One of my favorites from the Mother’s Day visit.
We skyped with Rey a few days ago.
The beard was still in evidence, but the sling was a no-show.
Apparently he has permission to be slingless when he is not around others that might make him move it in ways it is not ready to move. He did demonstrate his current range of motion. It was progress – but still there is more range to re-attain.
He is now old enough to have lower car insurance rates and also be kicked off of my health insurance (as secondary).
As to the title, I was trying to think of something clever. Carl came up with 26 Skidoo.
I wanted to check it out, and was quickly corrected that “23 Skidoo” is the proper term.
And that Skidoo is not necessarily a complimentary term.
[And perhaps 25 Skidoo would have been more appropriate.]
23 Skidoo may have been coined as follows, (From Wikipedia)
Perhaps the most widely known story of the origin of the expression concerns the area around the triangular-shaped Flatiron Building at Madison Square in New York City. The building is located on 23rd Street at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, and, due to the shape of the building, winds swirl around it. During the early 1900s, groups of men would allegedly gather to watch women walking by have their skirts blown up, revealing legs, which were seldom seen publicly at that time. Local constables, when sometimes telling such groups of men to leave the area, were said to be “giving them the 23 Skidoo”.[4]
It is at a triangular site where Broadway and Fifth Avenue—the two most important streets of New York—meet at Madison Square, and because of the juxtaposition of the streets and the park across the street, there was a wind-tunnel effect here. In the early twentieth century, men would hang out on the corner here on Twenty-third Street and watch the wind blowing women’s dresses up so that they could catch a little bit of ankle. This entered into popular culture and there are hundreds of postcards and illustrations of women with their dresses blowing up in front of the Flatiron Building. And it supposedly is where the slang expression “23 skidoo” comes from because the police would come and give the voyeurs the 23 skidoo to tell them to get out of the area.[5]
And so we end, with a little more knowledge than we started.
And I think that would make Rey happy.
Happy Birthday Rey
