Folks what know me on Facebook know that Saturday night my son sprained his foot. He was jumping up to touch the door frame going into his room (it's a boy thing; I got a detention for doing the same thing when I was TheBoy's age) and he landed wrong, his right foot curling underneath him. He screamed - he's getting older now, and the high pitched scream of terror that raises the hackles of every parent in the world is slowly changing - and we ran to see what had happened.
Long story short, 2 hours in the ER and a $100 co-pay later we find out it was just a bad sprain. Nothing broken, his ankle's fine, he took Sunday off and just played video games all day (which was nirvana for him) with his leg elevated and periodic icing of the affected area. He went to school Monday, and since I didn't get a frantic call from the Mrs. I assumed that his day had gone relatively uneventfully. As I drove home from work last night, I was curious how he was doing. Called the wife and asked how "Hopalong Cassidy" was doing.
And it dawned on me: I had never seen "Hopalong Cassidy". It's something that I'd always heard from my folks, like "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight?". It had become a generic phrase inherited by me from listening to my Baby Boomer parents. It brought to mind another thing - telling the kids that if they misbehaved around Christmas time, they'd get coal in their stockings. Now, my kids wouldn't know a lump of coal if they tripped over it, yet the old saw is still that "bad" kids get a lump of coal in their stockings.
And let's not even get into genericized terms like Xerox, Band-Aid, Velcro, or Google...
That is all.
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http://www.tvclassicshows.com/free-tv-shows/hopalong-cassidy/s1-ep03-the-trap/
... and both me and my brother jumped up trying to touch every doorframe we passed when we were younguns.
It's a guy thing.
Hopalong Cassidy........ meh
Not nearly as good as The Lone Ranger ... or Zorro, Sky King or Sargent Preston.
But better than Gene Autry or Roy Rogers.
If your mother says don't chew it, do you swallow it in spite?
Huh.
Oh, OUCH. I have vivid memories of those immensely painful I-think-I-broke-it sprains. My sympathies to The Boy!
When I was growing up, it was more likely to be called "Chester" when limping, from one of the main characters of the "Gunsmoke" TV show.
Like how the universal symbol for rolling down a window involves a motion about 95% of the population has never used in their life?
One Word: Mimeograph.
The smell will be with you for the rest of your life.
What makes me aware of my own advancing years is records stores. Not only are there no more record stores, there aren't even music stores around here. There are a couple places that sell used stuff, but the chains like Sam Goody, Media Play, and FYE are all gone. Amazon is about the only game in town.
How about some even older genericized trademarks such as Kraft Food's Jell-O, Kimber-Clark's Kleenex (a cotton substitute used as WWI gas mask filters and gun cleaning wipes, freeing cotton to be used as bandages) and Bayer AG's Aspirin and Heroin?
From my childhood, there was the Lone Ranger & Tonto, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry & Hopalong Cassidy (Hoppy-Cassy)
Gene Autry was not cool because he only carried one gun, all the rest carried two. There was an endless argument about whether the guns on Roy Rogers horses bridle were real.
Some to this day swear that they were real and that he shot them.
Later there was Gunsmoke and Have Gun Will Travel. They both carried 7 1/2" Colts. They both always out-drew their antagonists, but we neve could understand why with that loooonnnnggg barrel.
I know - - tooo much information.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6bFTVi0hHs
Long before he became a star of Stage Screen and Television, Roy was a real cowboy.
In my family it's "Man oh Maneschevitz" when someone fouls up something. Note that most of the family stopped being Jewish at least two generations ago.
And how about "he really telegraphed that hit" and "send it by Western Union?"
LittleRed1
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