Most Americans identify a toga party with the raucous scenes from "Animal House" showing bedsheet-clad fraternity boys pouring beverages over each other while flopping around on a vomit-stained dance floor.
As a veteran of toga parties circa 1960s, I can verify the accuracy of Animal House's portrayal. Of course, there were also tiki parties where we poured beverages over each other while clad in grass skirts, cowboy parties where we poured beverages over each other while clad in Stetsons, and party parties where we poured beverages over each other while clad in whatever we happened to be wearing at the time. There was a lot of pouring going on in those days.
That was forty years ago, and apparently times have changed. Yesterday's "Wonderword" puzzle was titled "Toga Parties". "Wonderword" is a 15 x 15 grid of letters. Puzzlers circle the letters vertically, horizontally, or diagonally to form words relating to the puzzle's title. The related words are listed below the puzzle itself. The leftover letters spell the Wonderword.
I'm not much of a puzzle-solver, but "Toga Parties" seemed right up my alley. I easily identified "wine", "wild", "beer", "juice", "stomping" and the like in the grid, but many unused letters remained. The only words that fit were "elegant", "harpist", and "camera".
"Elegant" is not the adjective that anyone would attach to any toga party I ever attended. "Debauched' works, but I couldn't find it in the puzzle. The musical background to our debauchery was typically not a "harpist". It's so difficult to do the Watusi to harp music. You really need that driving bass beat. A "camera" was a real no-no at toga parties. "So that's what my child is doing instead of studying? Stop payment on that tuition check now!"
According to "Wonderword", toga parties today are elegant affairs with heavenly harp music in the background and photographed for posterity (and the social pages). In a way, I'm glad that John Belushi didn't live to see this.
No comments:
Post a Comment