McHuston Booksellers

Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: Broken Arrow (Page 44 of 141)

White Linen Night and I was in Cotton.

August 18, 2014 /

High Cotton, and white linen undies.

You don’t really believe that, do you?

The white linen is under the belt. Sauntering the streets in August, Rose District style. We certainly had the warm evening for wearing linen, even if there were a lot of cotton tees on display. Comfort, first of all.

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It was a night for the extended McHuston clan to gather, from Great-grandmother to that happiest grand-daughter o’ mine – and everyone in between. Thanks to daughter Kristen and son Dustin for manning the lines, both on the sidewalk and in the kitchen.

The new beer dispenser got its first real workout and came through with flying colors. Boulevard Wheat on draft. It’s a tasty brew even when it isn’t a hot August night. Which it was.

For the first go-round, White Linen Night in the Rose District will be recorded as a success for McHuston Booksellers & Irish Bistro. Sampled some Bangers & Mash in an unorthodox fashion – on a whitebread roll. Sliced the bread, laid in the sausage link all hot dog fashion, then topped it with creamy, handmade mashed potatoes and a little of our special Irish Stew gravy. Maybe a tad messy, but delicious! A thanks to Rachel for the idea and to all who tried one Saturday evening.

After seeing the photograph that the Tulsa World selected to showcase our little operation, I am reassured that the decision to have Kristen at the cash register was a good one. I’d have rather had her picture on the TW website, but I’ll settle for the brother and sister image I’ve attached.

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Next year, we might make some posters. Maybe a few handbills to pass out in the shopping bags. Try to get an article or two in the news, before the event. (I know there were some, because I read a couple. But a couple more might have helped attendance.) As with any new project, there is a learning curve.

But – truth to tell, it was a success for us.

Anytime we can get together as a family and meet new friends wandering the Rose District – it’s a hit. Cotton, Linen, or Commando.

Here’s to bigger and better next year!

Come visit!

McHuston

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

Old dogs. New tricks.

August 11, 2014 /

There is so much to learn, and we only have one lifetime in which to master it all. At my stage of the game, I’m picking my lessons. Some are more entertaining than others. Today’s learning-project involved beer kegs.

Luckily, I have some life-experts that I can count on for advice. I’ve learned the hard way that I’d rather not learn things the hard way. Ronnie let me know that I could disconnect a full keg without it exploding. That’s important knowledge.

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When a keg ran out in the old days, someone would poke their head in the kitchen and call out that this keg or that keg had blown. I would dash into the walk-in refrigerator and start rocking kegs until I found an empty. Then, there is the little handle. Pop that up, then do the twist-on, twist-off thingy. Remove the valve from one and replace it on another with the same label.

And that was the extent of my knowledge. My partner kept track of that stuff. I had enough work to keep me busy in the kitchen.

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These days, when the handle is pulled and beer doesn’t come streaming out of the spout, I’m the one who has to figure it out. I’ve learned that the CO2 container is important. When the needle points to the red area on the gauge, that’s not good. When a newly-filled container is attached to the line and still the beer isn’t pouring, that’s even worse.

I’ve always thought that – where beer is concerned – the frostier, the better. When I saw the thermometer at 29-degrees, I could not have been happier, knowing that the refrigerator was doing its job so well. The machine believes it’s a freezer. Turns out, when it gets too cold, beer freezes.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened.

The beer was so cold that it froze inside the small line leading to the spout. (It’s still difficult to get mad at anyone or anything for doing a job so well…) It was easy enough to open the door long enough for the line to thaw and then turn the thermostat a notch.

From the internet I learned that beer served from a keg ought to be chilled to 38-degrees. That’s still pretty frosty. Just not freezing-up-frosty.

So, that’s the lesson for today. None of the Boulevard Wheat went out at lunchtime. The line was frozen solid. But tomorrow is another day, and beer & corned beef on rye is a pretty good combination.

Or so I’m told.

Come visit!

McHuston

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

Another Encounter with the Little Giant

August 4, 2014 /

“Look out!” I hollered, and then looked toward the driver who was backing out of the parking space. He’d nearly hit me as I walked toward my car, but I smiled as soon as I saw who it was behind the wheel. No matter your politics, you extend an amount of courtesy and respect to a man who was next in line for the US presidency.

Even if it’s after a near-miss auto-pedestrian event.

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Carl Albert was retired by then, and maybe he was used to having a personal driver. Regardless, I survived the incident and got a friendly wave from him out of it.

Saw his name on the spine of a book during a weekend book-scouting run, and I couldn’t resist looking inside. I’m always tickled when there’s a signature inside the cover. Mr Albert signed this copy back in 1990. The handwriting is a little shaky, but he was 82 years old at the time – a few years older than he was the day we nearly bumped into each other in the parking lot. Literally.

It’s a bit of shame that the book has fallen out of the hands of the original owner’s family. It was inscribed to a granddaughter of a woman who had worked in Carl Albert’s first congressional campaign in 1946.

Mr Albert was born in a little community near Eufaula called Bug Tussel, but maintained an office in McAlester after his retirement from politics. As the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Mr Albert would have assumed the presidency during the Nixon administration, had the president been removed from office by impeachment. (Nixon resigned instead, as you recall.) Vice-President Spiro Agnew had already resigned, and the vacated office left House Speaker Carl Albert as the next in the line of succession to the big office.

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The occasion escapes me now, but I interviewed Mr Albert at his office one afternoon. It was something I could have easily accomplished over the telephone, but I wanted to meet him in person. To date, he remains the highest ranking Oklahoman ever to serve his country in elected office. Heck. There was even a bust of him mounted on a pedestal in front of the federal building at McAlester.

In fact, I had fielded what I thought was a crank phone call early one morning, when a tipster advised me that “Carl Albert was at the bottom of the McAlester Motor Inn swimming pool.” I phoned his office and his secretary assured me that Mr Albert was doing just fine at his desk.

It wasn’t until later in the day that I discovered my tip didn’t involve the man himself – just his bronze likeness. Some prankster had dislodged it from the granite mounting and carried it off before getting cold feet (or getting sober) and ridding himself of it. The former speaker was netted from eight feet of crystal clear water, and once landed, was returned to his place of honor on (where else?) Carl Albert Parkway.

That was the day I began taking all news tips seriously. At least long enough to determine if there might be some statue-fishing truth to any fishy-sounding story.

When I got the book back to the shop, I kicked myself a little. There probably aren’t too many folks who even remember Mr. Albert and his service to the US, or the small-town Oklahoma upbringing that started a journey to one of the nation’s highest offices. The book may be a long-term occupant here in the store.

But that’s okay. I’ll consider the book a souvenir of the day I crossed paths with a high-falootin’ politician and lived to talk about it. I couldn’t save him from the swimming pool back then, but Mr Albert can keep me company here in the shop as long as he likes. Or until I find him a good home.

And he needn’t fear the backing-up of the bookcart.

Come visit!

McHuston

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

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