Do you know when I finally realized I’m old?
No, it wasn’t when I started walking with George, although that would have been a good guess.
It was when I made reference to the line “Whatchu talkin’ ‘bout, Willis?” from the TV show Different Strokes and a blog reader had no idea what I was talking about. So, I emailed her this video to jog her memory:
The problem is, it didn’t jog her memory. Because it couldn’t be in her memory. Because she was too young to watch Different Strokes.
And I’m not talking too young in the way that my parents didn’t let us watch Three’s Company because of the scandal that two girls living with a guy would inflict on our young minds. I’m talking about being too young because she didn’t exist. [If anyone here isn’t familiar with Three’s Company, just please don’t tell me about it.]
On a side note [not that I ever veer off from the topic at hand, but just this one time I will], don’t you hate it when the shows that you don’t remember being scandalous as a kid end up being a bit scandalous, and you realize that fact while watching with little people? Like, I remember Daisy Duke wearing short shorts, but when I got Season 1 of The Dukes of Hazzard for my friend Susie’s boys a few years ago, neither of us remembered Daisy sashaying around in a bikini with sexual innuendos. But, apparently, she did.
And a few years ago when my friend Kelly and her daughter Megan were at my house and we thought it would be fun to watch the movie Grease, it didn’t take long before Kelly and I were wide-eyed and holding our collective breaths that her then-too-young-to-catch-most-things daughter would actually not catch most things. We were out of luck when the scene in the back of the car came about and Rizzo and Kenickie started discussing whether or not he had his insurance policy.
Of course, I was the lucky one Megan turned to and said, “Sara, what’s an insurance policy?” Somehow Kelly refrained from laughing as I went into an explanation about how my brother Steve works for Northwestern Mutual Life and the value of having life insurance. That was either not my most shining moment or my most brilliant, I’m still not sure.
Anyway, realizing that I’m old and that many of you may not remember things like Arnold talking to Willis, or Jan trying to get rid of her freckles or Tootie with her roller skates, I realized that writing Que Sera, Sera at the end of my post on Monday may have escaped some of you.
When I was little, my Aunt Janella used to sing the song Que Sera, Sera to me whenever she’d visit… of course I thought my name was in it and she was just saying it funny, but hearing the tune or the mere mention of the words still just makes me happy. So, for all of you young people, who I’ve recently learned don’t understand half of my references, this is a very old song that makes me very happy:
Now, excuse me while I go get my shawl so I can be ready for dinner at 4:30.