Category: Within The Realm

I was in dire educational straits. It was the third week of class at Northeastern State and I was the final student left enrolled in the class Biographies in American History. By rights, the school could cancel the class and I would lose those hours for the semester. An empathetic professor came up with a brilliant plan, for me to write a Biography of one of my Grandparents in lieu of losing he credits. I picked the greatest unknown of all my grandparents, Mack Garrett. What I learned from that assignment about my Grandfather, his character and his resolve, were inspirational to me. These were stories that no one had really asked about before the assignment, stories that would have been lost to us forever.

You might be surprised to hear some of the details about the advent of the shopping cart, but even as casual as our relationship with the basket on wheels is, it has had a profound affect on retail shopping. As omni-present these devices are now, they may have never got off the ground if not for some quick thinking by an Oklahoma City supermarket owner!

When I was a kid, I trashed the first guitar I owned myself. It was an old, cheap guitar that didn’t stand up to the abuse I, a young learner, put it through. My mother, on a Nashville trip, was kind enough to go by a music store on an afternoon off and find a suitable replacement. She was assisted by a older gentleman that, she later learned, was a guitar legend.

The familiar downward pointing triangle that allows traffic to keep flowing rather than stopping started it career on the corner of First Street and Columbia Avenue in Tulsa in 1950. It was the brainchild of a Tulsa assistant Police Chief. No one gave his sign much respect, saying it was confusing and unnecessary, but he set out to prove them all wrong.

They say the universe is ever expanding, but the cultural center of the universe, according to Oklahoma singer-songwriter and quantum philosopher Hoyt Axton, the cultural center of the universe is closer than you might think.