I am sorry for those offended by off-color language and I certainly don’t want to promote foul language among the “youth of America”, but that is some funny and cute stuff right there.
In our alley (between Ninth and Tenth Street in the Fairview neighborhood of Altoona) in the mid-70s, we had a little kid who could give that little missy in the above YouTube video a good run for her money.
He went by the handle of JR. This was before the Dallas craze in the late 70s so I assume those were the initials of his first and middle names (which I am not sure I ever knew). Anyways,it must have been either the summer of ‘74-‘75 or ‘75-‘76 when JR was hanging around the Alley. He must have been three and one-half or four years old. JR was a tow-headed blonde kid with a hair style that could be classified as “high and tight” on the sides.
JR had a very distinctive look in the summer. He always wore shorts and flip-flops – and never wore a shirt. I wouldn’t classify him as overweight (particularly by today’s childhood obesity standards), but he definitely styled a decent beer-belly as part of his fashion look. I believe that JR’s mom was a single mom and that they lived in one of the “Buechle (sic) Apartments” (1531 Ninth Street – with the pale green siding right across from the Halfpenny’s house).
JR had no problem fitting in with the much older kids in the Alley. This little man had some swagger and attitude, which endeared him to the rest of us. He also had a pretty varied vocabulary for his age. He seemed to have a cynical outlook on things (for a four year old anyways) and would always cast a wary eye on you when you tried to tell him something. The classic look he would throw your way was a cross between “Are you serious?” and “No freaking way!”. I don’t think he cared much for any form of authority.
JR’s fame in the Alley originated from his potty mouth. His go-to phrase was: Ahhh, Poop Shit!
JR had a very distinctive manner in which he enunciated his catch phrase. It came out something like: Püüp schnitt and was augmented and decorated by a tone that a person with adenoid issues and a heavy sinus cold might emit. Totally unique. My sister Laurey does a perfect JR. (Props to Herr Healy at BGHS for three years of German Language Studies which enabled me to richly paint a word picture for JR’s sound. BTW, in case you were wondering, the HTML code for escaping the lower-case “u-umlaut” character in German is ü.)
JR would rock his phrase in response to damn near any situation that he might encounter:
- JR, your Mom is calling you for dinner: Ahhh, Poop Shit!
- JR, sit over there and stay out of the way. We are going to play a Wiffle Ball Game: Ahhh, Poop Shit!
- JR, watch out – a car is coming down the Alley: Ahhh, Poop shit!
Of course, once we heard JR’s catch phrase, we laughed and fussed over him which only served to encourage him and feed the beast – and he didn’t disappoint. I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if he also had dropped an occasional F-bomb or jack-ask back in his day.
