Can we talk, kids? Well, not necessarily
My 19-year-old grandtwins and I no longer speak the same language.
We used to have nice conversations about topics such as green eggs and ham or hungry caterpillars. But now we need an interpreter to bridge our communication chasm. Or, at least, a cell phone app that translates from Generation Z to Generation Geezer.
Recently, my granddaughter and I struggled through a futile conversation when I asked her to explain how I could download a couple of my favorite songs to my cellphone. Eventually she gave me the “OMG, how old ARE you?” look and was laughing so hard I was afraid she might damage an internal organ. Fortunately I didn’t mention that one of the songs I wanted to download was by a singer whose name was Englebert Humperdinck. I’m pretty sure she would have had to be rushed to the emergency room to control her hysteria.
In a conversation with her brother, I mentioned that Wilt Chamberlain once had scored 100 points in a basketball game.
“Who?” my grandson asked.
“Oh, right, that was before your time,” I conceded. “He was my generation’s Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.”
“Who?”
The reality, of course, is that one generation’s hot topic of conversation eventually becomes succeeding generations’ frozen ancient history.
On a recent episode of “Jeopardy!,” for instance, the category was baseball and the clue included the phrase “all-time base hits leader” and the word “hustle.” The contestants, all of whom were youngish women, struck out without taking a swing. Apparently they couldn’t hear me shouting at the screen, “Pete Rose … Pete Rose.”
In an online news site, I came across an archived group photo of Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Hermann Goering. Whoever posted the photo felt it necessary to explain in the caption that Hitler was the guy on the left.
The communication complications go both ways, of course.
The recent death of O.J. Simpson brought back a lot of memories for me, some good and some bad. My grandchildren have no memories of O.J. and, if they thought about him at all, it probably would be as somebody who had something to do with the Kardashians.
Last week, People magazine devoted an entire “exclusive” page to Nick Viall and Natalie Joy and their 2-month-old baby’s “ethereal wedding in Georgia.” I have no idea who any of those people are but I wouldn’t be surprised if my granddaughter follows all three on Instagram.
And while I’ll assume she knows who the Beatles were, I’m guessing she’d say they were John, Paul, some other guy and Ringo. I, on the other hand, could not name even one member of a K-pop boy band.
Whatever that is.