Yearbooks, Newspapers, and Baby Bills
While we were going through the boxes of my grandmother’s things, we came across some other stuff my parents are keeping. Like old report cards, and crap like that. Or, as it’s sometimes known, the “Jeff is not living up to his potential” file.
Most of it was only mildly interesting, but I came across the actual hospital bill from… my birth. It cost my Mom and Dad $100 cold cash to bring me into the world. And they had so little money, they had to make payments on it.
I asked my Dad if it was worth it, and he said, “Yeah, I guess so.” Nice.
My brother, born a year and a half later, cost $125. That’s a whopping 25% increase, in a short period of time. Maybe Lyndon Johnson was sticking it to the greedy bastards at Big Baby? I don’t know.
I also found a stack of newspapers from the late 1930s, and early 1940s. Most were the Charleston Gazette, but a few were unfamiliar papers produced especially for the citizens of Dunbar — a town of roughly 10,000. And those were the best.
On the “Society” page (heh), there was a short piece about a dinner party held by the Williams family, of 21st Street. They served leg of lamb, and a complete listing of attendees was included. Like, six or seven people. Apparently it was big news when a couple had a few folks over for dinner back then?
There were also notices about people preparing to visit a sister in Norfolk, or Williamsburg, for a few days. And a blurb about a man and woman returning from a trip to Florida. This was news, in the newspaper!
I also found a Dunbar High School yearbook from 1944. It had belonged to my Mom’s half-sister, whose radio I absconded with, and some of the students were teachers I had at DHS almost forty years later. Small town America…
Many of the senior boys were in full military uniform, which seemed kinda odd. It was during WWII, so I guess it makes sense. But when I was 17 and 18, I had the maturity of a fourth grader. I can’t imagine being sent to kill Nazis at that age. But whatever.
One of the funniest thing in the book was a list of all the seniors, and their favorite phrases. It was stuff like “Holy moly!” and “Geezie peezie!” and “Oh, cow!” Ten or twelve people listed “Oh, cow!” so I guess that was a big one in ’44?
I could be wrong, but I have a feeling those weren’t really their favorite phrases; they were just the ones they wanted their parents to read.
My aunt, my mother’s sister, was in high school when I was a little kid during the late ’60s, and I remember she and all her friends used to say, “Oh, suck my nose!” all the time. I thought that was extra-disgusting, therefore excellent.
My grandfather hated it, and would fly into a rage whenever he heard someone use the phrase. But I thought it was pretty cool. Wonder if they allowed them to list it in their yearbook? Somehow I doubt it.
This one is brief, but hopefully you guys can take it from here? What are some briefly popular phrases you used to hear, and possibly use, which have disappeared completely? I’m sure I could come up with a few from my “not living up to his potential” years, but I’m pinched for time (again).
I’ll finish the WV stuff tomorrow, and zero out the notebook on Friday.
See you guys next time.
Filed under: Daily
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UNO!
Foist???
is this thing turned on?
ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is weird…top ten?
“Son of a Whore!” though that’s probably still used…
“Cool as a moose.” I have no idea where it came from, but it raged through OHS in the early to mid 80s. Hmmm . . . maybe I’ll try and reintegrate it.
Top 10! Yippeeee
i remember “sit and spin” as an insult.
as for a phrase much older than i, i prefer “hell’s bells” as a curse. it’s just so cute!
Top Ten……Maybe!
“It cost my Mom and Dad $100 cold cash to bring me into the world. And they had so little money, they had to make payments on it.”
So if they didn’t pay, would you have been repo’d?
That’s so totally grody!
Almost top ten! Oh well.
@Georgia Beebe
I forgot all about grody!!! I used to say that all the time.
“Don’t know whether to shit or go blind.”
“Shitcock.”
“Suck my liver.”
“Eat shit and live.”
“Blow it out your ass.”
“Pea sakes alive (or is it Pete’s sake alive?)”
“Great day in the morning.”
“Rape! Rape! Rape!”
“@”
Gag me with a spoon was a big one for me. I enjoy saying something is the bees knees!
Common childhood taunt:
Child 1: [random insult] Go to _____.
Child 2: Make me!
Child 1: I don’t make trash, I burn it!
Both children at the same time: That’s why you’re so black!
Ah, children. So racist and we didn’t even know it.
High School:
We called everybody, “Fag.”
On the football field, when exispirated, hurt, or pissed off, We’d yell at the top of our lungs, “SON OF A B—BISCUIT!”
The coach would almost literally fall over as his brain froze right in the middle of tackling the little shit and hearing the work biscuit. They caught on quick, though. Biscuit and bitch were considered interchangeable and both punished accordingly.
When grabbing a strange woman’s crotch, ass, or breast who doesn’t respond in a favorable way I always say, “Oh, s’cuse me.” It seems to work just fine.
I left the house early this morning without drinking anything. Then I ran around doing this and that. I was able to stop at the store about an hour ago and I bought three Dr Peppers and gulped them down, one after another. I drove about two blocks and I had to pull over and puke. I said, “Goddamn. Faggot.” That’s another saying.
I remember when we were younglings in the resort town of Dunbar, and “Suck My Dick!!” was quite popular. It never was phased out, and I still use that phrase to this day. There was actually a hand gesture to go with it. There were minor variations. “Suck an icecube!!” came back from Washington, DC patrol trip but did not have the same power, or staying power, for that matter. “Suck Me!!” worked for awhile, but disappeared pretty quickly. “Gum me!” was popular for a short time, but I think people began to realize that it was only effective on toothless people. Perhaps local legend Danny Rose was the first target of that one. “Blow Me” seemed a little exotic in the early 70′s, but caught on after a while. Now it is used in movies more than “Suck Me”. “Eat me” became popular way past it’s due date. Can’t remember that one being too popular in school.
I remember throwing away my 9th grade yearbook, as it had a lot of this type of “fun” phrases in it. A black girl named Doris signed the very bottom of the back inner cover with “Now, I’m the last person to sign your fucking book”
On IPOD right now- Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio?”- The Ramones
My school was semi rural and we heartily embraced the sayings we heard every day by our dads, and grandads. It was probably not unique to just us, but I know no other high school age kids in the movies (and nearby cities) did it.
During a thunderstorm: “Man it’s like a cow pissing on a flat rock out there.”
On a physical threat (jokingly) from a peer: “Boy, you’d just as soon jack off a bobcat through a barbed wire fence than mess with me.”
Ignorance: Dumber than a sack of doorknobs.
Answering a obvious question: Does a hobby-horse have a wooden dick.
Stupidity: He couldn’t find his ass of you gave him a mirror on a stick / Boy, I believe if you had a brain, you’d take it out and play with it.
Confirmation (are you sure?): I’ve only been sure of one thing in my whole life. When I was twelve and the first time I jacked off? I was SURE I was going to do that again.
I know they’re probably old, but we thought they were hilarious – we ALL carried around notepads when we were with our grandfathers.
I dont’ know if people still say this a lot, but a few years ago “my bad” was real popular. I have a friend who absolutely cannot stand to hear that phrase, so of course, we have taught her 5 yr old to say it…over and over and over again Fun times.
Like totally, gag me with a spoon
Suck a duck
Eat my ass (some guy in high school said that all the time…sounds way gay-er now)
Shove it
I still like “shut your pie-hole”…or when I’m drinking, “shut your cock-holster”..always gets a laugh, or a slap.
1. Gag me with a spoon
2. An oldy “I’ll be go to grass” spoken by a long gone oldtimer.
3. My fave now “What the fuck”
4. My one for aound my kids “Oh, crackers” in place of Oh crap!!
pretty lame
Up your nose with a rubber hose. I believe John Travolta gave us that one. Yet another Scientologist that has contributed greatly to our culture (the letters, the arts, music, etc). Are you ready for your free personality test now?
Eats ass from the inside out
my drill instructor’s in basic would refer to hands as dick skinners and our mouths as man pleasers as in, “Shut your man pleaser right NOW!!” Or, “Raise your dick skinners if you have a question.” Cock Holster was also a popular one with them. Very homoerotic when I think about it now but pretty terrifying for a 17 yr old kid from the desert who’s parent’s had never cussed.
“Bo You!….Pretty foul stuff back then.
“Take an old cold ‘tater and wait”, was my Dad’s saying for waiting to go to the can. I still don’t know what the hell that means. My Mom would relate a getting someone told story with “Up one side and down the other”. Weird folks I tell ya.
I still use, “Haven’t had this much fun since the pigs ate my little brother”! Don’t know where I got that but I like it.
A Dunbar only phrase from the early 70′s?….
“Bite My Crank”
‘Get bent.’
Guy I know from Dunbar (who was a dead ringer for John Lennon) used to say ‘Puke in my ass.’
Never did understand that one.
I recall the 80′s classics like “grody” and “gag me with a spoon” mainly from TV. They never seemed to catch on IRL, at least in my corner of the world.
We stuck to the time-tested basics:
“Fuck off”
“Fag”
“Go fuck yourself”
“Blow me”
Later, when I joined the military the military, I picked up these fine gems:
“Go fuck your mother”
“Cumdumpster”
“I wouldn’t fuck her with your dick”
Bitchin’
Funkin’ A
Hornier than a ten peckered billie goat.
Happy Wednesday, Surfers!
I’m so hungry, I could eat the asshole out of a hobby horse!
I went to school in the ’90′s so I only remember lame-o (there’s one!) sayings in my yearbooks. Stuff like CUL (Catch You Later) or KIT (Keep In Touch). I have a thought that the reason these phrases were not spelled out is because, well, I’m sure students in the So. Cal school system really thought/think that ‘U’ does spell ‘You’. *Sigh*
Hey, who won the T-Shirt Twitter contest?!
Now Playing on iPhone: ‘Steal My Sunshine’ – Len
such a ‘tard
take off, hoser
what’s your damage, Holmes?
tripendicular
face! (as in “in your face”, palm raised w/in inches of someone’s nose)
no doyee! (comparable to no shit)
scootch a skoshe (move over a little)
sit & spin (complete with raised middle finger)
totally boss, duuuude!
smooth move, Ex-lax
Miss Jackson, if you’re NASTY (like “oooh, grody!)
Night Ranger forever! (a friend’s standard reply to anything)
My Grandma would say “I wouldn’t shit in the rain for him.” We never could understand it. Did pinching a loaf in the rain show that you valued something or someone?
In her latter years, while walking across the room, she farted and said without embarassment, “oops! stepped on a duck.” and kept on shuffling. She was a trip! She slept with a hammer under her pillow in case someone broke in, and threw rocks and kids that came in her yard. If you slept on her feather bed, you slept under at least eight quilts, even in summer. You couldn’t move your arms or legs!
She gave me her iron bed and still have it. oh! and two wooden chairs with cane rush seats. The back legs are slightly more worn as everybody would lean back against the wall of the front porch – probably watching for kids to come into the yard.
@ NDfaninAZ – Can’t stop laughing to type anything…
“Punked in the brown” I believe, lead to having turd disease.
Pretty creepy that yesterday’s update featured JFK and now Teddy has “gone to Canada.” Coincidence?
Oh, and vulgar fightin’ words popular amongst the local boys: “That’s not what yo’ momma said last night when I was suckin’ on her titty.”
Only worked if the mom was a MILF though. Not quite as effective if someone’s momma looked like a shrunken apple head or a toothless, two-bit hooker out at the truck stop. 10-4 good buddy!
“I’m rubber you’re glue, whatever you say, FUCK YOU.”
- Sittin’ on the wrong train goin nowhere
- Ain’t that a bitch
- Jimmies got a little bitch in him
- Do you smell what the Rock is cookin
- I’ll be dipped in buttermilk
- You limp dick puppy fucker
- Take a flying fuck
- been there, done that, bought the tee-shirt
- No shit Sherlock
- Spit shine that ass and make it sing
OK, I think I made my point.
A guy in my high school submitted this as his personal quote in the yearbook and it actually made it to print: “When the river runs red, take the dirt road instead.”
I like to use shnoogs = eye boogers.
In high school: “Your ass is grass, and I’ll be the lawnmower.”
“Off like a prom dress”
“I’ve got to go give birth to a Texan”-sorry Texans, I didn’t come up with that one-used to describe needing to take a dump.
“Natch”, for naturally-this one grates beyond belief as somehow it is still being used in my area.
I forgot my personal favorite.
“Well behaved women rarely make history”.
My grandfather had tons of great sayings.
He would get up and walk across the room farting like a machine gun and he would say, “Oops, my motorboat is running.”
Another one of his favorites when you asked him permission to do something was, “whatever blows up your skirt and makes your tallywacker hard”
If you asked him where something was his response was, “if it was up your ass eating a ham and cheese sandwich you’d know where it is”
@ Willie Williams – Check out @shitmydadsays on twitter
Couldn’t find your ass with both hands
I’m rubber and your glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.
Wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire. (still my favorite).
Sticks and stones…
Back in the day when something was not meeting with general approval my crowd would say “mouldy” If we approved “gee, tough!”
“Cool beans” is a phrase my ex-wife used.
hel·la·cious (h?-l?’sh?s)
adj. 1.Distasteful and repellant: hellacious smog.
2.Slang Extraordinary; remarkable: a hellacious catch of fish.
[hell + -acious (as in audacious).]
Oh, I forgot:
“Fucked like a hooker on pay day”
“Off like a Jewish foreskin”
“Sharp as a bag of hair”
“I was almost your father but the dog beat me upstairs”
My friend Paul had a whole collection of these:
“Old enough to bleed, old enough to breed”
“Old enough to go to the store, old enough to get bred”
“If there’s hair on the mound she’s old enough to play ball”
Needless to say we don’t see much of Paul these days…
” Haven’t had that much fun since Ma got her tits caught in the wringer”..
“He’s a pill’, or “That’s the kinda pill I am”.
Trumpet player to chick singer…”Wow. I’ve never heard anyone who can sing in several different keys all at the same time”. I wrote that years ago.
There’s probably 15 or 20 of these sayings that would make good bumper stickers in the WVSR git shop.
From Boston – Wicked pissa
‘well tie me to an anthill and smear my ears with Jam’, heard that on Mash and loved it.
Blow a dead bear
My mom would often say, “Shit or get off the pot” (meaning make a decision or do *something!*”)
She also said, “I swunee.” It was used in the context of “I swear.”
Some of my personal faves: Uglier than a box of assholes with all the pretty ones taken out.
Dumber than a box of rocks.
I wouldn’t piss in your mouth if your teeth were on fire.
and from an odd family with more than their share of sayin’s:
Worse where there ain’t any
Hey Pa! Say Whoa!
The tail comes with the hide
Even an elephant can’t hold it
Drag! (always hollered at a stray dog)
Weirder than Dick’s hatband
Better than a poke in the eye with a crotch-ed stick
…and instead of any profanity at all: “EEee-Oh!!”
“I asked my Dad if it was worth it, and he said, “Yeah, I guess so.” Nice.”
Classic Kay. I felt the love like a backhand to the back of the head there, Sir. Nowadays if you grab you a hickory stick, they’ll haul your ass to jail and call you a criminal.
When did American become such a bunch of pussies. We Won Tet in 1968. Giap was ready to throw in the towel. Bitch like Fonda comes over to cheer him up.
Afghanistan should find some peace soon. I thought this was supposed to be a funny website. *Smacks self upside the head, 1, 2, 3X.”
Reds 1 Brewers 0 in the 4th. We have so much time left to pull a Reds loss off. Go Reds!!!
Whip me, beat me, make me feel cheap
How about……………….
You couldn’t skin my dick with both hands full of sandaper…….
Slicker than a ministers prick………….
Hug a root.
A few from my Dad:
“He’s about as sharp as a bowling ball.”
“I’ll kick your ass ’til your nose bleeds.”
“This store’s prices are higher than an elephant’s balls.”
“I feel like I’ve been shot at and missed and shit at and hit.” (spoken hours before he was admitted to the hospital with a heart attack…)
“Poor.” A one-word, all-purpose expression of disgust at anything considered sub-par: restaurant meals, baseball games, TV shows, my report card, you name it. Me: “How was the movie, Dad?” Him: “Poor.”
“Judas Priest!” An expression of appalled surprise, said when somebody tried to cut him off in traffic, or a baseball player made an error at a crucial point. Emphasis placed on the first syllable vowel and dragged out…
From junior high/high school:
“Suck my carcass.”
“Suck up, Shirley.”
“Bite down hard.”
“Bite the head.”
“I coulda been your father but your mother didn’t have change for a two-dollar bill.”
and my favorite insult, still in use:
“Did your mother have any children that lived?”
“Eat me.”
“Bite me.”
“Fuck you.”
I still use those to this very day.
Whenever I burped, my Granddaddy would say, “bring it up again and we’ll vote on it.” I never understood that. I thought he was saying something about vomit.
Good Morning Surf Reporters…..
all I remember was Jeezum Crow
oh…
if something didn’t work out or go your way….
it was “Shit the bed and flip the mattress”…
Lots of great scots-irish-canadian stuff in my family, but my favourite still has to be calling someone a “Stupid Arsehole”.
Why “arsehole” sounds funnier than asshole, I don’t know, but it does, especially when my crinkly old aunt Joyce says it.
Which she does. Frequently.
cool beans
Weelllll doggies!
Spit in one hand and wish in the other -see which one gets full first.
I’ll hit you so hard yuo’ll ring like a ten-penney finishing nail hit with a ball peen hammer
Chew nails and spit rust
`Almost’ only counts in horseshoes & hand grenades
“Gag me with a football player” was popular in my circle of friends in college.
Probably wouldn’t make it into the yearbook.
“It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDgS6qLsVM4
“Shake my hand, be my friend, you’ve been digging in the garbage can.”
@ Shiny Rod…out in Seattle it was “Whip me, Beat me, Make me write bad checks.”
Old newspapers used to have the pointless, boring crap people were up to. Now we have twitter. That’s progress. What’s the twitter verb – to twit? I twit, you twat…?
clintcurtis – I guess that one depends on a what level of masochism one is into. That’s some hell of a whippin to make someone write bad checks.
From Dad:
“Slicker than snot on a doorknob”
Tried 3 times to leave a reply!!! Testing….testing….
Uh… People used to say, lets “book it” to the wherever…
Hoe bag –that one got me detention
Damn Gina
Some one of ill repute muight be referred to as A
T.A.G or Trick Ass Goofy.
RADtarded
N-oi-ce in refrence to something that is Nice, I’m glad that fizzled and Aiight. Wuzzzzzup thank god thats gone
“Thats what she said” is a term that deserves federal punishment…
Other terms that deserve death:
“the bomb”
“for shizzle”
“word up”
“no means no”
“take your hands off my tits, motherfucker.”
There are so many, I know I forgot some.
Oh, here’s one I forgot: “Rick James, bitch!”
Fuck you! I will murder you if you say that around me. Drink bleach!
The worst person I ever slept with was a girl I wanted in a sexual way. She was a wonderful kiss when we later got around to that. We spent the night like brother and Sister somewhere near George, Washington. I still look for her from time to time in Oregon, but now my married ass is stuck luck chuck in Cincinnati.
We won 4 games in a row! Who died and stole our baseball team. Go Reds!
Hey Limey – rember T.W.A.
The stewardess would ask…
TWA Coffee, TWA Milk, or TWA T(EA)?
Let’s book! = Leave the scene of the crime…or let’s get out of here
Neato or neat = Lame way of saying something was very good
Peel the banana (hand signal with 3 fingers up indicating f-off)
My mom used to say these things:
Jessie’s Crotch (as an expletive instead of Jesus Christ. She was catholic don’t ya know)
Shit the bed Fred. (Also as an expletive) ie. Shit the bed Fred, that was an especially spicy nacho.
I’m a minimalist and a purist. “Fuck” and all of it’s forms works just fine for me. I am also a fan of “Shit” and “Cock”.