 
Tponetom
Member
Username: Tponetom
Post Number: 352
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Friday, December 26, 2008 - 5:48 pm: |    |
Zeitgeist
How does a ‘WORD’ get around?
Ma and Dad got married in 1923. Dad had told her he was five years older than her. Ma believed him,,,,until they filled out the Marriage License. Ma was seven months older than Dad. He had just turned 20.
He also told her she would have to “Convert,” before he would marry her!
She said, “What on earth are you talking about? We are both Roman Catholics!"
He smiled and said, “Well, I am an Irishman and I do not expect to spend the rest of my life with a “House Frau!”
She told him that was his tough luck. And as luck would have it, Dad was the pragmatist (German) in our family and Ma, with her roots of Germany and Alsace Lorraine, was a rip roaring “Irisher” for all of her 87 years.
His loving nickname for her, was “Dutch.” He never called her by her given name, Eleanor.
In her very early youth, at home on Benson Street, she could speak and understand a little bit of the German language. There were three German words that stayed with her all of her life. They were, ‘Zeitgeist’ and ‘Shyss.’ (Phonetic spelling on that second one.) If something went wrong in the kitchen, like burning a pot of food, there would be a lot of ‘Shysses’ flying around, like in “Oh Shyss! Go figure.
Zeitgeist, was just the opposite. When things went well, Ma would smile with a pixy grin and say, “Ahhh, Zeitgeist!” Especially around the Holiday Seasons. Our young brains could decipher Shyss easy enough, but Zeitgeist remained a mystery to me until,,,,,,,last Sunday, December 21. We were watching Masterpiece Theater on PBS. A charming English mystery drama series.
(From an Internet Search.)
December 21-28, 2008
Prime Suspect 7: The Final Act
Two 120-minute episodes
Drink, loneliness and the grueling life of a crime fighter are finally catching up with Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren). Pushing sixty, Tennison knows it is time to retire, but can she keep her body and soul together for one final case?
While I was watching it, our telephone rang, distracting me for a moment, but I heard Jane say the word, “Zeitgeist!”
Alarm bells and sleigh bells and a myriad of memories went off in my head.
Unsuspecting, when I picked up my good ole, Funk & Wagnalls, there it was. The soon to become, the ubiquitous, ZEITGEIST. I double checked it with my Webster’s Third. The definitions were almost word for word: OHG. (Old High German) - the spirit of the time: the intellectual and moral tendencies that characterize any age or epoch.
(my note: read, decades.)
It does not take a leap of faith for me to believe that Ma is looking down on me, this very minute, and is saying to me, “Dummkopf, (that was the third word.) it took you all these years to figure out what I was saying?”
So, what about ‘Zeitgeist?’
In a convoluted or even an irrational way, Zeitgeist explains, in the lowest common denominator that I can think of, my fascination, fixation and fealty to the excitement that was Detroit, in the Thirties and Forties!
The Spirit of the times.
P. S. Did you ever go into a Butcher’s Shop (or Meat Market) and ask the butcher for a FREE soup bone? Of course you had to stand in line. |
Bigb23
Member
Username: Bigb23
Post Number: 2988
Registered: 11-2007
| | Posted on Friday, December 26, 2008 - 7:58 pm: | |
Tponetom - I probably know you are a ex-Ad man for this area. At your age you are a fantastic writer. You pull at the heart strings. But I love your writing, and what can I say ? Keep them coming, and please publish them. |
Scs_scooter
Member
Username: Scs_scooter
Post Number: 116
Registered: 07-2006
| | Posted on Friday, December 26, 2008 - 10:46 pm: | |
Just jumping in here...my family is from Alsace Lorraine too! Love your stories. Please keep them coming. |
Dshanks
Member
Username: Dshanks
Post Number: 1
Registered: 12-2008
| | Posted on Saturday, December 27, 2008 - 8:37 am: | |
I'm a descendant of old German stock too. 'Shyss' in my house was 'sheist', as in 'go clean up all the dog sheist in the yard'.
We used to get soup bones all the time from our Polish butcher. Chicken necks and head cheese too.
I'm a little confused. Why did your dad call your mom Dutch if she was Irish??? |
Kathinozarks
Member
Username: Kathinozarks
Post Number: 1758
Registered: 11-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, December 27, 2008 - 9:52 am: | |
I posted right after Bigb and it isn't here. Darn. Ok, I'll ask my questions again.
Is a Haus Frau a derogatory term? Doesn't that just mean 'housewife'? Was he saying that he didn't want her to be boring,or whatever? Then, he was the one who turned out to be the strict one and she was the Irish-type life of the party?
Tpone, I know the word and have seen it many times but have never used it in a sentence. Will you post a sentence or two using Zeitgeist? I want to start using it in the Ozarks and see how many screwed up faces stare back at me! Thanks, K |
Tponetom
Member
Username: Tponetom
Post Number: 353
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, December 27, 2008 - 4:21 pm: | |
Bigb23,
An Ex-Ad man? No. You may be confusing me with my deceased first cousin, Shirley Fiorillo. She was voted as, 'Advertising's Woman of the Year for the Detroit Area, in the 1990's.
Dshanks,
Thank you for the correct smelling, er, um, spelling, of the word, scheist. AND calling my mother "Dutch" was really appropos. She was 95 % German and five %, French. Ma only 'acted' like an Irish lady and Dad 'acted" like a very gentle German
Kathi,
Yes, it means 'house wife' but definitly NOT derogatory. My Peggy is a 'house frau' to die for.
And again, no. Pragmatic (adj.) or Pragmatism, (noun) means doing things in the correct order of proper method, place and time. It usually pertains to the accomplishment of duty and/or of business. (Dad never had to raise his voice to any of his six children. There was too much love and respect for both parents.)
The Zeitgeist of the Forties was rollicking.(meaning the "spirit" of those times.) |
Kathinozarks
Member
Username: Kathinozarks
Post Number: 1763
Registered: 11-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, December 27, 2008 - 9:58 pm: | |
Thanks for the clarification, T. It will be difficult for me to use Zeitgeist in a sentence. |
Kathleen
Member
Username: Kathleen
Post Number: 3184
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 28, 2008 - 9:41 am: | |
Thanks, T, for the wonderful story!! My great-grandfather was Irish; my great-grandmother was German. Each was first-generation American. They were married in Detroit in 1886. I wish I knew such stories about them, but alas, there are none. Only photos and some scrapbooks she compiled of family and friends comings and goings as reported in the local German newspaper and the Detroit papers. |
Lodgedodger
Member
Username: Lodgedodger
Post Number: 1157
Registered: 05-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, December 28, 2008 - 11:55 am: | |
shit = Scheisse |
Tponetom
Member
Username: Tponetom
Post Number: 355
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Monday, December 29, 2008 - 11:48 am: | |
Lodgedodger,
Not only because of the different ways to spell the word, (high berman, low german)descriptions also vary.
Things like color, size, shape, density and aroma.
It is also the heaviest substance imaginable.
Even an elephant,,,,,,,,,,,
The source of the above information comes from grade school, circa, 1930's. |
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