David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published March 23, 2004

My 2-year-old is cool? She's never even seen Fonzie!

Since when is my daughter cool? I'm not sure a 2-year-old CAN be cool, let alone know what's cool and what's not. She still has, you know, "potty accidents." She's almost a potty master, but not quite, and yet somehow this not-even-3-year-old has acquired a sense of cool. How cool can anyone be with soaked pants?

As we were motoring about town one day, she asked me, "Dad, I want the 'Alphabet Song,'" meaning that she wanted to listen to the Sesame Street CD rather than Fox Sports Radio.

"And ..." I prodded her.

"Pleeeease!" she offered.

"All right. Give me a second to put in the CD."

"OK, that's cool," she happily responded.

"That's COOL? What do you mean, 'That's cool?' What do you know about cool?"

"Cool! That's cool! Cool! Cool! Cool!" she fired back.

"Are you cool?" I asked, curious as to whether she thought everything under the sun was cool or if she had actually thought through her assessments.

"I'm coooooool!" she said proudly.

"How about your brother?"

"Phil cool, too!"

"Is Daddy cool?"

Grinning, she realized that I had just set her up for a slam dunk.

"No! Daddy's not cool!"

I've been teaching her many things in the past year: the alphabet, numbers up to 20, how to say "cracker" rather than "cwacker," how to wash her hands, basic manners, not to jump on her brother's head. With all I have imparted upon her, I haven't addressed the issue of cool. Somehow she's picked it up on her own, which begs the question: Where does a 2-year-old learn about cool?

Cool is an odd word. It's been popular slang for many generations, not just one or two. Generations usually take their slang with them as they get older, and younger generations would rather establish their own slang rather than adopt their parents'. Flappers were cool in the 1920s, and Elvis was cool in the '50s. It's hardly a new word. In fact, with just a couple of keystrokes, we learn that the slang version of cool goes back to the 19th century with phrases like "stay cool" and "cool as a cucumber." Continuing with the notion that cool is something good, the black community started using cool to mean good or fine or pleasing. Everyone else picked it up from there.

When I was a young lad, I didn't know anything about 19th-century blacks who wanted to be as chilly as a salad ingredient. For me, cool's name was, and is, Arthur Fonzarelli. Fonzie is cool. Cool is Fonzie. The words Fonzie and cool are interchangeable. He gets the girls, he brings jukeboxes to life with a thump of his fist, he has impeccable hair, and he drives a motorcycle. Fonzie is so cool that his mere presence scared guys. Think of it -- Fonzie has a reputation of being a great fighter, but he never actually fought. For all I know, the Fonz never landed a punch.

But my daughter has never seen the Fonz, and it's not a word I typically use around the house. After all, I'm a parent who drives a minivan. Cool left the building a long time ago. So how does she know cool?

The only possible answer is that she picked it up from her buddies. That's what parents always think. It was the other kid. Her little friends had to have been the ones to clue her in on the idea of cool, but there's no telling how the 2- and 3-year-old friends found out. Older siblings, parents, "Happy Days" reruns -- who can know? I have a hard enough time keeping tabs on my kids much less what other little urchins are doing.

If my 2-year-old's idea of cool is interesting to me now, I can't imagine what lies ahead. Only two things are certain. One, she won't be asking Dad what's cool when she's 15. Two, the Fonz will still be cool, even when she's 15.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.