As a child, I was taught to greet
people by shaking hands. That was a way
to show respect and, according to the tradition of shaking with the right hand,
as display of peace.
You see, the right hand was used
to fight with swords and rapiers, and they couldn’t be on your weapon and in
the other person’s hand simultaneously.
For many years, I carried on that
practice, until the world changed, that is.
I was left behind by the perpetually
hip who decided hand-shaking was passé, and was replaced by hand sliding.
For the youngsters in the
audience, hand sliding is where you greet the other person and extend your hand
– as if to shake – but instead simply slide it over their hand. This was somewhat similar to surreptitiously wiping
some nose debris off your hand, unbeknownst to the other guy.
As is apparent, this greeting was
short-lived. It was replaced by really
cool peaceniks that were above touching, but not above expressing themselves
with the ‘peace sign.’
The peace sign is a bit confusing
because it utilizes the index and middle fingers to form a “V”. That V could easily be confused for the V
formed by the index and middle fingers that symbolized “victory.”
Winston Churchill and countless
Allied soldiers used the V to proclaim a proud victory over the Germans and
Italians in WWII. Nonetheless, this
symbol was hijacked by 1960’s wannabes.
Confusing indeed.
But that greeting morphed into
something genuinely amusing before long.
“Give-me-five,” was a phrase that
begged the other person to slap the offered hand, turn it over, and have the
ritual continue with the process occurring again. Folks would grin and giggle to acknowledge
this sacrament.
Once again, though, this
nonsensical effort to say, “Hello,” evolved into something else.
Not necessarily better, greeters
would meet and slap each other’s hands with something called a
“high-five.” Yes, it sounds much like
the Give-me-five, unfortunately this effort required exercise to reach high
into the air, for some unknown reason.
This was all the rage with little
kids jumping to high-five their parents and neighbors, often missing and
looking even more stupid.
Over the course of several years,
this formal procedure endured with athletes, Grannies, game show hosts, and
presidents, proving they were not above disgrace by acting the fool.
But today, we are so much
smarter, more sophisticated, and beyond getting sucked into more goofy
behavior.
Today we only fist-bump each
other upon meeting. Yes, with a clenched
fist, we approach the other person and gently tap fists. Not to appear to be unaware of the latest
salutation, people add a cheesy explosion by opening their fists after bumping.
Now that’s really cool and neato
and rad and special.
Being perpetually unhip ain’t so
bad.
