Banana Bag

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there, this is Jamie calling from Calais, Vermont.

Hello, Jamie.

Hi, Jamie, welcome to the show. What is up?

Thank you. I am a caregiver for elderly folks, and a gentleman who I care for is very particular about his language. And the one thing that’s really stuck out to me is he insists that his fanny pack, the little pouch that he keeps his wallet and notebook and stuff in, is called a banana. And he’s not allowed to call it anything other than a banana. And I was just wondering if that’s got something in his mind or if there’s any other people who have ever called fanny packs bananas.

Jamie, tell us what that looks like. Is it yellow by any chance?

It’s not yellow. It’s blue.

Okay. And it’s just a standard, you know, something you’d get at Walmart for $5, and it holds his wallet and a few other incidents.

Okay. Is he from Vermont?

He’s not. He’s lived in Vermont off and on since the 50s, but he grew up in Washington, D.C., in a home that sort of hosted—he often had international dignitaries living with him or stayed with him when they visited D.C. And then he also, his heritage is Lakota Sioux. And so he spent summers, starting when he was about six, visiting relatives outside of a reservation in Oklahoma.

All right. We may be getting near an answer to this. Is he a horsey person? Does he or has he worked with horses or does he know horses? Perhaps on his summers with the Lakota?

Yes, he talks a lot about how when he was there for the summers, it was really important. Everyone sort of had a horse and a dog.

Okay. And yeah, that was an important part of his childhood. The pieces are now fitting and the puzzle is complete. There is a type of bag used among people who ride horses called a banana bag. It goes behind the saddle. It’s a long bag, roughly the shape of a banana, curved over the back of a horse.

Cool.

Yeah. So I suspect that is a natural use of the term for him. I suspect he borrowed the term banana bag from the horse world and applied it to the fanny pack.

That sounds very, very likely. Really interesting. I’ll have to ask him more about his time working with horses.

Yeah. I would love to know. He draws that connection, too. I would love to know, Jamie. I would love to hear confirmation if he could say, oh, yeah, of course. He might even be wondering why it’s a curiosity to you, because it might seem like a natural use of that expression.

Right. He was confused that I had another name for it.

Oh, there we go. Yeah, like he wasn’t, when I called it a fanny pack, he was like, what’s a fanny pack? That’s a banana.

Well, it sounds like you have your work cut out for you, Jamie, to get some more information about his experience with horses.

Absolutely. That’ll be a good tack to get him rolling and some fun old stories.

Yeah, sure. Excellent. And if anything new comes up, by all means, give us another call, okay?

I would absolutely let you know. Take care now. Appreciate it.

Bye, Jamie.

Thank you so much.

Sure.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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