Turn on the Victrola!

It was fun this week because we got to listen to my friend Gary's Victrola.

I kept laughing about it because Leonard Pennario used to always tell that story about how when he was really little his first word was "Victrola." Only he pronounced it "Bittrola." He told that story to a Courier-Express reporter in the 1980s and he told it to me too, later on.

Gary inherited the Victrola from Guy who had fixed it up really well. I got to re-load the thing, putting new records on. You had to get the knack of it.

While we were grooving to the Victrola we thought of the slang that must have come from it.

You get in the groove. That comes from records. But even earlier...

"Crank it." It means turn up the volume. You have to crank the Victrola. I did that several times.

And also ...

There is a kind of muffling device that you can put into the big flower-shaped speaker thing. Guy had made one himself, kind of a soft stuffed form made out of fabric that you could stick in there. Hence...

... the phrase! Do you have it?

Give up?

"Put a sock in it."

Come on, it's got to come from the Victrola.

Where else would it come from.