Tag: popular culture

An ode to the word flavor of the month

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A ‘derecho,’ disguised as a big thunderstorm, is about to roll in. (National Weather Service photo)

Warning: Old Man rant ahead.

I’m not really a Get-Off-My-Lawn! guy, but sometimes things really bring out the Geezer in me. And chief of among them are hip new words or phrases that come into vogue out of nowhere.

Derecho, for instance. I’ve already debated this on the 3 Old Geezers podcast with my fellow cohost, whom I will call “Geezer Steve.” Steve argues that derecho has been in play for years and I just haven’t noticed.

I object to that, because it’s only in the last, maybe a year, that I ever saw or heard the word. And I consume a lot of media.

If you are like me and confused as to what a derecho is, think of it as a big thunderstorm. That’s what we called them back in my day.

“Wow, look at that line of clouds, I’m pretty sure a big thunderstorm is about to hit.”

But, nooo. Now it’s a derecho, defined as a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms.

Although Geezer Steve has been sending me links to stories that make reference to derechos, I contend that it’s the word flavor of the month.

There are many others, of course. Let’s start with “haboob.” It’s a big sandstorm, and back in the day they were known as “sandstorms.”

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A sandstorm rolls into Guymon back on ‘Black Sunday,’ April 14, 1935

I wonder how many Western Oklahoma farmers during the Depression ran into their house shouting “there’s a haboob” about the hit? None.

See what I mean? Thunderstorms evolve into derechos and sandstorms become haboobs.

Want more? Bomb cyclone. Polar Vortex. Atmospheric river. Flash drought. I could go on all day.

It’s not all related to weather, of course. In the NFL, we have “edge rushers,” when in the old days we had defensive ends. In baseball, it’s all about launch angles today.

In popular culture, we’ve got FOMO and ghosting and Finstas and Karens and Stans and on and on.

When you’ve reached the Old Man stage like I have, there’s so much to get riled up about. And one of them is KEEPING THOSE PESKY KIDS OFF MY LAWN.

So, I’m headed outside to police my neighborhood and keep an eye out for a dreaded derecho.

Culture shock and a hip-hop happening of a Tweet

The former Homeland Store at NW 122nd and May Ave. has been vacant for many years

On a whim one day this week, I stepped out of my car and shot a photo of the long-vacant Homeland store at NW 122nd and May Ave.

I was waiting for my daughter to come out of a haircare store in the strip center when the abandoned grocery store caught my attention.

I shopped there many times in the late 1980s, along with what appeared to be most of my fellow NW OKC citizens. It was a busy, busy place.

It’s sort of bewildering to see the anchor store of this whole intersection sit empty year after year. Is there no one with an idea or the resources to bring it back to life?

Anyway, I quickly tweeted out the photo with a short message, describing it as a “hip-hop happening place” in the ’80s, because that’s how I thought of it.

Little did I know that the words “hip-hop” would trigger an avalanche of interest in the post. Within 24 hours, the post had 15,000 views.

Two days later, views top 20,000 and almost 1,500 Twitter users had actually clicked on the photo for a closer look.

At first, I thought, ‘wow, there’s a lot of interest in this old, abandoned grocery store.’

Then it hit me. There are a lot of hip-hop fans out there who follow everything related — music, lifestyle, people. I’m sure many of them have set their accounts to send an alert anytime the words ‘hip-hop’ are mentioned in a tweet.

By Saturday morning, the Tweet had more than 27,000 views. And growing.

It’s been my first brush with a viral tweet, all because I wasn’t hip-hop enough to know what I was saying.

Apologies to disappointed hip-hop fans.