15 Highway

A “Lucky Break” – Did you get yours?

By Charles L Harmon

A popular American saying is “a lucky break” or “lucky break” which you can hear sometimes when something good happens to someone.  Sometimes it refers to a person getting a job, meeting someone who could greatly help them in some way or in some other circumstance where the person getting the “lucky break” might benefit greatly because of their “lucky break”.

Some think this saying came out of circus slang that referred to the weather – which is very important to circus people. Bad weather can ruin a circus because rain, snow, or cold weather can reduce the hope for large crowds to a mere trickle. If the weather turned bad when the circus came to town it “broke bad”.

Another idea of the origin of “lucky break” may have originated in the poolrooms in the United States many years ago. If you have ever played pool and pocketed a ball on the first break someone may have said “you got a lucky break” or “what a lucky break” or some such similar phrase. Hitting a ball into the pocket on the first break was considered a lucky break.

Regardless of how the “lucky break” phrase originated in the USA it was revived from its use in primitive times. It’s a very old phrase and probably different countries attribute the phrase to different things at different times.

Way back when – in “primitive times”  when a member of a tribe wanted to frighten away invisible evil-doers or spirits that tried to interfere in the affairs of men, or the tribe member wanted to assure a successful outcome of some coming event, he would do something to effect it. He would take a stick and snap it in the middle to make a loud noise which he truly believed would make the outcome successful.

If things went well afterward, well then it was most certainly due to the “lucky break.” Even today, when we pick up a dry twig or weed and until recently a wooden matchstick, and just playfully snap it into, that habit derives its origin from this lucky break tradition from early man  doing something similar to scare away bad influences. It seems that the loud snapping sound did the trick, that is, if it worked at all.

Nowadays we still snap our fingers and knuckles making a snapping sound. That custom is derived from the old lucky break custom, but few people know its origins. So when you snap your fingers or crack your knuckles are you expecting or getting your lucky break?

There is another application of this old custom, but is now dated and probably no longer applies, but the expression “lucky break” was apparently used by superstitious actors in the theater. They used to always step hard on an empty pack of cigarettes, Lucky Strikes cigarettes, and that was supposed to be an omen of good luck, especially on opening nights.

I don’t smoke and doubt that brand of cigarettes is still around. It’s been many years since I have seen a package of Lucky Strikes so my guess is you’ll never see that custom anymore. If I’m wrong, however, I’m sure I will get some comments about my mistake. Use the comment box for this article if you wish to scold me for my assumption.

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