U2, The Platters, and the Bump

“What’s ‘the bump’ signify?” I asked my young friend. I was referring to what the newscasters called the cute gesture the Obamas did with their fists.

“Don’t ask me. I’m old,” she said.

“You’re not even officially middle-aged. How can you call yourself ‘old’?”

“Easy. When I watched the Grammy Awards, not only didn’t I know any of the songs, but when I heard the lyrics of some of the winners, I thought they were obscene.”

I laughed and recalled the first time I realized was no longer “with it.” I was glancing at a teen magazine and saw “U2.” I couldn’t figure out why an article about an airplane was in a magazine about entertainers, so I asked one of my students.

“I can’t believe you’ve never heard of them – they’re a famous rock group.”

At that point, I realized that if I asked my class about The Platters, they would say they were trays of food, and if I asked the same question about the The Four Aces, they would say they were cards.

When was the first time you realized you were clueless as to what songs were in the top ten in the country and who was singing them?

Oh - my husband laughed when he read this while I was typing it. He says a lot of the athletes have been doing “the bump” during the games, and it means the same as a high five. My husband's pretty hep for an ol’ guy!