The Cookson Hills hold many a legend about the exploits of Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd and his amazing escapes from the clutches of the law through a hail of gunfire. But there’s also the story about a collector, a clerk really, from a loan office in Fort Smith who was able to best the man who was soon to be Public Enemy No. 1 – without even knowing it.
You know Within The Realm as the place where the Great Plains, the Ozark Mountains and the Indian Territory collide, but what happens when too much on your plate, a little guilt over not getting a podcast episode out on schedule and a cover of a Tom Petty song collide? You’re fixin’ to find out.
I’m feeling philosophical about my walks with my assistant producer, Boomer, on the trail near our home. By applying a lesson I learned from the pages of the nerdy books I read when I was a kid, I have special outlook on not just the walks on the trail, but many of the things that happen around me.
Most know the United States entered World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Just a few months before that fateful December morning, folks in Miami, Ok .were already hearing the engines of foreign pilots over head, friendly pilots from across the pond. Miami was home to Churchill Field, a training school for British pilots beginning in the summer of 1941 through the end of the war. Over 2,100 would-be pilots came to this corner of the Sooner State for training, a handful never left.
Before he was on the Five Dollar Bill, before his words were memorized by American schoolchildren through the decades and just a few years before he was hailed as the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln was a candidate for President…and it wasn’t looking so good. He undertook a trip to Kansas to see for himself the violence and legacy of popular sovereignty, and maybe score a few extra delegates to the upcoming Republican convention. A rare look at candidate Lincoln and his first trip to the west.
Within the Realm 