HISTORY: LOCAL AND COLLOQUIAL

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Before I hit you with even more page-turning, cop and robber action today, here are a couple of nuts and bolts items.

1. If you see any inaccuracies about matters of fact or information, I hope you’ll let me know. I’m mainly concerned with bird identification or historical information, but I'd also like to correct anything else that’s factually wrong.

2. Has anyone out there tried both AT&T and Comcast for HD TV? If so, which is your choice?

Now, on with the show >

Yesterday I wrote the following to the blogger at Ohio River Life: Do you know the source of your interest in “Somewhere, Ohio” and life “Back in the Day?”

The subject of daily life in the somewhat distant past or off-the-beaten-track present has grown much more interesting to me over the last decade or so. Many people middle-aged or older say they feel the same way. Still, it bothers me that I didn’t especially care about history in my 20s and 30s—unless an elder was telling a good story in an entertaining way.

I’d like YOU to offer a brief story or an entertaining, seemingly original expression from life before 1960, probably from a parent or grandparent or great aunt.

Does it at least vaguely imply an interesting aspect of local or national history that we’d probably never find in a textbook?

Here’s one from one of my mothers-in-law: “He’ll be all right if we can just get him over Fool’s Hill.”

Here’s another—a bit crude—from a small-town man who would be 92 now. The expression, in italics, roughly means “skillfully, deftly, adroitly”: And that boy ran that ball down and caught it over his shoulder, just slicker ‘n snot on the barn door.

I’m not sure how much history we can glean from my examples, but they’re certainly more rural than urban and maybe more southern than northern. Is anyone else familiar with them and their regional or historical sources?

I’m now breaking this post about history into two separate entries. Tune in over the next few days to see if anyone responds to that invitation—and to hear more riveting commentary from yours truly at Banjo52.