Oh. My. GAWD!! Do I ever feel old. . .


I'm a big time dog lover. So when I saw this college-age girl at a tennis match on Sunday with a nearly full-grown Schnauzer puppy, cute, spunky and friendly as hell, rapid-twitching a nubby tail (and here I refer to the dog, not the girl), I had to go up and say, "Hi." In the course of chatting, I learned the dog was named Zeus. "Cute name," I said. "Like one of the fierce dobermans on 'Magnum, P.I.'"

Blank stare.

"You know, Tom Selleck in the Hawaiian shirt?"

Nothing.

I prompted further. "Red Ferrari. T.C.'s chopper. Zeus and Apollo guarding the Robin Masters Estate. Higgins saying 'Oh. . .my. . . GAWD!!'"

No sign of recognition whatsoever.

Then I did some math in my head. This was a girl I took to be the girlfriend of a college tennis player, mostly likely age 21 or less. This would mean she was born in or after the same year Magnum slapped the clip into his 9mm and twitched his bushy eyebrows at the camera for the last time in prime time TV (1988).

You know, it was perfectly OK when I was a kid going around making adults feel old because I had never heard of Uncle Milty, or Dobie Gillis or "The Fugitive." But having the nerve to show oneself in public while so culturally uninitiated as to be unfamiliar with "Magnum, P.I."? That is just OUTRAGEOUS!!