“The Twist” in 25 Words or Less

This early 1960's dance style, made famous by Chubby Checker, was basically just dancing with yourself and looking like you had to pee really bad.

Slam or Be Slammed

As I look back on them from the vantage point of almost forty years later, I can see why the faculty and administration at my high school disapproved of "slam books". Any grownup with any decency about him or her would have done the same. But, as juniors and seniors doing time in a penal colony as punishment for the crime of being a teenager, we prisoners needed a little diversion. And one of those diversions in 1968 and 1969 was creating and/or signing a "slam book".

What the hell was a "slam book"? It was a tablet that you had converted into a guest book of sorts so that other students could sign it. But there was a sick twist to that. A "slam book" was a way to "slam" or to get back at other kids whom you hated or disliked. Here’s how a "slam book" worked:

1) On the inside cardboard back of the tablet was a vertical list of numbers, such as 1 to 25. Beside each number, a fellow classmate would sign his or her real name or initials.

2) On each page within the tablet was the same vertical list of numbers, 1 to 25.

3) At the top of each page was a question. Some of them were quite innocent, such as "What is your favorite meal?", but most questions were loaded guns just waiting for someone to pull the trigger. Those kinds of questions made up the bulk of the "slam book" and read like this: "Who is the stupidest guy in our class?" or “What do you think of so-and-so?” or "Do you think so-and-so is ugly or cute?" and "Who do you hate the most in our class?" And so on and so forth.

4) Students answered these questions by writing on the numbered line that corresponded to the name or initials inside the back flap. Of course, you weren’t supposed to look back there. Unh, hunh.

Personally, I didn’t like "slam books". Like the faculty and staff, I thought they were a waste of paper, terribly bad behavior and very cruel to others. But I’d occasionally sign one, and I’d only answer the innocuous questions like "What is your favorite meal?". Where most other students had answered "pizza and Pepsi" or "burger, fries and Coke", I’d write "filet mignon and a nice hearty Burgundy" or something aloof and high-brow, just for the hell of it. Just to be different.

I never heard of "slam books" from any kids in the next generation that followed me. They probably had their own version of hurtful snobbery. And the kids in high school nowadays are probably text-messaging each other the same insults and nastiness, without leaving a paper trail that can get you in really deep do-do with the warden.