gnomi: (yeshiva_stewart)
A Way With Words recently did a podcast on the phrase "Let's blow this pop (popsicle/popcorn) stand."

In response, I sent the following e-mail:

Your piece on "let's blow this pop/popsicle/popcorn stand" made me nostalgic.

After my senior year of high school, I spent a year in Israel on a program for
Zionist youth. My Israeli history teacher on the program was a man originally
from Massachusetts, and he used "let's blow this popsicle stand" and "let's bust
this clamshell" interchangeably. I have no idea of the origin of "Let's bust
this clamshell," but I do recall my teacher using it frequently when we went on
field trips with class. So, for instance, we'd be at the Cardo in Jerusalem,
he'd give a brief lecture, and then when he wanted to move along to the next
site, he'd say, "OK, let's bust this clamshell." It was a frequent enough
occurrance that one of my classmates started responding, "OK, clamshells, up
against the wall!" (thus using "bust" in the "drug bust" sense).

The teacher's statement and the class's rejoinder (because soon enough we were
all using it) were so identified with our group that, at the end of the
semester, we got the teacher a T-shirt that said "Let's bust this clamshell" on
the front and "OK, clamshells, up against the wall" on the back.

Nostalgically yours,
[personal profile] gnomi
gnomi: (Default)
...actually, in the shower. But it's raining out there, and the combination of that and one of the questions at [community profile] thefridayfive made me think of this.

I spent the summer after my 11th grade year (that would've been summer 1988) at a summer camp up in mountains in New York. I was on a program at the camp for which the campers lived in tents in the woods (rather than in cabins in the clearing, like the rest of the camp). One afternoon, sparked by who-remembers-what (and there's no one reading here who was actually in my MH, so no one here is likely to remember), we had a shaving cream fight. Yes, a shaving cream fight. Which quickly degenerated into a shaving-cream-and-mud fight. At some point we declared a truce amongst all the combatants and decided it was past time to go and shower off all the shaving cream and mud. So there we were, probably about 20 of us all told, heading to the showers. The MH showers were (as is expected) separated sex, but the boys' shower and the girls' shower shared a common wall (the wall with the shower heads in it, as it happens) and the wall didn't go all the way up to the ceiling.

So there we all were, washing off first fully dressed and then -- at least on the girls' side, and I presume on the boys' side -- disrobing in the shower and tossing the soggy clothes out. And someone -- I forget on which side of the wall, at this point, and I have no memory of who other than it wasn't me -- started singing (most likely something out of the Hashachar Shiron, the song book that each of us knew very, very well). Within about two bars, we had a four-part harmony going. We sang and sang until we were all done showering, and then we turned off the water and the singing stopped. We dried off, got dressed, and headed out as if nothing unusual had occurred.

I haven't thought about that incident in a while, but it was a very happy memory to have pop back in today.
gnomi: (Default)
Here are 2 job opportunities (with Young Judaea) I've recently been made aware of. I have no clue if anyone reading here would be at all interested, but I figured I'd put 'em out there for public consumption.

a. District Manager/Camp Director, Portland OR )

August 2015

S M T W T F S
      1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30 31     

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Aug. 2nd, 2025 07:11 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios