Geary Rural High School Classmates

I receive many forwards in my e-mail throughout the year, some good, some so so, and some,, well you know what I mean.

I waited all year for just the right one to post. Wayne McCutcheon sent this to me this morning, and I'm calling it:

"Forward Of The Year"

Read on and enjoy.

Just HOW MANY words, terms, etc. have you not heard in a long time? And for those young 'ens ....how many of these did you not know?

FENDER SKIRTS AND SUPPER

I know some of you will not understand this message,

but I bet you know someone who might.

I came across this phrase yesterday.

'FENDER SKIRTS.'

A term I haven't heard in a long time, and thinking about 'fender skirts' started me thinking about other words that quietly disappear from our language with hardly a notice like

'curb feelers.'

And 'steering knobs.' (AKA)
'suicide knob,' 'neckers knobs,
'barney knobs'.

Since I'd been thinking of cars, my mind naturally went that direction first. Any kids will probably have to find some older person over 50 to explain some of these .

Remember 'Continental kits?'

They were rear bumper extenders and spare tire covers that were supposed to make any car as cool as a

Lincoln Continental.

When did we quit calling them
'emergency brakes?

At some point 'parking brake' became the proper term, but I miss the hint of drama that went with 'emergency brake.'

I'm sad, too, that almost all the old folks are gone

who would call the accelerator the 'foot feed.'

Many today do not even know what a clutch is

or that the dimmer switch used to be on the floor.

For that matter, the starter was down there too.

Didn't you ever wait at the street for your daddy to come home, so you could ride the

'running board' up to the house?

Here's a phrase I heard all the time in my youth,

but never anymore - 'store-bought.'

Of course, just about everything is store-bought these days, but once it was bragging material to have a store-bought dress or a store-bought bag of candy.

'Coast to coast' is a phrase that once held all sorts of excitement and now means almost nothing.

Now we take the term 'worldwide' for granted.

This floors me.

On a smaller scale, 'wall-to-wall' was once

a magical term in our homes. In the '50s, everyone covered his or her hardwood floors with, "Wow, wall-to-wall carpeting"!

Today, everyone replaces their wall-to-wall carpeting with hardwood floors. Go figure.

When was the last time you heard the quaint phrase 'in a family way?' It's hard to imagine that the word 'pregnant' was once considered a little too graphic, a little too clinical for use in polite company.

So, we had all that talk about stork visits and 'being in a family way' or simply 'expecting.'

Apparently 'brassiere' is a word no longer in use.

I said it the other day and my daughter cracked up. I guess it's just 'bra' now. 'Unmentionables' probably wouldn't be understood at all.

I always loved going to the 'picture show,'

but I considered 'movie' an affectation.