Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: oklahoma (Page 114 of 115)

Snow Daze

I am at the kitchen table, trying to ignore the blinding glare from the back yard. Oklahoma is said to be a ‘blue’ state, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much white. The book store is closed, as are the roads through this neighborhood.

Should’a: (1) Bought some items when I filled up at QuikTrip. (2) Battled the crowds at the grocery store Monday evening, since I’d love to be cooking something right now. (3) Gone to bed Monday night, instead of venturing out regularly to clear the car for Tuesday’s morning drive. (4) Taken some photos of books to list for sale on the internet. (5) Brought along the gloves I left on the front counter.

Glad that I: (1) Filled up at QuikTrip. (2) Didn’t venture out Tuesday morning, since I likely would have been mired in a snowdrift. (3) Don’t work for a corporation any longer, that would have required me to be on the job and driving to get there.

Granted, I have selective memory – but I don’t remember being stuck inside a house before. No doubt, all the years in broadcasting required that I be on the job, forcing the snow-shoveling and slippery driving. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so trapped if I had a compelling reason to dig out.

Meanwhile, I’ll enjoy the fact that Oklahoma has four seasons – even if none of them last particularly long!

Traditions

You do something the same way over time and it ends up either being a bad habit or a tradition. If you spit off the railroad bridge on Halloween night for good luck, that’s a tradition. If you spit on the dining room floor after sampling the pea soup – not so much.

The cameras zoomed in on the student section at the OU-Air Force game Saturday. The issue was the national anthem. Sitting in the student section with my daughter a few years ago, I was singing along (I’m a closet national anthem fan and sing it in the shower) and at the end, when I hit the word “Brave,” others yelled “Sooners!”

I got over my confusion pretty quickly. School spirit is pretty easy to recognize, especially when sitting (I should say “standing,” as we rarely sat) in the student section. When the Air Force Academy came to town this weekend, there was a call by Coach Stoops to “sing it right.”

Stoops is a blue-collar-work-ethic, patriotic, public figure. His discomfort over the altered words is understandable. He’d rather hear cheers on defensive stands to intimidate the opponent. He’s called out the crowd in the past a couple of times, thinking it ought to be a little more raucous at OU games.

It was great to see the television news video after the game. The camera crew pointed their lens at the crowd for the anthem finale and gathered in images of about a dozen singing faces. All I saw was “and the home of the – BRAVE!” It may not have been unanimous, but – then again – it may well have been.

Good for the students, and good for Coach Stoops. Not all school-spirit traditions pan out. Texas A&M students will remember the bonfire that got so out-of-control with tradition, that twelve people died when it collapsed. Singing “home of the Sooners!” isn’t quite so dangerous, obviously. Still, under the scrutiny of outsiders (and even some OU insiders) it was easily depicted as irreverent at best, to the extreme of unpatriotic.

I don’t think Sooner students are unpatriotic. By virtue of the respect and comraderie displayed after the game, there is a wellspring of patriotism for the country and its armed forces, and respect for the opinion of the coach.

Norman is the home of the OU Sooners. They did their administration proud when they made the Air Force Academy and its followers feel at home there. For all the negative views about college athletics, the Saturday activities showed a positive side to fans and fanaticism.

Read about the Home of the Other Traditions!

Thanks to all Past (and future) Customers & Clients!

This week marks the beginning of our fifth year of bookselling as Broken Arrow’s Main Street bookstore. Still, there are people who come in every day (this has been a literal truth for the past four years) who say “I had no idea there was a bookstore here!”

“Yes,” I reply. “Been here for years.”

The sign out front says “Since 1975.” Obviously, I haven’t been selling books from this location that long, but I’ve been buying and selling books since then. One of my original entrepeneurial efforts (1975) had me shuffling merchandise to free up a wall for selling books.

It reminds me of the quote from comedian Steven Wright (a genius I was fortunate to once meet), who said: “I went down the street to the 24-hour grocery. When I got there, the guy was locking the front door. I said, “Hey, the sign says you’re open 24 hours.” He said, “Not in a row.” ”

So, in that spirit, I’ve been selling books for 35 years… I think I’ll change the sign to read, “open 24 hours.”

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