McHuston Booksellers

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Thanksgiving 2014

November 27, 2014 /

Happy Thanksgiving!

And what a beautiful day it is… a sunny opportunity to reflect – each of us in our own way – on what has brought us to this point and what we have to be thankful for in our lives.

Personally, I have a long list, one you will not be subjected to in this holiday note. But, there are some thank-you’s that come to me even when it isn’t the Thanking Holiday. I’m fortunate and appreciative of Mr. and Mrs. S. for allowing the business to locate in the Rose District. Every morning when I unlock the door and step inside, I recall how lucky I am to be able to call this my place of work.

Except it isn’t so much like work when you love it.

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So, it’s a rare day off at the bookstore, except Chef Dustin and I are here, peeling and chopping just like any other morning. Today’s potatoes are headed for the family gathering, while tomorrow we’ll be back to prepping for our family of guests. The phone rang while I was peeling, and the lady wondered if we were open for lunch today, and I’m thankful for that. It is reassuring that someone is thinking of us, even on a holiday.

It’s a little difficult to see in the image, with the photo taken through the double-glass in the oven door, but Chef-D has concocted a Scalloped Sweet Potato au Gratin dish that was picture-worthy. (Update: It was also dinner-worthy and a tasty addition to the delicious assortment of offerings at the family table. Obviously, I ate too much.)

I’m thankful and appreciative of those who work in the service industry, who don’t have the day off, or will only enjoy part of a day with family or friends. People behind the counter at QuikTrip and other 365-a-year businesses. People who protect and serve, guide in the airliners, radio and television folks. We sometimes take for granted those ongoing jobs and we might forget that the people in those professions have home lives as well.

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If you’ll bear with me, I would like to express my thanks for the chance to work again with my son Dustin, and now with his wife Rachel. It’s a chance to get to know each other better as adults. My own father died before I got to really know him and it makes me understand the chance I’ve been given. (Even while realizing they’re quietly tolerating my idiosyncrasies. I’m thankful for that too!)

It goes without saying (except I’ll say it) that I am thankful for the health of my kids and my grandchildren. That certainly goes for family and friends, near and far. I’m thankful for the many folks who have become much more than customers over the years, and the guests who stuck with us during the lengthy construction project that was the genesis of the Rose District.

As we approach the anniversary of our ninth year on Main Street, I am thankful for all of you who have shown support, offered kind words or suggestions, who have continued to make it possible for a horse-and-buggy-type business to survive in the age of Nascar. The e-readers are here to stay, but I’m mindful that enough of you still think fondly of the printed page’s look and feel to keep us grazing in the pasture. And on occasion – racing like a Thoroughbred.

Those are the extra-fun days, and I’m looking forward to more of those to come.

All the best to you and yours on this special day!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

Ghosts in the Daylight…

November 25, 2014 /

Workers have uncovered a ghost on Main Street, while chipping away at the façade of the former credit union near Dallas Street. Not a scary sort of thing. More of a look into the past.

They are referred to as Ghost Signs – the painted ads on the side of a building or wall that promote something long gone. Sometimes they simply survive in faded style. Others are preserved by some circumstance or another. When the workers knocked the bricks loose, behind the facade was another wall. Painted on that now-exposed brick are the words PONTIAC – TEMPEST.

Even though Pontiac is a ghost itself these days, having been discontinued by GM in 2010, it isn’t so long-gone that we don’t remember it. Tempest, on the other hand, I haven’t a clue. There was a Pontiac Tempest introduced as a model in the 1960’s, and I suppose a dealer could paint the name on the building (although most dealers advertise their make, rather than individual car types).

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Carl Lea was the Pontiac dealer on Main.

He grew up around the corner on Dallas Street, the son of Charles Lea, who had moved to Broken Arrow from Coweta and managed a hotel – could have been the Hotel Mains, which was at 202 West Dallas, and just down from their home. By 1930, Carl was working as a department manager at the lumberyard. Not too many years later he was selling cars at Main and Dallas, the Carl Lea Motor Company.

In the early fifties, Mr. Lea was at the controls of some heavier machinery and his business was listed as Carl Lea Earth Movers, at the same 311 Main Street address.

He may have still been selling cars, but there was stiff competition on that block of Main. Fred Boren sold Fords across the street, and the Strader-Foster Motor Company gave test drives from their showroom in that same stretch of businesses.

Mr. Lea isn’t on Main Street any longer, but he left a little reminder for us, that came to light on a crisp November morning in 2014.

Those kinds of ghosts don’t worry me one bit. Then – there was the call from Lori at the BA Historical Museum. I’d called to ask who the Pontiac dealer was. She confirmed my research about Carl Lea, and passed along a little extra information I hadn’t found.

“Before Carl Lea, it was McHuston Pontiac,” she said, before moving on to something else.

“Whoa,” I said. “McHuston is the name of my store.”

“Mac-Oosten,” she repeated, and then spelled it for me. “M-little-c, C-U-I-S-T-O-N.

“McQuiston,” I said.

“Except they pronounced it, Mc-Ooston.”

And that’s close enough to McHuston for me. A distant ghost-relation maybe, showing up from behind the brick façade. Now, that’s spooky!

Changes in the air, so come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

Snow place like home…

November 22, 2014 /

Back when I was young and adventurous, and open to the idea of working in far-flung places, I wrangled a job interview with a radio station in Buffalo, New York. At the time, I had never been to the northeast, but figured I could find it on a map.

On another job interview, I’d been flown up to Kansas City to meet face-to-face, but I understood completely when the folks in Buffalo asked that I first complete a telephone interview. It’s a lot longer flight to Buffalo than Kansas City. Pricier ticket.

aBuffaloSnow

So, after getting the introductions and explanations out of the way, the news director began the job interview. The first question put to me?

“What sort of vehicle do you drive?

Huh? My vehicle? That was certainly out of left field – or so I thought. Nothing about my experience or training. Just the vehicle question that had made me pause.

“A Monte Carlo,” I replied – which was the truth. I was trying to figure out some relevant angle, and wondered if I should bring up the fact that I had broken the oil pan on it while navigating a rocky trail in the Kiamichi Mountains attempting to reach a plane crash. No time for that.

“What do you drive in the winter?” he was already asking.

“A Monte Carlo,” I repeated.

“Oh, that won’t do,” he said, in a tone that sounded a little condescending.

“Won’t do?”

“No way. You know the kind of winters we have here, I’m guessing.” (I didn’t. I was young, living in Oklahoma, and happy to own a sort-of-still-new Monte Carlo.) He continued before I could stick my foot in my mouth. “Everyone on the staff has a four-wheel drive vehicle of some kind,” he added. “It’s the only way to get around.”

Now, I had witnessed snow before. But, in truth, most of the deep, heavy snow accumulations that I had seen in my life had been – on television. Maybe a scene or two in the movies. James Bond skiing off that Austrian cliff in The Spy Who Loved Me. A lot of snow there.

I was naïve enough to never consider that the geography of the job would present its own set of special requirements. And Monte Carlos did not fit the bill. By the time he finished outlining for me the amounts of snow encountered during a typical Buffalo winter, I had no desire to work there. I had no desire to even be flown up for another interview.

Thanking him for his time, I bade him goodbye and couldn’t resist mentioning how I enjoyed playing outdoors on Christmas Day with my newly-opened presents. Indian summers and all that.

Over the years I’ve heard plenty of complaints from folks about the humid summers we experience in our part of the world. Give me humidity over snowdrifts any day.

Just seeing the mountains of collected white on the recent news reminded me how close I’d come to making a big bad life choice. I owe that fellow a debt for starting that interview the way he did, so many years ago.

Otherwise, I might just now be starting to thaw out.

Chilly this afternoon in the Rose District, and a little breezy. Temperature? Sixties. Balmy by comparision, so…

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

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