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Tag: Broken Arrow (Page 69 of 141)

Leanin’ on a lamppost. (Irish Olympic event.)

November 4, 2013 /

It’s a little bit like a flashlight with no batteries. You can bonk someone on the head with it, but only in the bright of day. Actually, it is nothing like that at all. The drift is, the bulb is missing, but the lamppost has been restored to its valued place on the sidewalk.

Hoo-haw!

My neighbor JoAnne (Hollow Tree Gifts) dropped in this morning, happy and sad at the same time. The good-news bad-news concerned the sidewalk in front of her shop. There wasn’t one. That was then.

I moseyed (have you moseyed lately?) down to her end of the block this afternoon and the workers are smoothing the last of the cement. She should be able to open her front door to customers in the morning.

In the sidewalk planter in front of the book shop are two gentlemen who are installing the landscaping irrigation and drainage. That’s a good thing. I was worried at the beginning when mention was made of the merchants taking care of the plants in front of their own stores. No objections from me regarding the work involved – it’s only my memory and the responsibility of keeping thirsty plants alive.

I’d hate to be the one who killed off the roses in the Rose District.

You can see in the image my headless-lamppost and in the other a view from the front-door looking north. For now, you’ll have to imagine the green foliage and rosebushes.

The block from Commercial to Dallas is getting back to normal, at least during the daytime. The tall lamps have banished the darkness, but it will be a much brighter nighttime on Main when all of the lamps are lit.

Timetables are approximate, but there are hopes that everything will be ready to go by the time the Main Street Merchants’ annual Tee-off comes around, mid-month. That’s the Holiday Shopping Season jump-start for the downtown businesses in which many of the stores hold open-house type events, and in previous years the event has featured horse-drawn carriage rides, live music, and traveling minstrel shows. (Okay. I made that last part up.)

A couple of ladies dropped in during the lunch hour just to see what “all the Rose District talk is about.” I’m glad to know there is talk going on and that it is piquing the curiosity of area shoppers. I hope they’ll come back with things are a little more tidy and the orange barrels have moved to some other B.A. location.

There is still plenty of work going on inside the shop, as well. Just shelved a nearly-complete Hardy Boys collection, nicely kept hardback volumes.

Traipsing down to the library (have you traipsed lately?) as a vacation-reading maniac one summer, I had as a goal to read every one of the mysteries. The librarian had a sheet of paper imprinted with an image of a suitcase, and with each completed book she applied a colorful “travel” sticker to the page. We naive young bookworms were traveling around the world through the printed page. My suitcase runneth over with stickers and – all the while – I was saved the worry of nasty tropical mosquito-borne diseases and Montezuma’s Revenge.

Golly-gee, it was a simpler time back then, wasn’t it? But, dad-gummit, I fell for it and wound up reading a stack of books that summer. In retrospect, I should have been practicing my little-league baseball skills. (Then again, I probably had better later-life prospects as a librarian than a second-baseman.)

The roast beef is on the stove and aroma drifting ‘round the shop is reminding me of Grandma Mamie’s Sunday table and Grandma Sylvia’s Thanksgiving spread. Irish stew weather is fast approaching. The kitchen is calling and my oven mitts are at the ready.

Come visit!

McHuston

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

Let there be Lights!

October 25, 2013 /

Noticed that the generated-powered emergency lights were cold and lonely this evening and I was all primed for a good rant: Why can’t they remember? What’s the point of setting them out there if they aren’t lit up?

Then, I noticed it wasn’t dark out outside. (I mean – of course it is DARK – it’s nighttime… But it isn’t pitch-black-can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face.) I moved closer to the windows and looked down the block.

Bam!

Lights on, downtown Broken Arrow.

Those great looking new street lamps that are lining the Rose District have been magically electrified, shining down in a golden glow over the new sidewalks and brick landscaping planters. Lookin’ good.

Of course, it isn’t a completed deal. The lamp post in front of the shop is still missing-in-action, as are those all along this side of Main. They are still pouring concrete (technically they are not at this moment, but the job is incomplete) and laying bricks between Commercial and Broadway will continue over the next few days. But – I’m thinking that store-front parking might be restored to the shop as early as next week.

Bam! Zowie!

Those of us with shops along the block here have been wandering with regularity, surveying the changes, crossing our fingers, marveling at the progress, and hoping that the weather, the stars, and the workers are all in alignment to avoid any delays. I can’t complain, truly.

I realized that there was no way a sidewalk could be replaced directly in front of the doorway without causing a little disruption to the business day. That day was Monday. There was a little carry-over Tuesday morning as the framework was put in place for the next section of sidewalk.

It was ready for walking by afternoon.

Today – Friday – I got to remember what a busier lunch hour was like. Still slower than the Springtime, but I was scooting back and forth from the kitchen to the tables on feet that wished they had fewer miles on them. (They were Happy Feet, though…)

Sold out of Irish Stew. Sold out of corned beef (although it lasted through the final order, unlike the stew, which was one bowl short). In all likelihood I would have run out of potato soup as well, but I had a second soup on the line for the first time in six months. (Maybe it was a premonition. Decided to offer a Spicy Chicken Tortilla soup in addition to the potato soup today – for some reason. Worked out well.)

At any rate, you can click on the images for a bigger version of First Light Night – the debut of the newly installed Rose District street lamps. Granted, it is still a little dim out there, with just half the street up and running. Tonight, the lamps on the shorter poles are still off, and the traffic signals have not yet been installed.

All things in due time.

I’m happy to see that electric glow (including the jazzy new sign on Bruhouse Grill’s storefront WHOA just clicked on their Facebook page…). As I was saying – the lamplight and the presence of nighttime shadows in the Rose District! Good stuff.

Come visit!

McHuston

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

Samuel L. out of Carolina. Shocking?

October 21, 2013 /

What was your last “flashbulb memory?” That’s what they call events like 9-11, or the Murrah Building bombing in OKC, or the Kennedy assassination, or for some the attack on Pearl Harbor. We all have at least one.

Some of us remember all kinds of things in that “flashbulb” fashion.

Right now, I’m thinking about Samuel L. Jackson – the Pulp Fiction (and others) movie star, who has taken up the easier paycheck provided by television commercials. I hate to admit it, but I’m a student – of sorts – of the ad media.

I love to identify the voices of the people behind the scenes who are doing the “voice-overs” – those unseen narrators who are talking about cars, or travel destinations, or home improvement centers. Historically, those voices used to be broadcasters, but at some point agents managed to get their actor, singer, sports figure clients to lend their voices in hawking products. You’d be surprised at the A-list stars who are willing to sit down and record their voice for a fee.

Here is a new “flashbulb moment” for me. I’m sitting here in the bookshop office, doing some odds and ends (since I could not open for business today due to construction) and Samuel L. Jackson pops on the TV screen (in an ad that began Monday). He’s hawking the Capital One credit card and its Quicksilver cashback program. In the course of his exposition, he uses the word “Damn.” Like, “every damn day.”

It would have worked as “every day,” but the ad agency behind the spot, DDB Worldwide (the Omnicom Group) says it “evokes the provocative wallet scene with Mr. Jackson and Tim Roth” in the film “Pulp Fiction.”

As it stands, I believe it is the first time (thus, my flashbulb memory moment) I have ever heard (what used to be considered) a “swear word” used in a commercial. Damn.

We used to not use such language in public.

Particularly in broadcasting, controlled by the FCC. There were fines levied for the Jackson Wardrobe Malfunction, the George Carlin Seven Words, just about everything Howard Stern ever mentioned, the occasional F-bomb on the Oscars, and a long list of other assumed-to-be infractions.

I strive for a family friendly blog, and I’m only using the questionable words here in the context of this obsequious offering. The idea being, these things are surprising enough to me that they are stuck in my memory like the Kennedy Assassination. (Yes. I’m old enough to have that “flashbulb memory.”)

Jackson’s use of a once socially-questionable term isn’t the first TV recollection for me. (I admit, as a student of broadcasting in general, to me, these things are grossly obvious.) There was a network promotional announcement (different from a paid, commercial ad), that offered up as dramatic program directed by movie star Anjelica Huston in a made for TV program entitled “Bastard out of Carolina.” (Ironically, it was originally produced for airing on TNT, but the network refused to show it based on its controversial nature.) I suppose it was controversial for me, as well. I recall it as the first time I heard a “swear word” in a television ad of any type. (Bastard.)

Another “flashbulb” in the media belongs to KMOD radio, and an announcer (rare that I can’t recall exactly who it was working that afternoon-drive shift) who commented that it was “Raining like hell outside.”

I about fell out of my shoes.

As innocent as it sounds now, I had – never! – heard the word (as Radar O’Reilly described it) H-E-double-hockey-sticks used on the radio. Never. Ever. Like virgin speakers. Never. EVER.

Well… Come to think of it, that word might have been brought up in those Sunday morning religious broadcasts I was engineering, back in the early days, but I was (please forgive me, Lord) pretty much tuned out to the content. I was listening – (while reading the Sunday paper and twiddling my thumbs) – for program continuity, volume, and lack-of-dead-air (Silence). I believe my best radio-buddy-brother Rick might remember those early Sunday morning broadcasts… Inspiring to the flock, I am certain.

My sister Linda believes I remember everything. Of course, that is true. (I remember some things more clearly than others.) I was in the second row from the wall (to my right) where the door to the hallway was located, when the announcement sounded in my classroom about the shooting of John F. Kennedy. (The speaker was mounted on the wall in the upper right from my desk, a seat located fifth-from-the-front in the classroom.) We were asked to say a prayer for our president. (There’s more, in my recollection, but I won’t bother you with it…)

At any rate, the Samuel L. Jackson “Damn” commercial takes its place in the cranial archive of “flashbulb moments” that have caught me by surprise over the course of a lifetime. His pronouncement isn’t particularly grievous, just (significantly) of note, to me.

D++n. I’m showing my age, aren’t I?

It may be a photo-moment when the Rose District work is done, at last. Workers – presumably – will finish the outdoor construction sometime this week, and then – I’m hoping you’ll – come visit!

McHuston

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

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