the answer man

[calimac]

The two kids in line behind me at the supermarket, who kept crowding up as if they wanted to pass me, were a girl of perhaps 14 and a boy of 12. Their dad, standing behind them, was forties-ish. As we waited in the checkout line, the kids began entertaining themselves by posing queries about the celebrities of past and present mentioned on the headline literature festooning the racks. They knew who Johnny Depp is, but the fun began when the girl asked, "Dad, who's John Denver?" I suffered a little vertiginous shock, having never previously consciously dealt with anyone's need to ask that question - but however vivid he still seems to me, it's now been nearly 16 years since he ran out of gas over Monterey Bay, which is almost certainly before she was born - while dad gave a basic and fairly succinct answer, which was enough to enable the boy, with perhaps a better recall of MOR oldies radio than his sister, to dredge up from memory one of his song titles, which, alas, was "Thank God I'm a Country Boy."

Then, prompted by a tabloid cover, the kids asked, "Who's O.J.?" Oh boy. I gave quiet thanks I wasn't the person who had to answer this one. Dad competently outlined that lurid disaster, and then the kids, perhaps motivated by the past tense grammar of the previous answer, asked the follow-up, "How did John Denver die?" (An odd question to ask, actually. Would you ask, How did Cory Monteith die?) And dad described that differently lurid disaster, in less succinct terms than I would.

The next question was, "Who's Katharine Hepburn?" but by then my purchases were being rung up.

Comments

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

I find it more surprising they didn't know Katharine Hepburn than O.J. or Bob Denver.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure why the average 14-year-old today would have seen any movies with Katharine Hepburn. On Golden Pond and Love Among the Ruins are old people's movies if there ever were any, and most of her other good work is, by today's standards, incredibly ancient. I wonder if you could get away with defining Hepburn to a young person of recent vintage as "an old-time movie star played by Cate Blanchett in The Aviator."

If old TV comedies, the kind than ran nonstop on Nickelodeon twenty or thirty years ago, are less common kid-watching than they were then, then I could understand not knowing Bob Denver. But this was John Denver, and surely his songs have not ceased being common currency?

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

My brain is nonfunctional, let alone the young adolescents.

But, yes, I'm pretty sure that John Denver songs have stopped being common currency.