A treasured friend, a little younger than me but still considered a baby boomer, asked me on New Year’s Eve Day what plans I had for “Amateur Night.” The term made me laugh because I knew exactly what he meant but my grandchildren wouldn’t. They’d think it was referring to untrained performers in a singing competition like is often televised and judged by celebrity recording stars.
Another expression baby boomers understand, and even my children know this one but again not the grandkids, would be Church Key. It’s a combination can opener and bottle opener common a few years ago to open capped bottles or aluminum cans that now come equipped with pull tabs. (Incidentally, if you intend to open a bottle of beer from Germany, you better have a church key because they didn’t convert to screw off lids.)
Sometimes when I hear someone grouching about a subject they have complained about several times before I think to myself, “You sound like a broken record.” As teenagers we listened to our music on vinyl records. A flaw in a record could cause it to become stuck and keep repeating the same notes over and over.
That brings to mind “Changing Channels.” This harkens back to when televisions were huge boxes and radios were actual pieces of furniture. It was common to say “don’t touch that dial,” which was a way to change the channel, since the signal was coming in clearly. With today’s touch screens and remotes, the idea of an actual physical dial is pretty much ancient history to a millennial.
If you lost that clear signal on your TV that was a real “bummer.” Bummer could refer to a hard time in life, Using the word was a classic way to show how disappointed or dissatisfied you were with something. Whether it was cancelled plans or a broken car radio, you could just shrug it off with, “bummer.”
Being called “square” meant you were no fun and boring. Thongs were not underwear but instead they were flip-flops, a rubber like shoe.
To tell someone you’d catch them on the flip side was easily understood as we all listened to records for our music and both sides played. The term was a little like the French “Au revoir” because it meant you would reconnect again later even if you were saying good-bye at the moment.
All this reminded me of how terribly complex the American language is and how it keeps evolving with every generation. A point brought home to me when my youngest daughter told me her school mates thought I talked funny. When I question her in depth I realized that subconsciously I used a lot of expressions and sayings I heard my paternal grandmother use.
She had never lost the speech of her Appalachian ancestors and one of my favorites when she described a slothful person as being born tired and raised lazy.
That’s just one but I could fill a book with her expressions.
Back to the “Amateur Night” that started my journey down memory lane. It was coined by bartenders to describe New Year’s Eve that was notorious when light drinkers such as parents with young kids, and casual revelers head out on the town for a nice dinner or a night of boozing, even if they rarely do the rest of the year. I’m not saying the term is dead but I seldom hear anyone use it and that’s a shame because it does so aptly describe what happens all too frequently on that evening.
