I used to be a spring chicken

I checked out the movie Savages from the library the other day. It's about an adult sister and brother dealing with their elderly father's dementia and facing their own futures. What I found most charming, however, was the film opens with a song from my childhood.

"I don't want to play in your yard,
I don't like you anymore.
You'll be sorry when you see me
Sliding down our cellar door

You can't holler down our rain barrel,
You can't climb our apple tree.
I don't want to play in your yard
If you won't be nice to me."

(Here's a picture of an old-fashioned
cellar door. Cellars were used for storing
fresh garden vegetables, home canned
goods and also for tornado shelters.)

Over the years, I've been collecting expressions and words from my childhood that have gone defunct. Many have been replaced by cruder expressions (eg. remember when "smart asses" were called "smarty pants", "smart alecs" or "wise guys"? Now "wise guys" are what used to be called mobsters or gangsters. And gang members refer to each other as their "crew". There was an old radio show called, "Gangbusters" about police who effectively put gangsters in prison. The expression then evolved to whenever something that was going fast and effectively, it was "going gangbusters".

Every once in a while, I will hear a word or expression coming out of my mouth that I haven't heard for decades. I feel like a ninny when that happens. I think I'll go to the ice box and get a bottle of pop. I could go on like this till the cows come home, but it'll probably give you youngsters the screaming mimis.