HANDS UP OR DOWN

I'm reminded of the old Zen question, what is the sound of one hand clapping. Which reminds me of a little hand jive we did in high school. If you were cool, you could hold your hand straight out in front of you almost as if you were pointing a gun at someone. You know, a finger gun. Then you'd slap the other three fingers against the fat part of your palm under your thumb and make an almost clapping sound. Ahh, the answer to the Zen question.

It was a sign. A mark of recognition. When you'd see a fellow cool guy (absolutely zero girls did this) in the hallways, you'd just do the slap with one or both of your hands as a way of greeting. No spoken words, just the sign. A few of us learned to play hambone, another kind of slap, snap hand game. We did it in public once in awhile, but that was mostly reserved for private gatherings where other cool guys were.

I used to entertain our kids and even my students on rare occasions with my hambone, including the double hand crossover which I never quite got down. The best in our group was Donovan, now a retired bank vice-president.

In Botswana on New Year's Eve two years ago, I performed for some African women at a restaurant. A few of them had done a similar routine to entertain us, only theirs was called gumboot. They were much better than I, but they seemed to enjoy the American rendition, even going to the kitchen to get some more workers to observe. What I do for international relations.

So something as silly as doing hambone in high school, probably because we were so bored having nothing else to do, turned into something I would use years later in a country I never ever expected to visit. Had I only had the costume in the picture.