Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: Bixby (Page 67 of 116)

Ooh. Sooners!

I expect a call immediately from OU coach Bob Stoops. Thanks are in order. There has been a (shall I say it?) jinx over the years. When I watch the Sooners play on TV, they lose. When I don’t watch – they win. Needless to say, I was in front of the television the night of the Sugar Bowl. I watched a crime show.

Granted, I flipped over every ten minutes or so. I was fortunate enough to watch – LIVE – a Sooner touchdown! I changed channels immediately, worrying about the whole sports balance of things. (When I flipped back later, there was a significant penalty against OU, which I figured was Karma for my having seen an OU scoring drive.

Earlier in the evening – me alone in the bookshop – I said some words I won’t repeat in this public forum – after hearing the ESPN announcers prognosticating the odds of a University of Oklahoma win as slim. NO. It wasn’t a no chance thing, not at all, it was an impossibility for the University of Oklahoma Sooners to win the Sugar Bowl game against the Alabama Crimson Tide. No. No chance. Nada. None, whatsoever. (Get it?) The Sooners can NOT possibily win. Oh, the announcers were very eloquent about the subject, but the bottom line was, the University of Oklahoma against the University of Alabama? Sell the souls of your children. It won’t make any difference. No divine intervention will stop the Crimson Tide. Not a prayer in the world will be heard on behalf of an OU win.

Arghhh!

It’s hard to hear that kind of talk. Especially when it comes to the Sooners. I’m old enough to remember the years of Sooner Magic. When – against all odds – the Sooners – Oh, OH! Time is running OUT! – pulled out the win.

OH!

The blood pressure! Now, SportsCenter is calling it the biggest upset in the history of the collegiate Bowl Games. AAAaaaaahhhhhhhh! It is only an UPSET because the on-air doofus-announcers chose to call a Sooner’s win an impossible task.

Ouch.

I’ m really proud of OU – knocking off the Crimson Tide in a BCS Bowl Game. It never occurred to me that winning the game was against ALL odds. But that is what ESPN is all about.

They’ve even hired Tim Tebow, their main-man, their Prince-of-Pigskin, their Messiah of Mainstream, as a broadcaster for future collegiate games. Their guy who was the answer of ALL football questions. His future co-horts?

Mark May? The fellow who said the Sooner had ABSOLUTELY (Absolutely!) no chance of winning the game? Ooops. He was wrong.

Has he admitted his error? Not as of this late hour.

It doesn’t matter to me, though. My daughter – and all the money I could spare – went to OU. She was gracious enough to invite me to some Father-Daughter games and I was flattered at her invitation and excited to attend with her. As an OU family, it means a lot to get a win. (I remember when she attended a Bowl Game in New Orleans and the Sooners lost. The LSU fans wound up buying her drinks, even in her loss. (She knows public relations!)

Congratulations, Sooners! (And – as for my personal struggle – wanting to watch the game but knowing I can’t because of the resulting jinx – I’m hoping my viewing-abstinence can result in some form of – game over recollection – or at least a chance to watch a replay.) Nah. On second thought – I’m just happy just to have tuned in at the end, when the University of Oklahoma got the win over the team that ALL over America thought would be the winner.

Boomer. Sooner!

Come visit!

McHuston

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

Holidaze.

We spend so much time living our lives that it is sometimes difficult to recognize the various chapters – where we are, where we’ve been, what we have become. It was just yesterday, so it seems.

Way back then, I was hurrying up my holiday visit with the in-laws so I could drive back to Lawton to cover an early morning radio program. A day at work that had turned into Shades of Ebeneezer. I couldn’t wrangle time off on Christmas Day. Showed up for work in the chilly darkness. The program director unlocked the door and let me inside. I was surprised to see him. Apparently, he was surprised to see me. He asked me what I was doing there on Christmas morning.

The news, I replied. I’m the news director, remember?

He made a face and answered: It’s all Christmas music this morning. There aren’t any newscasts.

Oh.

The program director is in charge of the DJ staff. The news director is in charge of the news personnel. I asked him where all his part-timers were – those folks who desperately want to be on the radio.

He explained that none of them wanted to work Christmas morning, so he had fired them all. I didn’t fire my staff. But there we both were, the two top dogs barking our frustrated selves through the festival of carols at KSWO-AM.

Here I am at the bookshop counter so many years later. I have a radio in the window and music coming out of the speakers, but I’m several chapters removed from that part of my life. Now, my day starts at a more reasonable hour than morning drive radio required. I visit with people face-to-face instead of through a microphone and speakers.

It isn’t all books and bistro, as many of you know. I still do research for clients to help pay my bills. That’s what has me thinking about holidays and history.

Sifting through the records of a family it is easy to get to know them. I’m researching some folks who came to America from Europe in the late 1800s. This kind of investigating – before the internet – used to involve drives to distant courthouses and libraries. Trips to Kentucky and Virginia. North Carolina and Missouri.

It’s all keyboard skiing these days. I can type in a few words and BAM! I’m looking at treasured family portraits of young families from the turn of the century. I look at their faces and into their eyes and I trip through a juxtaposition of time – I’m much older than the people in the photograph, but even the youngest member of the family was born decades before me.

A few more searches reveal census records – that same husband and wife, a decade later. And another decade later. Age 41, Head of Household. Age 51, Head of Household. Age 61, living in Dallas. Age 71, living in a home for the aged.

A picture of the grey marble gravestone.

What chapter are you on in the book of your life?

It is too easy to skim through the pages. A place-marker comes around occasionally. A shiny Christmas morning with bright-eyed toddlers and sparkly wrapping paper. A quiet and long-overdue conversation with an old friend. A gathering of the cousins.

Make a mental note and appreciate the moments as stopping points in the narrative. Dog-ear a page or two. Come back to it later.

It isn’t a race to the finish. There are beautiful words included in the stories of our lives. It’s okay to read them more than once.

Merry Christmas all!

McHuston

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

All this new-fangled stuff. Podcasts.

It is something how an obscure memory can wind up as an audio feature, complete with sound effects! What started as a mention to Mitch – a man of many talents who drops off copies of THIS LAND to sell at the bookshop – is now a six minute radio production on This Land Radio.

Embarrassing.

Not the production. Ms Abby Wendle did a wonderful job digging up that old 70s music and putting it all together.

Sort of embarrassing to publicly admit to my early poverty-stricken days.

Don’t get me wrong. I am still stricken with poverty. I just don’t publicly admit it anymore.

Ooops.

What have I just said?

The holidays are nigh! Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main Street, Broken Arrow OK!

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