Sometimes, there are no words. Oh, sure, there are plenty of them in the dictionary shown above. But, over the time of our lives, there are words connected together in ways unimaginable. Phrases we grow up with that might not make any sense to somebody outside your world...or family.
I found myself caught with one such verbal conumdrum recently. I was talking to a friend in New York. It was the Friday before a summer weekend and, knowing that she owned a beachside condo in New Jersey, I asked her the same question I would ask her every week.
"Are you going down below this weekend?"
I'd done this for months. Finally, she posed the question to me.
"Why do you always say 'going down below'? I've never heard the expression before."
To me, it was obvious. It's a phrase I always heard my father use. When you went to New Jersey, you were "going down below." Technically, he was right. If Mount Vernon, New York is your focal point, New Jersey on the map is below.
It's the same reason why my dad said we went "up" to White Plains, "over" to Connecticut, and "out" to Long Island. If we were headed anyplace north of White Plains, we were "going up the line." What line? I don't know. But, my father used the expression nonetheless.
These were so ingrained in me that I still use the expressions to this day. Yes, I have become my parents.
There were other oddball expressions that were uttered fairly regularly. For instance, when somebody in the family passed away, my dad's next question would be...
"Where are they going to be stretched out?"
Translation: what funeral parlor was handling the arrangements?
If somebody dropped dead suddenly...
"He got carried out feet first."
If things in the house got heated for whatever reason, my father would throw up his hands.
"I'll go lie down at Suchy's right now."
Translation: he might as well drop dead himself and head down to the funeral parlor that got all my family's business.
If I had a lot to say as I was relating some convoluted tale from school, my dad would get exasperated.
"Make a short story."
If the car in front of us was a little slow when the traffic light moved from the color red...
"That's the only shade of green they got this week."
And, of course, there was the quintessential insult that Dad would throw at any moron who happened to get in his path.
"Shit for brains."
The milder version of this?
"You ain't got the brains that God gave geese."
All of the above still creep into my vocabulary to this day, as my father's legacy continues.
But, he did not hold the monopoly of bizarr-o phraseology. Nope, I had other resources that got tapped as well. Grandma, for instance.
Her pet phrase when things drove her crazy was...
"Hal Year-zus."
I never knew what that was. Hal? What did he have to do with anything going wrong in our house? I knew who Hal Reniff was. He pitched for the New York Yankees. But, Hal Year-zus?
It took years before I realized that Hal Year-zus was a plea to Jesus in German. Oh. About a year ago, I uttered the same words as if I had a tic. The person I was with at the time stared at me. Who the hell is Hal Year-zus?
When Grandma was watching TV and listening to somebody butcher a song, it was always the same gripe.
"If I couldn't do any better than that, I wouldn't try."
I use that to this day.
If I was particularly messy, I would be called a "schlobberhans." Girls who were equally as unkempt would be called "lopchooks." The definition of either word? It beats me.
And, of course, there was the ultimate Grandma retort. And you got it if you simply asked her how she was feeling.
"With my fingers."
My mother didn't get into this silliness much, but I do remember a couple of times where she and several of my aunts got themselves so enamored of a joke that they beat it to a pulp. The script never varied. They simply alternated the exchange.
"Are you Drew Pearson?"
"No, I still have a full bladder."
Neil Simon it wasn't. But, trust me. This little gag had them rolling on the floor at family holiday dinners.
And then there was the time that they all fell in love with one word.
"Jedrool."
There was not a single sentence uttered that didn't include that stupid word. As a noun. As a verb. As an adjective.
"Such a jedrool."
"Did you jedrool?"
"He looked so jedrool."
I once asked the question. What the heck is a jedrool? Back at me was another one of the pet phrases from my youth.
"You ask too many questions. Don't be such a jedrool."
Dinner last night: Hot dog at the Hollywood Bowl.
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