Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: Catoosa (Page 61 of 101)

Snow-Capped Cars Beware.

Maybe today will be the day. The afternoon that last week’s snow will finally melt from the top of the car.

I’ve been driving the Sherman-Tank van since turning an icy 180 in the Firebird – despite my cautious approach. The van just doesn’t do things like that. And with all the dire weather warnings, I’ve just been playing it safe.

Consequently, the car – parked in a spot that is always hidden from the sun – still has a good layer of snow.

They’re saying maybe mid-forties this afternoon, which might melt it. I can’t recall snow staying on the ground for this length of time in Oklahoma. Maybe that’s what caused some folks to forget how to drive.

This morning’s award goes to the fellow who pulled onto Elm in front of the oncoming traffic despite the rapid approach of the cars. (I was in the right-hand lane doing 45 – the posted limit. The cars in the left lane were passing me rapidly but had to hit the brakes.) He drove 35 or 40 mph for about a mile and then he suddenly sped up, whizzed past on the left, and then changed lanes in front of me.

Then slowed down to 35 or 40 again.

I hit the brakes.

He turned right on 91st without a turn signal, and then sped ahead in the right hand lane. I turned behind him and watched him speed away ahead of me while I stayed within the posted 40 mph limit. At Main Street, he suddenly swerved across my path and made a left-hand turn from the right-hand lane.

About thirty yards north of the intersection, he abruptly made a complete U-turn in the center of Main. I was turning as he rolled through a red light and turned right, back onto 91st.

I wanted to count up the number of traffic violations he’d managed in the course of a mile or so, but it was way too early, too cold, and too common in Broken Arrow to make note of.

Except I just did, I guess.

Oops.

Be careful out there, and take advantage of the forty-degree heat wave. Come visit!

McHuston

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

So many books. So little time.

It’s a project – but it is there to be tackled and there is no more putting it off. I’ve got to write all the books in the store.

Well, that isn’t EXACTLY true. The books have been written by their authors, of course. I’ve just got to list the titles to display them on the internet. Before the move to the Rose District, there were a couple of thousand titles listed for sale on the web, through the seller’s consortium Alibris.

During the confusion of re-shelving the inventory, a number of titles sold through the Alibris website. Ooops. Could not find them. Moving. Storage. Packing. Unpacking.

Can’t cancel a sale through Alibris, or they lower the seller’s rating. So. I had to buy copies from other dealers to send to my internet customers. Not always profitable. In fact, since our internet prices were generally set as the lowest in the country, it was usually impossible to find a replacement at a lower price.

After several internet-sales losses, I had the online inventory deleted. Bam! It’s gone.

There are some books that I’m fairly certain will never sell in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Even in the new Rose District location.

So.

The listing has begun. While realizing it will take a good amount of time to upload a significant number of titles, I have to start somewhere. Consider the project begun with the first books photographed, described, and uploaded to the new website sub-sections. You can find them under the BOOKS listing on the Main Menu header.

And to think: back in high school I thought I would never have a use for that silly typing class.

There are only two books online now. A mere start. Plenty on the shelves though, so –

Come visit!

(Oh. And if you wondered about the Facebook-link quote: ‘Tol de rol lol lol, right fol lairy, Work’us,’ said Noah. It’s from Oliver Twist, spoken by Noah, the Undertaker’s apprentice to young Oliver. Makes no sense to me either, but I can identify with the Work’us part.)

McHuston

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

Tell her that I’m well…

It’s almost a shame to hear them apologize for being clean-cut, fun-loving musicians who enjoyed their time in front of an audience.

There are so many acts that are angry and that’s their stage presence.

I always wonder why they couldn’t have a little fun while everyone else was doing the same.

Just watched a program with Herman’s Hermits. (Even if you Google them, you won’t get it, because Google can’t take you back in time. You have to have been as old as me, and remember what it was like waaaaaay back then.)

The whole thing was still new and fun – music. Well, not exactly. Music has been around since humans pounded on a hollow tree (or a hollow head). But, music in the late 1960s was still in a state of evolution. Some would call it Revolution.

Peter Noone was the singer for Herman’s Hermits, an English band that crossed the Atlantic and found success – and had fun. You could tell watching them (and recalling through the old PBS video clips) that performing in front of an audience was as entertaining for the band as it was for those they faced.

In later years, particularly in the years my son discovered music, I noticed how angry the performers were. They seemed to be on a mission to deliver a serious MESSAGE. You know, like JEREMY SPOKE IN CLASS TODAY. The still-musical MTV pushed the video in 1993 and made a hit of it.

Granted.

Jeremy is worlds apart from Mrs Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter. But many bands released a variety of songs. Some of which were eligible for entertainment. Like – as in, Fun. A fun song, a fun video.

Mr Vedder once said (I recall it pretty well although through brief research, I can’t produce an exact quote) that he didn’t want anyone over thirty years old to listen to his music. Well. Mr Vedder will be 50 this year. Fifty. Things were a lot more fun the year Mr Vedder was born.

Singers smiled. Even the background vocalists. They enjoyed what they were doing. (Oh. Okay. There are those opera people. Those serious If-I-had-a-Hammer folk singers who seriously wanted to Hammer in the Morning all Over this Land. Man. Give it a folk-rest.)

Cause I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane while singing Do-Wa-Diddy-Diddy-Dum-Diddy-dee. (Can you frown during that one?)

It was just surprising, how many songs by Herman’s Hermits I could sing along with. Without hesitation. I never once bought a record album (primitive MP3 or streaming audio) by the group. Their songs were simply – popular.

Not like in a Justin Beiber sense. These fellows were clean-cut, foreign-born, fun-loving, clean-living, singers and guitar players. (And drummer.) When music went south, like Beiber in Florida, these fellows found another way to entertain themselves. (And others.)

Watching the PBS special (which in and of itself reveals my relative age), I was thrown back to a simpler era and a more naïve time. That’s probably the intent of PBS, to loosen up the spending for the whole fund-raising process. There was no talk of crack-cocaine, or meth-labs, serial killers, school shooters, political party wars, or wars in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, or – back then – Vietnam.

I don’t want a time machine to head back to that simpler time.

It would be nice, though, if some of those simpler and honest values could push forward to this day and age.

Oh. Wait a minute.

I have history books here in the shop. I’ll just read up on how things used to be.

Come visit!

McHuston

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

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