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Black and White Baby 291: She's had her bath and [...] oiled her legs so they won’t look ashy.at ashy, adj.
Black and White Baby 291: She's had her bath and [...] oiled her legs so they won’t look ashy. (con. early 1930s) Black and White Baby 51: Mrs. Taylor personally selected her buds, membership was by invitation only, and the Social Aristocrats wound up the season with a formal dance.at bud, n.2
Black and White Baby 294: Jack Burchet, a soft-hearted man, had also taken in a little white boy from Oklahoma, a fifteen-year-old on the bum.at on the bum (adj.) under bum, v.3
Black and White Baby 92: I beat out ‘Nobody’s Sweetheart Now’ to the buzzed customers at the Edgewater.at buzzed, adj.
Black and White Baby 302: I wasn’t pushing anymore, I was coasting. I had become impatient to put school behind me, to put aside all that kid stuff and move along.at coast, v.
(con. 1940s) Black and White Baby 276: We were such snobs in high school, so club-conscious [...] Our slang—corny, mellow, solid, killer-diller, and creamy (‘That fine creamy chick...’).at creamy, adj.
Black and White Baby 65: [I] sat in the front row, jubilant and goggle-eyed as the spectacle unfolded.at goggle-eyed, adj.
Black and White Baby 224: They were down in that dressing room night after night carrying on like Faust.at like Faust under faust, n.
(con. late 1930s) Black and White Baby 199: [T]he instructor [...] said that for five hundred dollars he'd throw the book at me and in no time at all I'd be a dancing fool.at fool, n.
(con. 1930s) Black and White Baby 48: My mother was not geared to cope with hard times. A vain and impractical woman in many ways, she didn’t know how to cut corners .at geared up, adj.
Black and White Baby 186: The red-hot hoofers that so delighted the Toledo reviewers were Freddy Gordon and Timmy Rogers, a clever and successful team.at red-hot, adj.
Black and White Baby 290: He jumped my salary to forty dollars a week.at jump, v.
(con. 1930s) Black and White Baby 37: Another long-gone expression that my brother Bill used to use was: ‘three-quarters Kelt with molly-gloss hair,’ which meant a colored person with fair skin and straight hair. [...] ‘Kelt’ was Negro slang for a white person, and the ‘Molly’ in molly-gloss has some sort of Scotch-Irish connotation.at kelt, n.
Black and White Baby 80: The bad old days of Prohibition were finally over, the lid was off, and the Edgewater boomed on Saturday nights.at lid, n.
(con. 1930s) Black and White Baby 37: We called William ‘Pie-Face’ Carr, because he had a pale, freckled complexion and reddish hair. He was what colored people also called a ‘Me-rye-nee.’ The word is Negro slang, and I'm spelling it phonetically because I've never seen it written down, but old-timers explain it as a derivation of ‘Merino,’ a breed of sheep with thick curly coats.at meriny, adj.
Black and White Baby 141: Then Olsen and Johnson came through town to play a big vaudeville date—complete monkeyshining, wild and crazy buffoons.at monkey-shine, v.
Black and White Baby 99: Arthur Lee Simpkins [...], who later stepped out as a single performer [...] made quite a career for himself on the West Coast.at step out, v.
Black and White Baby 150: Len and Bookie were continually on guard against my being appropriated by another agent or some fast-moving impresario. [...] They didn’t want anybody else nibbling on the pie.at pie, n.
Black and White Baby 55: Bless their hearts, many of the [social club] members themselves were only a whistle away from poverty row.at Poverty Row, n.
Black and White Baby 181: At MCA one of the agents said yes, he had a spot for us, not too much money, but one of the best rooms in town .at room, n.
Black and White Baby 254: [W]e'd scruffed around trying to borrow another [piano] with no luck.at scruff around (v.) under scruff, v.
Black and White Baby 79: Danville served as ‘sin city’ for the surrounding area [...] [O]n the outskirts of town were bars where you could drink all night; girls were available, if you knew where to look, and gambling was legalized at one point.at Sin City (n.) under sin, n.
Black and White Baby 251: From the Dutch Mill, I went to the taproom at the Hotel Plaza, as a single.at single, n.
Black and White Baby 86: [A]n Elks Club dinner, one of those small-town smokers where the girls come on later and strip. The M.C. was a stranger, a real show-business smart.at smart, n.
(con. 1930s) Black and White Baby 55: Another splashy social event was the annual minstrel show and ball given by one of my mother's clubs .at splashy, adj.
Black and White Baby 268: Pal [i.e. a dog] [...] was killed by a car on Jackson Street. Mother was in a state for several days.at state, n.1
(con. c.1935) Black and White Baby 139: [W]hat were known in those days as ‘strollers’—musicians who played portable instruments, accordion or guitar.at stroller, n.
Black and White Baby 173: I did my routine for the camera [...] togged down in the white tails at a white baby grand.at togged down (adj.) under togged, adj.
Black and White Baby 55: Bless their hearts, many of the [social club] members themselves were only a whistle away from poverty row.at a whistle away from (adj.) under whistle, n.
(con. 1930s) Black and White Baby 53: I can remember evil, catty comments the high-school girls made about each other. A pale-skinned classmate would be jealously dismissed as ‘wasted yellow,’ a dark-skinned classmate put down as a ‘black ink-spitter’.at yellow, n.
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