Oklahoma shall be returned to the Osage, Cherokee, Powtawatomie, Creek and Chaqutua.
amen
(and when was the last time a day went by in Oklahoma without someone saying 'yee haw'? Most people there think that 'Hee Haw' is the state motto and that the show was the Oklahoma Legislature live on TV.)
Hmph. Really, Joe. We do NOT say "yee haw" in Tulsa. You know better than that.
The Plains Indians should get a piece of it, it's true. Not MY piece, mind you, but a piece nonetheless. But I'd bet the "Civilized Tribes" (hate that term) would prefer to have their original land back East. Of course, that would mean the Creeks would have to give up their bingo palace, so maybe not. They're making a killing. Talking about riverboat casinos down around Jenks now. May actually happen.
The Legislature broadcasts CAN be funnier than Hee Haw, but only if you don't take them seriously. Which is increasingly difficult to do...(sigh) But then, some things don't change much with locale. Your local politics can be even more comical than ours. You certainly do have a fine cast of characters, I'll give you that.
Pass the cream and sugar, please. No, not those awful blue or pink packets...the real stuff for me, please.
You hang around a better class of Oklahoman than I ever did. Half the people I knew in Tulsa had YeeHaw as their middle name.
(If you see Leon at the Cain's tell Mr. Bridges he still owes Dino Economus that cash plus a little interest from back from the Church studio days. Oh and tell I said congratulations on still being alive.)
I think the Remington collection ought to go on a tour of New York, Boston, Washington DC, and Atlanta. The people in the West, when they look at those forms, the riders, the horses, the flying rope, don't understand that these things are art. They just saw them themselves at the most recent IFR (International Finals Rodeo, for those looking in) In a truly urban setting, Remington's works look as they should. As pieces of a reality from outside the framework of a city, of a world of man and beast and beast. A world closer to our beginnings, a world of sweat, fur and flies, grit and dirt. At the exit of the exhibit all ticket holders should be offered a hamburger.
Oh, we've forgotten Charlie Russell?
Hardly, roger. The Gilcrease Museum has the largest collection of Russells & Remingtons in the country. Among their many treasures.
http://www.gilcrease.org/gilcreasecollection.html
Click on the link at the bottom of the page to see a sample of their pieces. There are two Russells shown...very good ones.
Joe -- Interesting comment. I took my son to this very contemporary museum, and I had to explain everything. He hasn't grown up with these images, real or on canvas. (Maybe in cartoons.) He's an urban kid. So was I, but at least I grew up watching westerns on TV like the rest of our generation. I didn't see real cowboys until I went to college at OSU. Lots of rural folks there. But even there, I tended to hang out with urban types like myself. Didn't go to the cowboy bars...watched foreign films at the Student Union, read great literature and drank wine. I managed to live in Stillwater, OK for six years without learning to like beer. The cultural differences you brought up exist right here.
Next time drive a little farther. Let me see, I've ridden my bike out to a point, I think it's on highway 99, between Cleveland and Hominy where the green hills of Eastern Oklahoma end and the Plains begin. You just come over this hill and there it is, spread out for miles and miles.
Grassland.
Squint and you can imagine what it must have been like to see 30,000 buffalo scattered in bunches here and there over the whole vista.
Or you can drive above a hour more and actually see buffalo at the Tall Grass Preserve.
It ain't pretty and neither are the buffalo. Mostly they are invisible.
Wear your boots and old jeans, find a little hill to sit atop and wait. Maybe the herd, there's about three hundred will show up. It's a big place. Bring the binoculars.
I waited two hours once and saw about six, off in the distance, but it had been a nice day, full of charming butterflies and a few birds I'd never seen before. I packed my lunch stuff and my camera stuff and trudged back to my car to find a big bull about 25 yards from my front wheels.
He was laying on his side in the dust, licking his belly hair. Yes, the symbol of the Olde West, supine and grunting at his fleas, a gigantic black dog on the driveway of the Prairie. I was very moved.
==
There's real cowboys thereabouts too. Oh, God, I've forgotten the name of the town. It starts with a W. Shucks. Anyway, yes, today they are more likely to herd from the front seat of a Ford 150 than from a bronc, but they are cowboys, don't kid yourself, these are hard working people out there. And though they give cyclists wearing stretch shorts and helmets wide eyed looks (and the horses do the same) once you say 'Howdy' you've met a friend.
More later.
Joe
Nice, Joe.
I've been there. I need to take my son. Old family photos show it, but photos are not the same.
