Blame it on the moon

In the early days of our marriage, Peggy and I really had to get to know each other.  Our engagement was so brief that we still had to go on voyages of discovery to find out how we liked our burgers cooked (rare for me, medium for her), whether she liked hominy made from scratch ("What is hominy?") and how cold was cold, how hot was hot.

We settled most of those matters. Peggy still won't touch hominy, or grits, for that matter. After lengthy negotiations, we finally figured out what thermostat settings (summer and winter) are good compromises, and most of the time, I can fix a satisfactory burger.

But there was one question I asked Peggy about that got me a look of utter stupefaction and an adamant "How could you even ASK that?"

It's the kind of thing that can be enjoyed in mixed company among consenting adults, or in homogeneity. It doesn't matter. It's pleasurable, no one gets hurt, and it gives fresh air to a body part that is all too often covered in denim.

We're talking about mooning here, and it was quite the popular sport in my youth.  Get a passenger with a sense of humor and pull up next to a car being driven by a Fred Rutherford type, have him drop trou, and hang a moon right on out the window.

1880's western style

Not that I ever was involved in such degradation, you understand, having devoted my teen years to quiet contemplation in dim salons and libraries and the "glass aisle" at the A&P (condiments, jams, jellies...) In junior high, we were fortunate enough to have a guy in our class whose brother was in high school, and from him we learned, like young seminarians from a bishop, that in wintertime when it was too cold to open the window, mooning was referred to as "pressed ham."

I heard about what was going on and I still find it hilarious, which explains why I still hold the record at the Regal Theatre in Bel Air as the only person ever to request a Senior Matinee Ticket for a "Jackass" movie.

I think that today's teens are too busy playing those video games and listening to Seven Seconds Of Summer or Z Money or whoever to ride in cars with their patooties on display, and that represents a dropoff in our culture from which we may never recover.