My Dick Van Dyke Moment

I coined a new phrase last week. It’s called “a Dick Van Dyke moment” and refers to an exchange that causes a baby boomer to realize that he or she is actually a lot older than people previously thought to be peers.

The experience is similar to, yet distinctively different from, one of those stark reminders of the gap between a boomer and an adult who is obviously of a younger generation—like the babysitter who was floored to learn that I grew up before microwaves became popular household appliances. Or that encounter with a 20-something who was working at the a good 15 years back. I asked her where the card catalogue was and she replied, “The what?”

I coined the “Dick Van Dyke moment” phrase last week after the mega Sana Ana winds wreaked havoc across the city. I’d been home alone with the kids the night they blew our power out, along with that of 25,000 other locals. It was about 7:30 p.m., and pitch black. 

Fortunately, we had three flashlights that actually worked. I wanted to set one upright on the mantle, like a lamp. But as I crossed the living room to do so, I stumbled over the ottoman. I wasn’t hurt and, in fact, chuckled to myself thinking that I must have looked like Dick Van Dyke's character Rob Petrie in the classic opening credits of The Dick Van Dyke Show.

The following day a group of us were chatting about the power outage while having our roots retouched at the salon I go to. One woman mentioned how the blackout spooked her dog. Then I recounted my Van Dyke-like pratfall, but nobody knew what I was referring to. Sitting together having our gray roots covered, I had assumed these ladies and I were peers. But it turns out they hadn't even been born by the time the iconic sitcom, which had won 15 Emmy Awards, went off the air in 1966.

That afternoon, I experienced a rerun while watching my daughter’s soccer practice with a few of her teammates’ moms. As we stood on the field, freezing, conversation once again turned to the wind and power outages. One mom still didn’t have power. Another had never lost hers, but did relay a cute story about a time when she had. She’d just fully stocked her freezer with Costco bargains. Rather than lose all that food, she ran an extension cord from her refrigerator through the kitchen window and into her neighbor’s house, which still had electricity. None of the soccer moms appreciated my Dick Van Dyke Show anecdote either. Our daughters may be close in age, but it was clear that we were not.

I suspect I’ll be having more and more Dick Van Dyke moments as time goes on. Not that I’m complaining, much. Mostly, I simply want to chronicle an awareness of my latest passage. As I do so, my daughter enters the room. Now she’s reading over my shoulder.

“Who’s Dick Van Dyke?” she wants to know.