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Tag: Pryor (Page 49 of 105)

From A to Zamperini. A story now complete.

July 3, 2014 /

His bio is one of those stranger than fiction tales, an epic struggle for survival that – amazingly – ended fairly well. His biography is titled Unbroken, and is to be released presently as a film directed by Anjelina Jolie.

Louis Zamperini was a speedy kid. They called him the Torrence Tornado back in those days when everybody had to have a nickname. (Maybe we haven’t outgrown that. To wit: Branjolina?) He was Jesse Owens roommate at the Berlin Olympics, taking his US National track records to the world stage.

When the US entered the second World War, Zamperini enlisted. His plane went down in the Pacific; he was assumed dead, but survived the crash only to be captured by the Japanese.

The account of his survival was published as a memoir and was optioned by Hollywood way back when, but the movie was never made. When Laura Hillenbrand penned Unbroken as a biography that expanded on the memoir, it caught the attention of Jolie, who – ironically – lives not far from Zamperini’s home.

The veteran was selected as the Grand Marshall for the 2015 Rose Parade at age 97, but his death Wednesday will leave that post vacant, and it is unfortunate that he did not have an opportunity to see his life story represented in film.

Jolie’s treatment of the biography will likely make Zamperini a much more recognizable name, although the book has done well.

It is a staggering read – not for its size – but for the impossibly difficult situations that Louis Zamperini endured and came away from – Unbroken.

He represented his country on several fronts and exemplified the human spirit that will serve to motivate others long past his death.

A recommended read… Unbroken by Laura Hellenbrand.

Come visit!

McHuston

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

Look for a sign.

June 28, 2014 /

Towns had to have a name when they started – otherwise, you’d ride clean through and never know that you’d been there. Some places are obvious. McAlester, Oklahoma, for example; named for J. J. McAlester who set up a trading post that became a general mercantile. He married the daughter of the Choctaw chief and earned his right to stay in the territory.

When the railroad came through and the post office needed a sign, they agreed that McAlester ought to work.

Some of the towns are named for memories. The Creek Nation gave some of its Georgia land to that state and it became a county which they named for the Coweta branch of the tribe. After the removal of the southeastern nations to the west, part of Indian Territory was called the Coweta District, and the important business was conducted at a structure on Coweta Creek. When a town grew up around it, it was only natural to call it Coweta.

Bixby?

Different story.

Luckily, a book landed on the counter today that ‘splains all about it. About the time Coweta was beginning to acquire a population for its name, a group of political appointees was gathered in the Territory doing the paperwork before a proposed bid for statehood. They called it the Dawes Commission.

The politics of it is a story told elsewhere, but that group of men determined the future of much of the area land. They were making allotments, and some of those were collected together to form townships. The area near the Arkansas River bend had a number of families living there, and you might recognize some of the names from county signage. The Haikey family (Haikey Creek), the Perrymans, Berryhills, Bruners, Childresses, and others wanted to make an official town designation and to do that, they had to get the approval of the Dawes Commission.

Like anything else, if you’re on the good side of the decision-makers, it helps get a favorable ruling. Tams Bixby was an Ohio fellow – by way of Missouri – who had been appointed to work with Charles Dawes. When the application listed Bixby as the proposed name of the new town, Mr. B was flattered. In fact, Bixby was flattered enough that he stuck around and made a name for himself to go along with the town’s sign.

Some of you will have heard KBIX radio in Muskogee (although you have to be pretty close to the transmitter…). The BIX in the call-letters alludes to Tams Bixby. He also ran the Muskogee Phoenix newspaper. Back in the 1970s, when Citizens Security Bank of Bixby celebrated its 50th Anniversary, they published a small book that noted Mr. Bixby’s son had been – until recently – still running the media corporation in Muskogee, but was building a home in Minnesota.

The stories were the work of Burkett Wamsley, who included a lot of names of his fellow residents in compiling Ad Libs to Bixby History. Those of you whose families have been in the Bixby community for a while might have been recorded for history in his book.

Have a look, when you –

Come visit!

McHuston

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

Heck. I didn’t know.

June 26, 2014 /

It’s never a complete surprise to me when something outrageous has its origins with the Irish. Sometimes called the Wild Irish, waaay back when. (The Fightin’ Irish, if you’re Notre Dame inclined…)

Sorting books this afternoon and I came across The Westies: Inside the Hell’s Kitchen Irish Mob, by T. J. English. Beyond noting the irony of English writing about Irish, I was curious as to how Hell’s Kitchen came to be called that. New Yorkers likely know exactly where that part of Manhattan is located. Year’s ago, there would be no question that it was THAT part of Manhattan that ought to be avoided if you didn’t have business there.

It’s not too far from the Broadway stages, so it later became a destination for up-and-coming actors and actresses who couldn’t afford the fancier places to live. These days, a realtor is more likely to show an apartment or loft in West Midtown, which is a gentrified name for the area, more fitting to the current higher rent prices.

But, Hell’s Kitchen? Where did that come from?

It’s been called that for so long that there are differences of opinion about the origin, but the area was home to the early Irish immigrants (along with the Five Points district, made famous in the film Gangs of New York), and according to the Irish Cultural Society of the Garden City Area: In 1835, Davy Crockett considered the neighborhood and said, “In my part of the country, when you meet an Irishman, you find a first-rate gentleman; but these are worse than savages; they are too mean to swab hell’s kitchen.”

Of course, Crockett’s ancestors sailed over from Ireland, and his father John was among the Overmountain men who defeated British Major Patrick Ferguson at the Battle of King’s Mountain during the Revolution. (Those predominantly-Irish “mountain boys” were another feisty bunch, but I digress.)

The “less-than’gentlemen” Crockett described lived in Five Points, those Irishmen who were just too mean to swab the other Irish tenements.

These days, folks are more likely to associate the phrase with Chef Gordon Ramsey, who has made a mark raking wannabe culinary artists over the hot coals on his Hell’s Kitchen TV show.

But if you have an appetite for some Hell’s Kitchen history, check out The Westies, or (as Chef Kenny used to say) “may you die roarin’ for a priest.” (Kidding, there. Among the Irish, that’s a terribly mean thing to wish on someone, I’ve come to understand.)

May the road rise up to meet you and the wind be always at your back! (Now, that one I mean!)

Come visit!

McHuston

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

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