I hope you’re hungry, because this week’s edition has plenty to chew on — or as we sometimes say in the news biz, “this edition is all beef!”
OK, so maybe I’m the only one who says that, but nevertheless, it’s true! I can’t escape the tendency to make up my own vernacular.
In fact, I’ve been a fan of slang since my earliest years, so much so that I had a West Coast cousin once buy me a Christmas present — not my three brothers, mind you, just me … her clear favorite — back when I was 7 years old.
The spirit behind the present was two-fold.
On one hand, the Chicago Bears were having a standout season on their way to the Super Bowl. On the other, it depicted one of my favorite terms at the time, which just so happened to coincide with the nickname of the Bears’ Hall of Fame running back.
The present was a T-shirt emblazoned with a photo of Walter Payton, wearing his famous headband, and beneath it was his nickname — and my favorite phrase — “Sweetness.”
Growing up in the ‘80s, there was no shortage of slang — rad, bogus, far out, tubular, grody, gag me with a (pick your kitchen utensil), psych, bodacious, homeslice, no duh, word — and I used it all with varying degrees of frequency.
Then in 1989, two major milestones occurred that cemented my propensity for slang forevermore.
The first, and most important, was when the defining, seminal work of Keanu Reeves hit the big screen — “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” I saw it multiple times in theaters and couldn’t get enough.
The story follows two dimwitted, California slackers as they traveled through time in an attempt to pass their history final and graduate high school.
Needless to say, they accomplished their goal, with plenty of hijinks and foibles along the way. But I was hooked on the vibe!
As a self-proclaimed, natural-born, ocean-side surfer born in the landlocked Midwest, I was captivated by their whole scene. And the slang they used, oh, the slang.
Soon enough, I had incorporated most of it into my everyday language, and on occasion, made a trip to the principal’s office as a result.
But my love for Bill S. Preston esquire, and Ted Theodore Logan shall never die.
At the end of 1989, the second milestone arrived — this time on the ol’ boob tube.
The Simpsons — now the longest-running series in television history — arrived on television sets like a wrecking ball. Nothing like it had ever been on primetime TV, and many weren’t sure what to make of it.
The earliest seasons are still my favorite. They were gritty. The animation was a bit crude. But the jokes were unlike any I had ever heard, and the writing was next level.
Of course, at the center of it all was Bartholomew “Cowabunga” Simpson. He was the mischievous, disrespectful rebel with a hidden heart of gold.
Needless to say, Mom banned us Crane boys from watching it, though our rabbit-ears antennae was never quite strong enough to get Fox 59 anyway.
But lucky for me, my cousins were under no such constraints, and better yet, they taped every episode.
Who’d have thought my first taste of criminality would be bootlegged copies of The Simpsons I smuggled across state lines? Bart would surely be proud.
…though I wonder about the statute of limitations now that I’ve put that into writing.
Nevertheless, Bart’s vocabulary added new layers to my lexicon.
By the late ‘90s, I was spending a “two-year vacation” as a snowboard bum in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. If I couldn’t catch the salty waves as an ocean-side surfer, I would surely make up for it on the white waves of deep powder days.
Well, Bill and Ted have got nothin’ on the slang that’s deeply embedded into the quintessential life of a hardcore snowboarder, and well, I still haven’t recovered.
This jibbonkin’ bro still shreds the powpow with burly abandon, puttin’ all the steez on my tweaked airtime.
Then came college, and later grad school. No room for the steez in those locales.
And yet, I find they had a slang all their own, using words that signal inclusion into the “cool kids club” of intellectualism. More often than not, the more syllables the better, and bonus points for obscurity.
By then, I had figured out where my heart was, and the ivory tower proved too polished for my taste.
Oh, I can still fake it with the best of them, but my energies are better spent elsewhere.
After all, I still have a toddler at home and can often be found wiping a backside that is not my own.
Speaking of steez.
Editor Stephen Crane is a husband, father of four and Morgan County native. Contact him at 765-201-0010 or at scrane@morgancountycorrespondent.com.
