I went to the bar tonight. Victor, that’s the most shocking thing we’ve heard in awhile. No kidding?
Hey, it’s not like you think (this time.).. I drank Pepsi. Eyeballs on my poor Missouri Tigers (Formally #3 ranked in the nation, defeated tonight… hush Lisa/Kendra, ur team has a loss as well!)….
Pub crawl. It’s a thing where 20-somethings pay some kinda-fee, get some kinda-transportation - around our humble town, to each and every bar for like an hour and a half. (I think we have four bars.) The fee charged, goes to charity. This one, I believe, was specifically cancer related. We’ve all been touched by that - so a good ‘cause.
First difference I gathered ‘tween “had this kinda thing happened back-in-the-day.. How would our group have approached?”… Kids today gots money. Kids yesterday didn’t. So I imagine the starting different mighta been “Hey Squat (nickname for our fearless fraternity leader).. Can u loan me ten bucks?”….
These kids have bucks. And plastic. And unlimited messaging, long distance, minutes, and camera phones…
Physically? About the same. We too had hard bodies then. It was a time when the guy’s hairstyle was “long is in”… and we had that. An occasional rebel here and there, but for the most part, barbers hated us.
Today, the guys hairstyle (and the gal’s hairstyle for that matter) is/are “individual.”.. No one thing seems to be in. Yes, several dudes fairly closely cropped - but just as many with longer, even a white dude with an Afro, and a Tye (home makeover) look alike.
The gals, back then, I don’t remember. No real extremes I recall. There was some short, and some medium. A few long.
The gals today. Kinda the same. I liked the uniqueness. Short here, long there, round cut here, squared there… Two colors here, ballcap there. Ball caps. They are fairly big. As in frontwards or backwards, don’t matter. Fitted (not the cheapy “one size fits all” plastic snap thingy) seems to be in vogue..
Drinking. DEFINITELY, the ‘78 group did morea that. Still echoing in my brain is “Here’s to brother Victor, brother Victor… so drink chugalug drink chugalug.. Here’s to brother Victor, the BEST of them all.” And by 9pm, just getting into the second bar (of the four on the pub crawl agenda) we’d be history. Blithering idiots.
Today’s kids… Not-so-much. And a good thing. In their lime colored T-Shirts (given to them by the arrangers of the Crawl) they mostly visited. Not-so-much on the drink.. But, you could tell a couple of them were kinda sorta “en route”…
Back in the day.. We male idiots woulda hung out with us male idiots. Done interesting stuff like armpit farts, arm-rasslin’, and writing in magic marker allover the body of the dude that had already passed out after Pub Crawl Stop #2.
I love today’s kids. I do. They mingled. Not clique-ish (our day was.. Not proud of that, but it was… It was “I’ll be damned if I’ll get in that conversation with that faggy Fiji (fraternity) dude… I’d rather be tar and feathered.”
Today’s kids “get it.” They hug. A lot. Guys with gals, gals with guys, gals with gals, guys with guys. Touch is a damn good thing. Heartfelt. Emotional. Much better represented than our day, where late night heroics usually involved two football players having a 1:00am head butting contest. Gentle, “I like you” touch - way better. Kudos youth of today.
Cell phone addiction. They’ve all got it. Now had I been 20-something, in this group.. Group’a FINE looking women who’ve not seen the effects of childbirth, aging, work, et all.. I’da had my eyeballs going like sixty around the room. Not these folks. Conversation here. Read the text message there. Group hug here, walk outside to talk on cell there.
Pictures. In our day, to takes pictures of such an event, it meant going by the pharmacy to buy flashbulbs for the camera. (Why was it we had to go to the pharmacy to buy that crap?)… On special occasions.. “Mom’s Day” for instance, at our fraternity, we’d buy out the entire stocka flashbulbs from Begg’s Pharmacy for the event.
Not-so-much today. Each and every one’a them dudes/dudettes were equipped with cell phone cameras… and oh did they take pics.. Six of ‘em group hugging here.. A pic across the bar of two college mates.. A self snapshot of the camera owner and ‘long time no see’ friend. And.. Before the USA Today newspaper can even hit the ground - it’s certain those snapshots have been downloaded, emailed - and the entire campus can see what’s gone on that evening by 2am online.
Not-so-much “pairing-up”.. (Editor’s note.. Where I was, ‘twas only the second stop on their Crawl.. Me thinks, by the enda the 4th stop, considerable pairing up probably happened.. ). In our day, if you had a woman, or a woman had a fella… it was the “lessons learned from our no divorce parents” - we simply stay glued to one another the entire evening. Not this group.
Sure, there were couples… but today’s day and age it’s cool to mingle. Get out there. See many. “She’s ok over here, I’m going to talk to Mark, Tia and Kaitlyn for a short”.. and that’s all good. Never woulda happened back in the day. I guess we realized what pigs we all were, and u didn’t dare leave your girlfriend unattended for longer than 30 seconds.
Love. Yes, we had this back in the day, and my memories from that time are incredible. A special bond at that age. As we age and become bankers, real estate sales folks, entrepreneurs, light company employees, truck drivers - we’re separated. Divided. No longer attached. Families happen. Kids take the time.
However - the days of when we had no wrinkles, abs of steel, no real pressing “have to’s/responsibilities”.. we were given a choice of who we hang with. And when we made those choices - lifelong bonds were formed. I’ve encountered many friends from that day.. And it doesn’t matter if he makes $200,000, that guy makes $24,000, another $62,000.. We’re “one”.. A lifelong bond.
I departed feeling our country is in good hands for tomorrow.. Nice kids, all. Respectful, all (but again, this was only their second stop!)… Great looking’ kids, all. Way more mature than we 1970-somethings were - yet still, they were having fun in their own way.
Yesterday’s blog (I know) was kinda-sorta a downer. Shouldn’t have been. I loved 1970-something. I have this warehouse in my brain where events, times, happenings from then are stored. My childhood, again, picture perfect. The 70’s, the 80’s, the 90’s (mostly) perfect. This new millennium has been interesting, but the intrigue of tomorrow DOES excite me.
Such is the comparison of kids 1978-ish/2008-ish. By Henry Gibson. Love, American Style. Victurd.
No comments:
Post a Comment