While I was shaving today I was thinking about the idiom that is often used by my grandfathers generation (well he at least always seems to get a kick out of it): “have your ears lowered.”  It’s one of those things that I would hear every so often growing up, usually followed by a half-assed chuckle.  If I recall, there was even an episode of Doug where Mr. Dink kept using the expression and it freaked Doug out (that guy was such a panzy, but I loved him so).

I can’t say that I’ve ever used it.  Partly because I’m too cool to use any idioms that make sense to more than a handful of people.  But also because I don’t get it.  It’s one of the very few things in life that I have smiled at everytime I’ve heard it but never fucking gotten it.  The ears-lowered bells have never rung in my head.  Until today, I never really gave it much thought, or cared.  But being a slow Saturday (I already said I was shaving, that’s how slow it was), I really started to think about it.

Your ears are most visible when you have just had your hair cut, assuming that you get your hair cut relatively short, like a buzz.  If your hair grows outwards like most of mine, then as it gets longer, your ears become less visible and although they never are closer/further from your head from one point in time to the next, they will appear to be shorter when your hair is longer (because they get lost in your mane).  So when you get your haircut your ears appear longer or larger, but not lower.

So then I thought if one were to have long hair, like Pantene Pro-V long flowing locks, and got almost a foot cut off to donate for cancer patients, the distance between the lobe of your ear and the ends of your hair would go from a foot, to about an inch.  So I guess they are “lowered” since they are so much closer to the “bottom” of your hair, but that is such a stretch that the average person isn’t smart enough to arrive at such a conclusion, so that can’t be it.

So since my first two attempts to reconcile this expression with reason failed, I decided to consult my very close and dear friend the World Wide Web (you may refer to him as the Internet/Internets/Intertubes).  A quick google search yielded a bakers dozen of blogs where people had written about getting their haircut and had used the expression (I then wondered if any of them understood what they were saying).  I then found this gem of a page, which is part of a site that documents many American Englihs idioms and their non-idiom equivalent.

If you take a look at that page, you’ll notice that ‘have sex’ is an idiom for ‘have sexual intercourse’.  I guess that’s just in case you weren’t sure and wanted to consult the internet about what had just transpired.  What this wonderful page didn’t have on it, was the history of ‘having your ears lowered’ or how it means getting your hair cut.  I searched for another few minutes (read: 2 hours) and couldn’t find anything.  So I’m thinking it’s a coming of age thing.  Once I know what it means, I’ll officially be an old man who can say “I got my ears lowered” when I want to show-off my new do. (But seriously, tell me how this saying makes sense).

What sayings/expressions/idioms did/do you use without knowing how it means what it’s supposed to mean?  I’m sure there are more that will come to me now that I’m more concious about it.  Probably in the shower.

Since I was born, I have not stopped moving.  I don’t mean day to day (video games and computers always seemed to handle keeping me still quite well), but year to year it was one place to the next.  As a result, I missed out on a lot of things that my contemporaries who were born-and-raised in their hometowns have/had.  I don’t have many childhood friends that I still keep in touch with or even know how to find, nor many family traditions or regular reunions. I have a small family, but they are pretty spread out (throughout the states, and the globe).

As a result, I have always enjoyed participating in others annual get together, especially the famous Memorial Day celebrations in Voorheesville with Matt and his lot.  Even though I’m a total newcomer, his friends and their families treat everyone on that sacred day as one of their own (I’m sure they do on the other 364 days of the year as well).  It’s a small but wonderful town, and it’s not hard to feel like I’m one of their ilk, especially considering the crowd I roll with while in town.  If I’m not partying it up with the likes of the first son and daughter of the town (I even broke one of the Mayor’s wine glasses), I’m engaging in several hour long Drunk Monopoly games just a room away from where the infamous ‘Bill Murray and the Ghostbusters’ alcoholic concoction was introduced to the town (keep in mind, this was before it became the popular drink that it is today).

I know what you are saying, two paragraphs in and this post has nothing to do with the title.  Well, astute reader, as wonderful as participating in others occasions of dependable annual comfort and familiarity, they just aren’t…mine.

Two years ago, Aimee happened to move to Chicago and Matt and I decided to go visit for a long weekend in the summer which was picked because of it’s alignment with the dates for the Lollapalooza music festival.  A short and cheap flight from New York, it was the perfect combination ’summertime and get out of the city’ event.  After those three days of non-stop sun and music I decided that this would be my annual tradition.  I had never been to Chicago, and it only seemed fitting that my tradition be established in a place that I had never been, especially with a history not tied to any single geographic location.  I had attended with friends that I had met in only the most recent part of my relatively young life, and it only seemed fitting that my tradition be established with those who I had not known for very long.

It’s no longer cheap and conveniently quick to get to, and Aimee no longer lives a short walk away from the festival grounds.  The bands this year aren’t as excitement inducing as they were last year for me.  Matt couldn’t make it last year, but Leigh filled in and we had a wonderful time, this year it’ll just be Aimee and I.  The thing is, it’s not about the place (it could move from year to year like it used to), it’s not about the bands (it could be a full three days of bands I’d never heard of), it’s not even about who is going and who isn’t (one year my friends could all be too busy to attend).

It’s about something I can look forward to before they announce the dates for the following year. It’s about knowing there is a weekend at the end of every summer that I can depend on spending three days soaking in tunes and audio waves.  It’s about a tradition, my tradition, that I get to share with Perry Farrell and tens of thousands of other people.  It’s about Lollapalooza.