Chapter Two-Reflecting and Reconnecting-New friend and Teenage Lingo
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Chapter Two-Reflecting and Reconnecting-New friend and “Teenage Lingo”
Brielle Morgan was a Campbell family babysitter, as was I. Brielle and I met at Cohasset High School in September of 1967, on the first day that school was in session; we were then ninth-grade students. Morgan family began residing in Cohasset prior to the beginning of the 1967‒1968 school year. In many states in the U.S., including Massachusetts, the school year begins on the first Tuesday morning in September, following a three-day weekend ending on Monday, Labor Day.
Brielle and I joined the same five fellow ninth-grade girls who ate lunch together nearly every school day. We girls sat together aside a cafeteria table and talked while we ate school lunches or homemade bagged lunches. We attended sleepovers for girls only and coed parties. We talked using language which was popular amongst adolescents during the 1960s.
For example, if we really liked someone or something, we might say, “I dig him or her,” or “I dig it.” If we were not interested in or enthusiastic about something we might say, “That’s not my bag,” or “That’s a drag.” When we encountered disappointing situations, we would say, “What a bummer.”
When we were interested in sharing intimate conversation with someone, we might say, “Lay it on me,” or “Sock it to me.” When we enjoyed some activity or event, we would say, “It was a gas.” We referred to money as “bread.”
We called interesting people, places, and things “groovy,” “wicked good,” “wicked neat” or “far out.” We termed people who were fashionably dressed as “spiffy dressers.” We defined unbelievable statements as “bogus.” We referenced fellow adolescents who falsely inflated stories as “ravers.” We characterized embellished stories including good humor and not intending harm as “good raves.” When it was time to leave someone or somewhere, we would say it is “time to split.”