So, what's the bind?

By V.J. Smith, Class of '73

4/10/01

"Awesome!" "That rocks!" "Wow, that's big time!"

A few weeks ago I listened to some teen-agers in casual conversation and their sentences were littered with those phrases. It wasn't the first time I had heard those sayings but I was surprised by the frequency. Then I started to think, "What did we say when were their age?"

Stuff started coming back to me. At the top of the list, "What's the bind?" Of course it came out "... bint." I can still hear Tommy Singer utter that sentence with all the color of a German-Russian descendant.

This was a catch-all phrase for anyone who met resistance. It would have been too easy to say, "What's the problem?" or "Why can't we do this?" It just wasn't hip. Nope, there was a "bint" to contend with.

Right behind the bint was the bag. Yup, we wanted to know, "What's the bag?" If someone hacked us off, it was, "What's her bag?" or "What's his bag?" These people with bags had problems. Plenty of hang-ups, we thought. Unresolved issues kept these individuals from being good people. Members of the older generation had bags galore.

How about the word "sharp?" In our day it meant a person looked good. "Man, you look sharp." We felt like we were ready for an evening at the Keg if we looked "sharp." I'll never forget being in the Rexall Drug looking over the collection of 45 rpm records. In walked Janet Bitz and one of her sisters. Janet looked at a poster of Bobby Sherman (former teen-age heart throb) which was hanging just above the records and she said to her sister, "Aucch, iss he sharp!" At that moment I knew Janet was hot for Bobby.

Frankly, I don't remember many people saying, "groovy." Oh, you heard it on the television show "Laugh-In" but I don't remember too many people saying it. Back then most of us were more interested in gravy, not groovy.

No list would be complete without "griffle." I don't even know how to spell it. But, if someone was giving us the griffle it meant they were on our case. Larry Wilske used to give some students the griffle on a regular basis. You soon learned it was always better to give the griffle than to get the griffle.

One word which seems to have crossed over and been accepted by later generations is that old classic: "cool." It never seemed to go out of vogue. Even during the goofy '80s people still referred to things and people as being "cool." I wonder why that one stuck?

"Keep on truckin," seems to come to mind. That phrase was a product of the late '60s and early '70s. I don't know who invented it but I think it was meant to be positive. I remember those posters of a hippie-looking cartoon character wearing a long white beard and he was taking a big step forward. The words "Keep on truckin" heralded the hippie's arrival.

The guys who came home from college told us, "Keep on truckin." Those college boys weren't taking classes on how to maneuver 18 wheelers. We knew that phrase meant, "Endeavor to persevere. Don't give up! Keep looking for the action." This was the original phrase uttered by motivational speakers before they lived in vans down by the river.

So, the word revolution continues among the youth. One day, perhaps 20 years from now, "bints," bags and griffles will be considered "in" again. Until then, we now-middle-aged people will keep on truckin', always looking for a way to be cool.

(V.J. Smith grew up in Eureka and graduated in 1973. Today he lives in Brookings, S.D., and is director of the Alumni Association at SDSU. You can e-mail him at vj@alumni.sdstate.edu.)