirts with the image of a poodle on them were the rage as were purple velvet skirts. Sigh . . . Mother never bought me either of those skirts. Saddle oxfords were white shoes with a “saddle” of black or brown. White buckskin shoes — “bucks” — were “in” during my teenage years. People used “bunny bags” of white powder to cover smudges on their bucks. For a short time, girls wore little bells on their shoe laces.
Well, folks, there’s more to come next week. As the song went, see ya’ later, alligator. If you’re as old as John and I, I’ll bet you’re thinking, “After while, crocodile.” wclarke@comcast.net