Oh wow, I haven’t thought of the word “grits” in that context in a long, long time! I grew up not far from Columbia, MD during that same time period… I wonder if that was a strictly regional piece of slang?
I’ve never heard that term in that context anywhere except in that area - Howard/Montgomery/PG/AA counties…
Where were ya? I went to Oakland Mills HS, class of 89.
I seem to remember a lot of ‘grits’ down around Laurel/Savage and out towards western Howard County…
Back in Dallas in the mid to late 1950s, Mexican-American boys who would otherwise have been called hoods were often referred to as “Pachucos”; the word connoted gang members. The identifying mark was a tattooed cross in the web of skin between the thumb and forefinger. There would be three dots in the tattoo; one between each arm of the cross and the upright; one immediately above the upright. The local police couldn’t seem to grasp that most Anglos were excluded; we used to spend a lot of time holding our hands out so the police could check for the tattoo. I remember there was a lot of furor in the Dallas newspapers re the Pachucos taking over the local crime scene. In general the Anglo hoods and the Pachucos observed a sort of shaky truce but fights between the two weren’t uncommon. I don’t know if this was just a Dallas thing?
Randallstown High, class of '88… so add Baltimore County to your list of places it was used. 
Pachuco dates back to the 40s in Cali.
Out east, we had the Guidos in their bitchin’ camaros.
I thought my childhood best friend’s older brother was one, until you brought up the TA. He had a rustoleum-gray Nova which he was always working on, which could top out the speedometer, if it was running. Everything else checks out, though.
Well, I’d say that at least in my experience, Novas, Firebirds, El Caminos, (bitchin’) Camaros and the like were all fairly common as well. I’d say anyone cool enough to be rockin’ a more classically-authentic muscle car (Charger, Challenger, Mustangs) generally wouldn’t fit the mold anyway.
5-4-Fighting, I just checked the Urban Dictionary and it doesn’t say a thing about “hood” in the 1950’s through 1970’s sense being used these days for blacks. All the senses of the word “hood” in it used for present-day black culture are clearly derived from the term “hood” which comes from “neighborhood” and is not related to the older sense of “hood.”
Oops. Also, he didn’t have straight hair. He had an I-fro, as was the fashion at the time.
Yes, but isn’t the word “hood” from the '50 spelled h-o-o-d, and the word “hood” today spelled h-o-o-d? Having not gotten the joke (even after it was explained to you) and not understood that I know they are of different derivations, I guess you’ll continue to be a little too literal.
Count me as another who associates hood=hoodlum with a much earlier era, roughly from the mid-1950’s through mid-1960’s. Hoods of that era wore leather jackets and big boots (Cuban heels), slicked back their hair (they were also called “greasers”), and smoked in school. Picture the Fonz with a more malevolent personality.
Reader’s Digest would run articles like, “Are Teenage Hoods Taking Over Our Towns and Schools?”, and parents would get all hot and bothered.
By the time I went to high school (1973-77), the term was obsolete. The same type of kids were called “burn-outs”, wore jeans instead of leather, and added pot smoking to their repertoire.
My kids were in high school in roughly that same period and despite being in a parochial school where the real low-lifes were unlikely to have as dominant a presence as true “hoods” and where the class distinctions were less severe than they were in public schools, the rowdies and misfits and trouble-makers were dubbed “rednecks” by my kids and their associates. I can’t remember the term “hood” carrying much weight in those days.
I don’t really think those “rednecks” were a criminal element, but their preference for Skoal and snuff instead of Camels and Marlboros helped to set them apart.
Another category that has been around since I was a little guy and which hasn’t changed all that much is Jocks. Where Jocks blended with Hoods you had some real trouble!
Our “hoods” were short for “hoodlum” and were referred to as “greasers” in our neighborhood. They usually had cool muscle cars (but who didn’t in the mid-60s?) and wore cabrettas and sharkskin pants. And you really needed to roll up a pack of smokes in your t-shirt sleeve to complete the look.
I was a teenager in the late 70s, and that type of person was called a “head” or a “hescher”.
Yeah where I grew up, they were heads, short, I presumed, for headbangers. Metallica teeshirts, denim jackets with band backpatches - Iron Maiden, Cinderella, frickin Whitesnake. Do they still make backpatches? Wallets on chains, big clunky workboots, tightass jeans, plastic comb in back pocket. Boys had long hair parted in the middle, bangs, feathered mullets. Girls had big hairsprayed hair, tall Wall of Bangs, and hoop earrings.
I graduated high school in 92, in Buffalo suburbs.
Yep, that’s the classic “hood”. Beavis and Butt-head did a hilarious riff on this in the episode where they had to watch a “scared straight” movie in Mr. Buzzcut’s Driver Ed class. The movie was grainy and thirty years old, and the “careless drivers” were stereotypical 1960’s greasers. Which of course prompted B&B to say, “Wooooo . . . these guys are cool!”
They were still plentiful in Buffalo into the 1990s, and I still see a few every time I’m back there. They were also called “groders” and “heshers”. More characteristics, at least from the Buffalo version:
- Fan of hard rock and heavy metal. Black concert t-shirts are a part of their uniform.
- Their other preferred car type was a 1970s-era Chevrolet Nova, or big GM coupes from the 1970s, with the exception of the Chevrolet Monte Carlo (“That’s a fuckin’ guido car!”) “Hooker headers, glass pack muffler, Holley four-barrel carb, fuckin’ a!” It’ll be guaranteed to have a 97 Rock bumper sticker.
- Usually attended one of the vocational magnet high schools: Burgard and Seneca were their favorites, with a few at McKinley. If they could pass the tough entrance exam, the smart groders went to Hutch Tech.
- Breeding grounds: Riverside, Black Rock, Lovejoy, Kaisertown, First Ward, The Valley. They are all working-class, predominantly white neighborhoods literally surrounded by factories.
- Not necessarily a loner.
This bit of email lore circulated in the early 1990s. The “Riverside” it refers to is a neighborhood in Buffalo, not the city in Southern California.
*You may be from Riverside (a neighborhood in Buffalo) if –
- You consider abandoned grain mills and factories as places of worship.
- Your car has at least two body panels that are painted in grey primer.
- Your house smells like feet and “oregano.”
- You consider “F**kin’ a!” to be a complete, grammatically correct sentence.
- You ever lived within walking distance of at least three adult book stores.
- You own more than five bongs.
- “Glass pack muffler” is a regular part of your vocabulary.
- The most prized item in your wardrobe is a Quiet Riot concert t-shirt.
- You know the current market price for “ounces” and “nickel bags”
- You still consider feathered hair to be an up-to-date style.
- You don’t have a cellular phone, but you have at least three CB radios, one of which is illegally modified for “extras.”
- All the buttons of your car stereo are set to “97 Fuckin’ Rock, man!”
- You ever spray-painted your significant other’s name on a railroad bridge.
- You ever spray-painted “Slayer” on a railroad bridge – or carved it into your arm with an X-acto knife.
- You know where “Snakeland” is.
- You have a candle holder shaped like a skull.*
Sorry to bring this long-dead thread back up, but there seem to be some people like this at my school. They fit pretty much everything except the car, since none of them can drive, and their two favorite bands seem to be Iron Maiden and Metallica. I once saw the Iron Maiden logo drawn on a desk. It was really good. That logo’s hard to draw.
Sorry to bring this long-dead thread back up, but there seem to be some people like this at my school. They fit pretty much everything except the car, since none of them can drive, and their two favorite bands seem to be Iron Maiden and Metallica. I once saw the Iron Maiden logo drawn on a desk. It was really good. That logo’s hard to draw.
Sorry for the double post.