Published: May 01, 2008 09:44 pm            

STAN CHAMPER: The day that ‘cool’ rattled, clanked

When I was a junior in high school, I took the savings from my part-time job to supplement a trade-in — my old ’50 Plymouth for a used but sharp looking ’56 Ford convertible.

What a car! It was white with a black top, and it had overdrive. At every opportunity, I’d put the top down and cruise the streets, figuring I was the coolest thing since duck-tails.

The car fed my ego appetite for status, at least for a while. People took notice when the convertible came around the corner. My buddies had that “wish I had one” look in their eyes.

It all ended one morning when I pulled into the high school parking lot where some of my peers were standing. The noise that invaded their little gathering couldn’t be ignored.

The powerful hum of a V-8 with overdrive that one might have expected to hear under my hood had transformed into the rattling and clanking of a broken-down washing machine.

“That old heap needs a ring job,” one of the guys hollered. I lamely responded that it was simply low on oil, but most of the fellows in that crowd had enough savvy about auto mechanics to know he was right.

It was an embarrassing moment. My peers had found a chink in the armor and were laughing it up. As quickly as the smoke from my tailpipe dissipated, I’d once again become a persona non gratis.

The ’56 Ford had been my boldest expedition into the World of Cool. It was that realm to which we all aspired, and everything we said or did was a measure of how far we’d advance in the realm.

“Cool,” the word, unlike many elements of street speak, has enjoyed a long life. Even today, among teens and young adults, it’s an often-used description in conversation’s slang hierarchy.

My guess is that today’s users understand it mainly as an exclamation, taking the place of what the word “neat” might have inferred at an earlier time.

In the ’50s, it meant a whole lot more. It was swagger and respect, it was “in” and “in control,” smooth and gutsy, it was composure like Frank Sinatra, epitomized later in the song “My Way.”

Looking back, I believe that unless you were one of the few who had a natural talent for being “cool,” maintaining that aura was a full-time job, and you didn’t even think about dropping your guard.

There was also, of course, artificiality in trying to be someone you weren’t, which, also in retrospect, wasn’t exactly an ideal basis for social or intellectual interaction.

But that was a long time ago. Happily, things are a lot different now that I’m older.

I guess it’s one of the lessons that come with the passing of years, a realization developing over time that all the role playing in the World of Cool was just one step shy of silly.

It simply doesn’t stack up when measured against the unadulterated experiences of living — the happy times and the sorrows — that drive home the understanding of what’s really important.

If “older age” has its blessings, surely one of these would be the ease and honesty of talking with someone that becomes possible without the encumbrance of role-playing.

Explaining and listening. One human being interacting with another on a level playing field. No rank. No status. No cool.

I still think about that Ford convertible, but long ago dismissed it as a symbol. Even when the engine purred and smoke didn’t billow up from behind, it was just a car.

STAN CHAMPER can be reached at schamper@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2640.

        

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