The missing years

I like to play review games with my students. I started this trend last year, when I really did not feel like spending 90 minutes rehashing an entire semester's worth of work to a classroom full of students whose eyes were either glued to their phone, or completely glazed over. So I came up with a game that the students have since dubbed "The Dr. R. review game". The game has apparently become so popular that upperclassmen will demand "the game" whenever exams get closer, and tell newcomers in excited tones about last year's version, when the floor got scuffed so bad, the custodians could not get the marks to come off.

The Dr. R review game can be best compared to a game show, where the class is divided up into different groups, and they have to try to answer as many questions correctly. It involves a bell at one end of the room, and students from each group racing each other across the room to be the first to ring the bell, and thus the ones to be allowed to answer the question. To add to the merriment, I try to come up with odd names for the different groups. This year in one class, the Desperate Housewives faced off against the Kate Plus Eights, while in another class, the Whoopis took on the Wandas. And yesterday, when I had a particularly full class, I decided to divide the students up into four groups, and name these groups after lame cars. Steve did this a few semesters ago in one of his radio classes, and the students loved it. But as I called out the group names and wrote them on the board, I stumbled across a problem. I came up with the Geo, the Lincoln Towncar, and the Impala, and then hit a blank. I could not, for the life of me, come up with more lame cars that were produced in the US. Fortunately, my students caught on quickly, and the Geos named their neighbors the Pintos, while the Towncars came up with the Chevettes for the last group.

You could argue that I just don't know enough about cars, but that's not entirely true either. I can come up with lame European cars in a heartbeat (the Opel Kadett, the Fiat Uno, the Suzuki Swift, the Daf, need I say more?), so I think that this again can be related to a phenomenon I call "the missing years".

The missing years refer to these gaps that I have in my cultural knowledge, whether it be athletes, politicians, television shows, or cars, due to the fact that I have moved around so much. For instance, when my students started calling me "Dr. J", after my first name, or so I thought, my husband had to explain that Dr. J was also a famous basketballplayer who also happened to be incredibly tall (and thus the complete opposite of my 5'4"). On the other hand, many people are surprised when I know about quintessential American things such as the Cabbage patch kids and their nasty cousins the Garbage pail kids, or the sitcom The Torkelsons. But at the same, when some of the actors on Scrubs burst into the theme song from Charles in Charge, husband-dear again had to come to the rescue. Of course, the missing years also applies to the Netherlands. I have, for instance, missed several parliamentary crises, and have no clue who Clouseau is, or why they were so popular. Boer Zoekt Vrouw went right over my head, as did the (second?) comeback of Doe Maar.

Of course, for people close to me, such as husband-dear, and my friends, the concept of the missing years is well known. They no longer raise an eyebrow when in one sentence I can imitate the clown from In Living Color ("homey don't play that"!), and have to ask what people are talking about when they talk about Giligan's Island. But whenever I'm around people who don't know me that well, it's always a little awkward when I have to ask them to explain a, to them, obvious, cultural reference. You can just hear people silently wondering if they're dealing with someone who's been locked away for a decade or so, or if I'm just that out of it. I mean, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, but doesn't know all the duck ways, what does that make me?

There's no solution for making up for the missing years, obviously. I can't go back in time and relieve the years that I wasn't in the Netherlands, or the US, or France, or Germany, or wherever. But I do thank the heavens for channels such as TV Land and its endless reruns, and the ubiquitous wikipedia. If I wasn't here, or there, at least I can now educate myself to the point where I can pretend I was. So if I'm watching a lot of TV this break, it's because I'm educating myself. Really. So please excuse me while I go find out when Charles in Charge is on.