Things you were shockingly old when you learned

There's still root beer made from real sassafras with the carcinogen filtered out or something.

Creedence Clearwater Revival are from northern California?! What??

Born on the Bayou of Berkeley

heckin bamboozled tbh

The carcinogen is called safrole, iirc.

There's still root beer made from real sassafras with the carcinogen filtered out or something.

Creedence Clearwater Revival are from northern California?! What??

Seems like if you were really from NoCal seeking your fame and fortune, you'd make it to at least Modesto. Getting stuck in Lodi more like a rookie mistake made by someone from Acadiana.

What town did you think “Lodi” was referring to?

New Jersey, of course!

Into the 90s one could purchase Pappy's sassafras syrup and make tea with it (or, if you were clever, a variant of root beer). Sarsparilla is a variant, properly made with a different plant but very similar in flavor.

Sassfras is of course a ubiquitous wild plant in much of the US; I have some in my yard. I could find bunches more in any local woods (and have done). Look for the leaves that look like mittens. If you want to use the roots you have to pull the saplings pretty early - knee-high or so. It is a lovely smell and a lovely flavor and I will never not love it. But maybe you shouldn't, as cancer is kind of a bummer.

They used to sell sasparilla on Walthamstow high street when I was young. I think as a cordial you diluted.
I was wondering if Vimto was an attempt to mimic the flavour using berry ingredients more local to the UK.

They used to sell sasparilla on Walthamstow,
high street when I was young.

Rejected CCR lyrics.

is it possible to choogle a sasparilla? asking for a friend

True story: I am an American human. In approximately 1995 I stumbled into a pub in Cambridge (the one in England) and asked for bourbon and ginger ale. It was utterly delicious. The spiciest ginger ale I'd had up to that point (including the "Jamaican-style" ginger ale one can get here).

I asked what kind it was, and was shown the bottle. It said, "American-style ginger ale." Yet another example of things on the other side of the ocean being a funhouse mirror.

Life is like a box of chocolates.

What town did you think “Lodi” was referring to?

New Jersey, of course!

― but also fuck you (unperson)

LOL, that's the only Lodi I know of. I always thought of it as like the Springfield of the Simpsons.

Does sarsaparilla taste like root beer? Been wondering the last couple of days.

LODI

Lodi is based on Fogerty's days as a minor league baseball player and he dreaded playing out there.

― Steve Shasta, Wednesday, 25 June 2008 18:24 (fifteen years ago)

SMalkmus wrote a song about his rival high school in Lodi (Linden Lions) and Yanks slugger Aaron Judge is from said highschool.

so Fogerty told u that story at a show? amazing.

Ok, learning point here…always assumed Lodi was his shorthand way of saying Low Dive i.e. a scummy venue. Never knew it was a place in California until now.

I prefer my misinterpretation.

lol, also amazing

Creedence Clearwater Revival are from northern California?! What??

I know, right? If you didn't know, you'd guess . . . almost anywhere else.

Weirdly, I knew they were from California. Lumped in with The Band as Northerners who could evoke the South even better than Southerners.

keep on toinin

I've always known they were from California, I must have read it somewhere when I was young.

... sleevenotes on first album perhaps?

They were from Choogleston

... from what I can make out from images of the first album, the sleevenotes are all about CCR being part of the San Francisco music scene.

Wait, THE BAND are fr California??????!!!!!

lol no

Canada

Malkamus went to high school in Lodi CA

oh wait just saw Steve Shasta’s post phbbbt me

oh ok, that's way less shocking xp

Malkamus went to high school in Lodi CA

This threw me off a little too, because there's a Linden, NJ one town over from where I lived for 25 years (it's not close enough to Lodi, NJ for them to have been rival schools, though).

Yes, I assume everyone is from NJ unless explicitly told otherwise, it seems.

There was for a time a lot of people who thought Manowar were British because of Hail to England, doing most of their touring in Europe, and not being funny

JK the latter would make them from the America South

*American

Levon Helm was from Arkansas, to be fair

That "it's all downhill from here" is meant to mean "it all gets easier from here", like you're on a bike ride, not "it all gets shittier from here".

I have never heard that before.

i had a quick hunt around for the histories of each meaning (turns out they both go back a long way) (by which i mean centuries).

The most useful bit of advice i came across is this: "To avoid misunderstanding you need to be clear about what is meant."

I assumed the title of the Jam's third album was a dig at the mod revival they were trying to extricate themselves from. I learned last week that "all mod cons" is also an abbreviation for "all modern conveniences" used in British newspaper real estate/rental listings.

The mod revival didn't really take off till the following year so I doubt they were trying to extricate themselves from it.

Also konda surprised the phrase all mod cons is not used in the US!

Let me guess, a "modern convenience" in the UK is something like a refrigerator.

It certainly was in the 60s!

i wasn't really checking real estate/rental listings much at that time but i feel the phrase was actually a bit dated in the late 70s

(and that this was part of the little retro pop art joke they were making)

Probably, it basically meant modern and up-to-date anyway by then anyway

I thought a "mod con" was some sort of Artful Dodger scheme before learning the actual meaning.

probably many counterexamples but there are a lot of UK/Australian shortened phrases that just don't happen in the US

Quite a lot. In the US we don't speak of argy bargy, chrissy prezzies, arvo, brekkie, or ciggies. Throw up / threw up or vomit/vomited/hurled instead of "sick."

And certainly not "mod cons," which can mean wildly varying things. Amenities, maybe.

I was the exact opposite, I knew the all mod cons phrase but the pun on mod didn't occur to me until years afterwards