NATASHA...

It sounds like a Russian name, doesn’t it? I tease her about “Boris” and “Rocky and Bullwinkle” (young folks might not know who they are). But Tasha lives with us and goes to college. We are her guardians and take an interest in her welfare.

Our church had a Family Retreat recently at Camp Yamhill. One of our fun activities is “Campfire”. We have kids and adults who perform skits, just to entertain and have fun together. Tasha and I did a skit called “Generations”. She speaks a language of today’s young people, using slang terms unusual to my generation. Even some of my slang terms have a completely different meaning in today’s slang, so we have to be careful what we say!

I conceived an idea for our skit because I strain to understand her language sometimes; words like “snap”, “stellar”, “what’s up”, “chillin’ like a villain”, “stoked”, “tight” and “whatever”. So we wrote a “Talk with Tasha” skit…..she wrote her part and I wrote my part, to try to show the audience how much differently we are, yet, in our own era, the same. She spoke in “her language” and I spoke in the slang of the 50’s and 60’s…my era. I don’t have her part to share with you, but here is mine….

“The word from the bird is you are cool for an ankle biter. Sometimes you’re such a bug, but I know it’s only a bit. I know we have issues about your locks and threads but that’s not always close. Your nest is okay and for the most part you are unreal. You razz my berries when you go ape and flip over a flick. Sometimes you’re nuggets, but you’re earthbound and classy. You don’t play the sounds too loud and you take care of the sides….I like that. You’re not a wet rag or take part in submarine races like some nosebleed; I’m hip with that.

I appreciate the fact that you like killing time with me; I think you are a kick! I don’t have to worry about you hanging, or making out with some groady greaser in the backseat of his jacked up machine, or screaming down the street doing wheelies in some ivy leaguers rocket rod looking over his shoulder for the heat. Stay away from those shucksters! I realize my tank don’t always agitate the gravel, but she’s cherry. I can still blow off most of the Clyde’s on the block. We fire up a mean bent eight; she goes flat out on the stretch and we collect the pinks! My chariot can still lay a patch like a make out. My mirror warmer might look kooky, but it’s the most and she don’t nod. When I pop the clutch and punch her, she’s off the line like a Deuce; cookin like a dolly; it’s fat city to cream the jelly rollers out there, for sure!

It’s great to shoot the breeze with you. I get smog in the noggin sometimes, but you’re a gas to chew the fat with and I don’t have to be pretentious. We’re tight. You don’t have a cow or freak out when I ground you for hanging with some hodad gremmie on the sand patting his pomade and coming home after dark thirty! You’re in the pad on time; not playing back seat bingo like your hoodlum friends. That puts me on cloud 9. Once in a while I have trouble understanding what you say but you’re a big tickle with more jets than most! I think we dig each other enough to have these great father/daughter talks and come to a full understanding of how we feel about things. Do you need any bread?? I can always spare a couple of skins or even a fin for my little paper shaker. What do you say? Wanna split?”