Category Archives: Oklahoma

It’s Christmas, 1980’s Oklahoma style.

My favorite Christmas decorations are nativity scenes. The stores are loaded with them. All sorts of styles to choose from.

We have several in our house. Sweetie does a great job with them.

This one below is special to me. It is not the fanciest one we have.

I got it in 1986 right after I moved to Oklahoma City from Dallas. In those days before the internet and Amazon.com you ordered novelty merchandise out of catalogs. Remember all the catalogs from those days? Lands End, and Eddie Bauer were just the beginning. Anyway my secretary, whom I’ll call Frances, was the catalog queen in the office. She’d find something cool and several people would order it. Anyway she found this nativity scene and several of us in the office ordered one. I don’t know why I did, I was single and didn’t decorate for Christmas but I liked it.

A subsequent summer Frances drowned after falling off a sailboat during a midnight cruise on Lake Hefner with her new boyfriend. She wasn’t wearing a life jacket and didn’t know how to swim. It being at night the guy couldn’t see her and a sailboat is not the most maneuverable thing around. They didn’t find her body until the sun came up the subsequent morning.

It was a real mess. She had left her long time boyfriend of many years a few weeks before. But he was still the beneficiary of her life insurance, 401K, all that stuff. It was a real heart breaker. He got it all and he kept it all and I dealt with both him and her family through the whole process. It was a sad and stressful time, for a long time, for everybody who knew her.

We were kind of a tight knit little group and the loss and chaos afterward hit us hard. This was in the midst of the mid 1980’s oil bust that knocked all of Oklahoma for a loop. It seemed that things were never going to get better but eventually of course they did.

Christmas is many things to many people and to me a big part of it is remembering Christmases past especially people who are gone. I always think of Frances at Christmas and how things often don’t turn out the way we plan and that life is fragile. I also learned that people are resilient and although they may never forget something somehow they get through it.

“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21 NIV)

And of course I learned that you need to keep your beneficiaries current on your life insurance, 401K’s, and such to help out the people you leave behind because you really don’t know when something is going to happen to you.

I’m linking up with That’s Baloney today for her perfect pairing day.

Bedlam

Saturday night is the time for the annual Bedlam football game between the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University. I didn’t go to either school but I enjoy watching it. I just want it be a good game. If either team played defense the game might even be interesting. This was supposed to be a big year for OU but they stumbled. OSU was going strong and they had a small lapse. So this game is about bragging rights in Oklahoma and the championship of the Big 12 Conference. Over the years OU has dominated OSU, winning 76 games, losing only 17, with 7 ties. I enjoy teasing fans of both teams and generally keeping the pot stirred.

I just hope that it is a good game.

Our World – Muskogee, Oklahoma

My Dad came for a short visit from Idaho for Thanksgiving. He likes historical type stuff and I wanted to show him something new so we headed down the turnpike to Muskogee.

First we went to the Five Civilized Tribes Museum. It is not that big but it is powerful. It has displays on the five tribes that were forcibly resettled from the southeast USA to Oklahoma. No photos are allowed but they have a dynamite display on Native American Medal of Honor awardees from the Five Civilized Tribes. Upstairs they had an art show going on. Check it out when you are in town. Very inexpensive admission charge.

The building it is housed in is the original Agency Headquarters from the 19th century. Very handsome in it own right. Gotta remember to stay off the grass if you go!

Next we went down to the Port of Muskogee to check out the USS Batfish. The Batfish was a submarine that sunk fourteen enemy ships during World War II. Unfortunately the museum was closed but we could look at the vessel through the fence.

There were some other things to look at also. Some anti-aircraft guns.

And this. It looks like it could ruin somebody’s whole day downrange.

And a little bit of humor.

It was an overcast day with no color. So how about a photo of my Soul.

Then we toured the port a little bit. I’m in the natural gas business. We are always looking for pipe. Our engineers can’t ever find any. We found some. Come and get it guys.

We found this cool machine. Dad and I love looking at this kind of stuff. Sweetie and SPB can’t stand it.

So, we had a pretty good road trip.

Our World Tuesday

Boomer Sooner!

At the Autism Center of Tulsa‘s Smarts and Arts trivia game fundraiser last Friday a University of Oklahoma football helmet signed by head coach Bob Stoops was one of the top items in the Silent Auction.

Fellow blogger and chair of the event, Jonni, demonstrates how the helmet is used. As you can tell from her shirt Jonni is a Sooner. Don’t feel sorry for though as she has mostly overcome that.

(Photo ripped off by me from Jonni’s Facebook page)

Ruby Tuesday

New Steeple

A couple weeks ago a blog friend here in Oklahoma emailed me with a heads up that the First Presbyterian Church of Tulsa was putting up their new steeple in downtown Tulsa.

I had to go check it out. For an economic downturn going on Tulsa sure has lots of projects going on. I try and sidewalk supervise all of them but there is only so much that one guy can do. So I need all the help I can get.

My friend told me that her husband would most likely be the guy at the top bolting the steeple onto its base. I think this may be him. I hope that he was appreciating the daytime moon while he was working. Actually I bet that he pretty much concentrates on his job and lets us desk jockeys worry about composing the shot.

This is from the church’s web site showing what it is going to look like when they are done.

Skywatch

Lomographic 3G Cattle

A couple weeks ago we visited my wife’s “old home place” the ranch. A cousin of Sweetie’s is running cattle (as we say in Oklahoma) out on the ranch under the 3G brand.

Of course, I take all my cameras with me including my ultra low tech cheapie toy Diana Mini Lomographic analog film camera that can shoot half frames, to take the cheapie concept one step futher.

The thing about cows ( and you can write on the back of a postage stamp what I know about cows, and most of that would be wrong) is that they always show up if people show up.

That is it for the Lomographic Photographs, the rest are digital.

They have a couple of rescue donkeys. Here is Kim, the faithful girlfriend, feeding Juliet, one of the sweetest donkeys, you’ll ever meet. Kim showed up at her boyfriend’s family reunion and fit right in. Kim was styling with the hat and the cowboy (cowgirl?) boots. She was a good sport.

It was well over 100F that day, so SuperPizzaBoy hung out in the four wheeler with his uncle Glenn.

Sweetie was in her element. She loves all critters, except snakes. I can tell you that if you are snake, you would be wise to steer clear of Sweetie. Cows, kittens, babies, and puppies, Sweetie is the best friend that you will ever have.

This is Tyler, Kim’s boyfriend. He is a Marine artillery officer. When things get hot, you want to be where Tyler is, you don’t want to be down range.

Wesley, Tyler’s younger brother. An extremely nice young man.

There is Sweetie, taking charge, making sure that everybody has enough to eat. It’s the Mom’s of the world that keep things going if you ask me.

Yeah, well, more of the same. Sweetie is number one among the 3G herd.

Who’s number one in your herd?

Camera Critters

What is Lomography?

Devon Tower – Oklahoma City

I went to see some customers in Oklahoma City a few weeks ago. The new Devon tower is shooting straight up.

From a restaurant high atop a nearby building we got a better view.

Weekend Reflections

Snowklahoma is OK

I am not sure where this started. I saw it first on Facebook from blog friend Terry of Coffee with Clark and when I googled it I saw it here. So I hope that I’m not stepping any toes but here goes.

SNOW…klahoma

Where the cold front’s sweepin’ down the plain

And the piles of sleet, beneath your feet

Follow right behind the freezing rain.

SNOW…klahoma

Ev’ry night my honey lamb and I

Travel home from work and hope some jerk

Doesn’t wreck our car in passing by!

We know we belong to the land

But it could use some more salt and more sand

That’s why we say…WHOA!

We’re the sliding the other way…YIKES!

We’re only sayin’

You’re slick as snot SNOWklahoma

SNOWklahoma

SNOW-K-L-A-H-O-M-A

SNOWklahoma, SNOW-K!

Of course it is hard to get sympathy in my family. Except for brother Bob who now resides in Corpus Christi, Texas I am the southernmost member of my family, by a long shot.

Have you ever seen more worthless cats than ours? Let me know.