Generation gaps

Sometimes I am clueless about da yout

     Now that I have become my father, a few more things have occurred to me.
     I don't understand young people.   Not the what-are-they-thinking-understanding, but the cultural references.
     At the zoo today a child about 8 said the guinea pig I was holding looked like.....some name.  I was clueless.  Then his mother said it was a tv show he watched.  I never heard of it.
     Another conversation went something like this:  "My dad was talking, and I was on the ladder, and he asked me if I heard him and I said, like it was all waa waa waaaa...I'm the teacher, you know?"  Other person, "Did he understand the reference?"  At that point I wanted to ask what the reference was.  I still wonder...if you know, let me know.  I thought it might be Charlie Brown, but it didn't sound like that....but similar.  Ya know?
     Now I know how my pops felt when I said groovy, or talked about Bob Dylan and Jefferson Airplane and Haight Ashbury and the summer of love.   I'm sure he was clueless.  And he didn't have internet to help him find the answers.
      When we did Exit 99 shows, someone would yell out a performer or a song or a group and I would be...you guessed it...clueless.  TD, Bethie, Carrie or Ross would would have to fill me in on the cultural reference.  It's hard to mock something when you don't know what it is.
     I realize to be current with stuff Julia is familiar with, and Emily is familiar with, and the kids at he zoo.....I would have to study 4 different generations.  Inconceivable.
     And I realize it goes both ways.  If I start telling youngin's about White Levis and Jefferson Airplane they would probably think I was talking gibberish.  If I ask a 20 year old who the Soup Nazi was, I doubt they would know.  Just like I do not know about the funny guy with the square pants who lives in a pineapple on the bottom of the ocean.
     Sometimes the cultural references cross generations.  I was working with younger people and the discussion turned to something poisonous when someone said, "I have taken small doses of iocane and have built up an immunity."  I recognized it from Princess Bride.  another younger person said, "I love that movie!"  We all hit a cross generational reference, which was kind of neat.
    And when some people referenced Frozen today, I actually had some idea what they were talking about because I did see the movie.  Once.  Evidently I need to see Frozen more than once to catch all the subtleties.  Or not.
     So, young people:  I'm going to put some wax on the machine and cruise off to dreamland, if you dig me.