During my parents' NYC visit last weekend, my dad and I exchanged “I knew I was old when...” tales over Bowery Hotel lobby drinks. Mine involved vodka, travel by bus, a Genesis reunion at the Meadowlands, 25-year-old girls who thought they knew the difference between Genesis and Phil Collins solo, frantic texting in search of cocaine, and a Martinetti's basement booth overstuffed with hard-banking UVA grads in shorts, sandals, and Dave-Matthews-concert hair.
My dad's basically had him in his early 30s, somehow surrounded by early-20s kids (who are now early 50s kids). At some point, my dad had said “Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy”, a nonsensical phrase used to summon a mischievous Buster Brown Show frog who apparently had a profound disrespect for authority.
My girls were very disappointed when instead of “Against All Odds” they got an extended jam of the soft-prog classic “Home by the Sea” (nothing rocks quite like a shitty half-hour instrumental intermittently punctuated by fat bald Englishman singing about a haunted house). I was disappointed when my 25-year-old girls found the cocaine, which happened to be in the pockets of the shorts-wearing UVA grads.
My dad's younger acquaintances just didn't have any idea what the hell he was talking about. He didn't mention whether this disappointed him or not. He was a single man raising two kids at the time, so there might have been more pressing concerns, but still, it's nice when people speak your same language.
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