The air is crisp and autumn is really here, it seems. Just in time for my skin peeling from the heat over the weekend. Love this Panhandle weather. It’s the time the heater runs in the car going to work and then the air conditioner going home. It’s the time you keep a jacket in the car because you just never know what’s going to happen. It’s interesting. Keeps us on our toes.
Speaking of toes, mine sure had bit of a sunburn from the OPSU football game last Saturday. I really ought to consider wearing real shoes. The Aggies whupped up on that other team. It was awesome. What is even more awesome is when the football players sing the fight song to the crowd after the game and then high five people. I heard the star running back, number 13, telling everyone (and there were many) “Thanks for coming,” as he walked by and high fived them. It’s no wonder I kept going to the home games.
They sort of follow the saying, “Don’t talk, just act. Don’t say, just show. Don’t promise, just prove.” Coach Gaskamp and his assistants are doing a great job with these guys.
Had an interesting lady come by the office last week. She was here visiting a girl on the rodeo team. She came from California, I believe. We got to talking about names that were funny … and appropriate … and inappropriate. I shared with her the name of our doctor where I grew up. Dr. Clapp. And told her how I never did know, as a kid, why people laughed when they heard that. But my new friend told me about a fellow who works for the U.S. Forest Service whose name is Timber Blaze. No way. That’s too unbelievable. Never could top that one! Did you catch the play on words, “top that one?” Sometimes I just find myself to be sooo clever.
Let’s talk a little more about clever.
The Oklahoma Agriculture magazine arrived at my office. I was reading it, and enjoying some of the articles when I came upon this paragraph in an article entitled “Cowboy Up” … “Oklahoma is one of the leading collegiate and high school rodeo states. Oklahoma State University has had a rodeo team since 1946 and in 2014, the team will host its first official collegiate rodeo in its new arena at the Payne County Expo Center.”
Are you kidding me? This writer, Charlyn Fargo, is writing about college rodeo and she doesn’t mention either of the two national powerhouse rodeo schools that are located in Oklahoma? That would be Panhandle State and Northwestern. Goodwell and Alva. It didn’t take them 60 years to finally put on a rodeo, either.
At the end of reading that paragraph, I sat in my chair stunned for a moment. And then I just threw the magazine away. Straight in the trash can. Up to that point on page 43, it was fine. After that, it was only trash.
I’ve stopped listening. Why haven’t you stopped talking? It was that sort of moment. Not clever at all.
Lots of Halloween and Main Street Week activities going on this week … more about that later.
See you on the bricks!