If you head on over to our Red Dirt Chronicles Facebook page, you’ll see a little note announcing the winners of our “most creative profile piccy” contest. The winner was announced last night and will receive a $50 Lowe’s gift card. Here’s winner Steve Huhn’s profile photo:
Steve Huhn, "Slappin' da Bass." Steve plays with Gypsy Twang as well as Adam Lopez & the Lo Tops
And, just for fun, our RDC photographer put together her own FB profile photo. Of course, we couldn’t give her a prize, but we WILL give her a little shout out. Here’s “Red Dirt Racie (prounced Rassy).” Love it!
RDC Photographer - "Red Dirt Racie"
We’ve got more promotions coming up soon, so make sure the “like” our Facebook page!
I’ll be 48 years old in four weeks, I wear a women’s size 12, my dress shoe size is 7 and I weigh between 149-151 pounds every morning I check the scales.
In other words, I’m middle-aged, wear a middle-sized clothes, mid-range footwear and am in the middle of the 100 and 200 pound mark on the scales. And, I’ve run out of excuses. Here are the excuses, reasons or “logical thoughts” I’ve used for the past year to avoid a healthier lifestyle:
I’m busy.
I have a hard time prioritizing between my academic life and my personal life.
The time with my husband and children are more important than exercising.
I’m smaller than some of my friends.
I’m smaller than my husband.
I’m smaller than some of my family members.
If I were really okay with my own self-image then it wouldn’t matter.
I’ll start when I’m done with my Ph.D.
I’ll start tomorrow.
I’ll start on Monday.
If my faith were stronger I wouldn’t be struggling so much.
If I balance out the fat and sugar I’m consuming with all this good home-cooked food, then at least I’m getting the vitamins I need.
My husband, children and family still love me regardless of my physical fitness.
It’s my job’s fault. It’s my fault. It’s my genetics’ fault…
I'm walking around with two of these strapped permanently on my thighs. Click photo to buy one for your horse.
I started thinking about the saddlebag metaphor, referencing her hips as a body part with which she struggles. That’s how I feel right now. I feel weighted down from being my normal, energetic self. I feel like I’m carrying around a load that I can’t unhitch. So, I did just a few minutes of research and found this link explaining to the trail rider about Horse Saddle Bags: Packing For Success.
The information on their page is crystal clear. Saddle bags are for packing a work load, but should be removed once the job is done. They’re not to be worn 24 hours a day. They also had some extremely deep information I related to myself when considering a saddle-bag purchase:
Horse’s (Kelly’s) size
Horse’s (Kelly’s…you get the picture) conditioning
Horse’s build (conformation)
Horse’s attitude
Horse’s age
Saddle size, fit and weight
Saddle’s ability to distribute weight
Rider’s weight and experience
Saddlebag design and fit
Distance of ride and type of terrain
Weather (esp. heat and humidity)
In other words, you only buy the gear and load up the animal with what they can take, what type of horse it is, and what kind of ride you’re going to make.
I sat there with my permanent, oversized, weighted down saddle bags reading that article and thought: “This is it.” In my relationship with myself, I have to help myself. I can’t blame anyone, anything, any time…it’s up to me.
The only time I want to wear saddlebags is when I’m hiking a trail, or when I’m using real ones on a real horse for a real-life trail ride.
This past summer I began a running program and was successful at keeping it up in Oxford until I came back to Oklahoma. But I can’t blame Oklahoma. All I can do is realize that the only person who can help this situation is me.
What am I going to do? One of two things. I have a former student who now owns a fitness company. I’m going to call him and explore that option. I work at a University that emphasizes health all the time. I’m going to explore that option. Then I’m going to decide, face my fears, perhaps get rid of a scheduling obligation or two, and get started. I’m scared, I don’t WANT to do this, but I really want to feel like myself again.
I’ll let you know how it goes ~ Red Dirt Kelly
Also…this is the photo of what’s sitting right in front of me on my desk. Which do you think I need to find a new home for?
Water? Kisses? Which one needs to find a new home?
Our faith writer, Lamar Jackson, is having a beautiful vacation with his family on a cruise ship somewhere in the Caribbean. I’m filling in for him and decided to post a Simple Sabbath thought on Sunday, breaking our normal “Silent Sunday” framework.
I’ve recently become vaguely aware of the The Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Lausanne movement. The Economist published an article on October 28th about the history of their purpose, struggles with mission and most recent progress in Cape Town. I’ll be posting thoughts this afternoon about my perspective on this article, the history and movement, and what it means for Christians in our geographic area.
Until then, I hope you have a wonderful Sunday – silent, or not. Prefacing my post this afternoon, I’m going to share a Bible verse with you. The last two phrases have given me food for thought regarding this particular subject and I’ll begin with them.
7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. ~ Romans 13:7
** Sunday evening follow-up.
So, it’s not “the afternoon,” but rather the evening. I found my words for this article harder to write than I had anticipated.
I’ve struggled, as a Christian, for the past ten years or so with what seems to me to be an escalation of Christian persecution in our country, as well as persecution of others by Christians. Difficult to define my emotions, I suppose I would say that it appears some sort of negative quid pro quo has been taking place…through the media, through various Christian groups, and recently through social networking groups.
I’ve been mortified at times by messages I see posted by those I know to be Christians on Facebook toward ethnic groups or minorities. The same is true toward those who put forth a political view different from views held by those making the responses. At the same time, I’ve seen a new pervasiveness in the media of cartoons making fun of Christian views, and political pundits turn downright nasty when making statements about Christian beliefs. It’s been hard to see destruction, rather than common ground and relationship-building.
I recall one day I read a statement written by someone about an article discussing spirituality and the words were so incredibly harsh I began to cry.
But then I heard the story about a gentleman who had been an Al Qaeda operative, who when released from Guantanamo, went back to his homeland and rejoined the terrorists. However, he changed his mind, turned them in and averted an explosion – thus saving lives. I also read the Economist article I noted above. I can see hope of shifts; I see various Christian groups (even some of our missionaries in our own church) joining hands with other religions including Muslims and making a difference in international communities.
I see these things and I am encouraged. I also read these Bible verses and am encouraged as well:
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.[c] Do not be conceited.
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[d] says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”[e] (Meaning…you leave him/her to decide how to respond or think about the situation, not that you “Make” them feel guilty. – RDK)
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. ~ Romans 12:14-21
So I suppose that my Not-So-Silent Sunday thought for our normal “Simple Sabbath” message is this: Be gentle, be respectful, be compassionate, be loving…to all those you meet as best as you can. A loving human is more powerful than anything else I’ve ever come in contact with…show your power this week, okay?
My drive from the Oklahoma State (OSU) v. Baylor game this afternoon to Guthrie provided the best hour of my week. You KNOW that’s saying a great deal since I’m such a huge OSU fan – and we beat the pants off Baylor today. Mick and I had driven to the game separately because I had an early appointment this morning, and then I left after the third quarter because I tend to get antsy when I sit still for a very long period of time. He stayed ’till the glorious end of that fine, fine game.
Don’t doubt my team loyalties, though…I DID listen to the game on the radio through the very last play.
I was on a mission. Pick up a bucket of chlorine treatment tablets for our aerobic septic system. We have to buy one about every eighteen months. No one carries the product within a 50 square mile area of our house except the Ace Hardware in Guthrie. I would not fail; I would accomplish my goal and meet my hubby back at home.
But then I got sidetracked. I saw another hay truck and it was broken down on the side of the interstate. I had to go take pictures! The driver and his daughter were from Apache and she had brought tools to the site so he could make repairs. I just wanted to get close to the load on that truck and smell the hay! They good-naturedly agreed. So, stop one in Logan county…broken down hay truck. I REALLY wish I could provide you with the scent of that beautiful cut hay aroma filling my lungs while I snapped away.
Mmmmm. Can you smell the hay?Well, here. Stick your face in it. Maybe that will help. Breathe deep!
I thanked the driver and his daughter, turned around, and saw some cows in a pen I thought might need their family portraits taken. So I provided that service, free of charge.
It was dusty in the pen! I told them to look at the camera and smile. But, you know how it goes...always a trouble-maker in the bunch.I tried to work with this family, but Dad kept trying to get Junior to stand up straight. Junior didn't want to cooperate. The girls on the right had just fixed their hair and weren't about to mess it up by moving around.I was just about to leave when this poor dear ran up to me and asked for a Kleenex. I fixed her right up, and then went on my way.
I headed down the highway, got off on Highway 33, and drove into Guthrie. Before reaching the hardware store, I stopped to walk around a bit. I noticed two things on my stroll. 1) There are lots of American flags hanging from the homes and businesses there; and, 2) if it weren’t for the cars, the calendar could easily have been somewhere between November, 1880 and 1950.
Five flags between the three houses.I love their brick streets!If we're pretending, I get the top corner bedroom with the three windows!J.M. Williams would like for you to come to "The Willows" Gallery of Fine Fits and Home Decor and buy some teapots. I like their quilts!Guthrie, Oklahoma - a place where the barber pole still beacons you for a haircut.I like muscle cars. This one has a challenge to the highway patrol on his bumper.
Next stop, Ace Hardware (OHC Supply). I appreciate this place for all the reasons you’re getting ready to see. I love the Tractor Supply Store in Edmond, but I think I love this place almost as much.
They flew the American AND the Oklahoma flag. Bonus points!Ace ALSO has taxidermical interior design, with gaslight accents...and they're a little less dusty than the ones at Meers. (See my post for "And THAT's the News in Red Dirt Country" for an explanation re: this caption).Every narrow aisle is stacked from the hardwood floor to just below the ceiling with inventory. It's kind of like being in your grandparent's attic.Bingo, mission accomplished! The chlorine tablets are in stock and I'm taking one home to my hubby!This is Alex. Not only was he kind enough to pose for a photo, but he assured me that the chlorine tablets were going to stay at a reasonable price until I needed them next time. This shot also made me realize that it may not have been dust at the cow pen, but a fingerprint on my lens...oh no!Do you know why I embrace the fact that Ace carries Dickies brand outer and work wear? No, it's not because the clothing is good...although it may be. (See next photo).It's because Dickies has hunky models for their Ace Hardware ads! Sigh.
Okay, time to leave the store. On my way out I cleaned off my lens because I thought there might be a few shots left of something I’d like to share with you from my journey through Logan County. There was.
Rather than beavers, eagles, bears or other wildlife, artists in Guthrie carve high school football players from their dead trees. It takes skill to carve that football with a chainsaw and not cut it off!It's pansy time, and the window boxes in Guthrie were full of them!I drove by this hot rod and it yelled at me. I heard it. It said, "Ditch the RX300 and take me on your ride around Logan County instead...I know where I'm going!" I couldn't look it in the eye or I would have caved. Sorry, hot rod. I had to get home.
On my way home I took Waterloo Road (the county line between Oklahoma and Logan counties) on a back-road route because I really needed some farm raised eggs. We were down to one, and if I eat one more runny store-purchased egg I’m going to throw a fit. Unfortunately, the egg sign was down. That’s country talk for, “None right now. Check with me later.” So, I drove the last few miles home.
But then I stopped again. I saw Ferdinand sitting under his cork tree. Okay, it wasn’t Ferdinand the Spanish Bull from the well-known children’s book, he didn’t have long horns and it wasn’t a cork tree. But it was a black Angus and he was looking pretty majestic under his beautiful tree this afternoon.
Add horns, pretend it's a cork tree, and cue the Spanish Bull Fighter music. Ole'!I had to tiptoe over a cattle guard to take this shot. Not to be outdone by a chainsaw artist, these ranchers created their own art by hanging cobalt, white and mauve bottles from their dead tree. Reminds me of Sante Fe, NM for some reason.
Well, you’ve seen about 25 of the 100+ shots I took…all reasons why I love Logan County. I hope next time you’ll see a photo of me buying fresh eggs and celebrating because the chlorine tablets are no longer $56.00 per bucket. Either way, I also hope you enjoy your own drive through this area sometime. And if you do, please send us a photo and tell us about the treasures you found.
Hello there, dear RDC community. I’m sitting here with wet hair in my big fuzzy bathrobe and no house shoes in a 65 degree house trying to write an entry about “what’s new” when all I can think about is whether or not the hot water on my stove is boiling yet so I can make some tea. I also ALMOST edited that sentence because it was too long. I didn’t, however, because the point of it and the rest of this article is to share with you just a bit about who we are, what we do and why we do it. And, the fact that an occasional long sentence slips in is just part of how we’re structured right now.
The RDC will be deploying our 200th post this upcoming week. We’ll hit our 17,000th view sometime on Sunday or Monday and we’ll be giving away more promotions in November and December than the previous four months combined. We kicked off two new areas of writing this month (a series on “Where the Red Fern Grew” and the “Stockyards City Cookbook Cook-Through“) and have added a few more contributors as well. Since our last update Kendy, Jennifer, Jani, Whitni, Michael (guest blogger) and Dan have joined our team. Our “Friends of the RDC” are also growing and we couldn’t be happier; we generally have between 100-250 views per day with some spikes these past few months hitting 600-1100, depending upon what content was deployed. What this means, however, is that we’re adjusting to that growth.
This week I’ll be talking to someone about managing our promotions and advertising. We’re going to celebrate our 6 month birthday by launching a new website, designed to be more efficient for someone who might visit us, as well as more visually appealing. We’re also having a first official “contributor meeting” on December 11th at which time we’re going to make a decision about which way to steer the RDC in terms of a business model. And, we have a few interviews scheduled for this next month that make me think we’re beginning to get noticed as perhaps a place that has some beneficial contribution.
And, while I’m really happy about all that is going on around here, I also want to let you know that we’re doing our best to keep our side of the street clean. What that means is that the world of blogging isn’t very well-defined. If you go to WordPress.Com and simply begin looking through a random selection of blogs you will find some amazing work, and some extremely poor work. Some bloggers simply post other work they’ve found and would like to share. That’s fine as long as they are referencing the source, and most do. Others appear to be writing all their content but sometimes you can’t tell about their images. And finally, there are those who cite or link to their sources, credit their photos and seem to be doing the best they can to keep their own standards high.
In case you’ve wondered in the past, we write all our own content. We shoot all our own photos or credit the source from which they were derived. If there’s no credit, then we purchased the license for that image from a photograph company. And, we link to all our references or sources whenever we feel you might need further context or the original source supporting what we have created. Right now, I do light editing for every release except sports. Rob is our sports editor. And, when I feel like I need to make a decision about something I’ll bounce a question off Julie (she was my first co-contributor) or send it out to our whole team.
I’m sharing this information, in part, because of a very unfortunate copywrighting issue that came out on the Reddit and Facebook communities this week. This link pretty much explains just how bad theft can get when it comes to plagiarism and blatant use of what was deemed to be the fact that “all content on the internet is public domain.” Cook’s Source Magazine royally ticked off “the internet” and they’re paying for it handily.
So, everything in this letter (except for the previous immediate paragraph) pretty much sums up the way we do business. But we also “do business” on a volunteer and for-a-hobby only status right now…which is why I’m in my bathrobe writing to you this morning. After December that might change, but for right now all you see is simply because of the heart of those who write it.
Have a wonderful Saturday in Red Dirt Country. Y’all come back now, ya hear?
Sometimes who you are is carved by Time on your heart. Sometimes on your letterhead, the wallpaper on your computer, or in how you dress. At least part of Dusty Gilpin’s identity is “carved” on his forearm in the shape of a tattoo; his last name etched into more than just skin by his history as a third generation artist. Also known as TRUDust, he’s been around town quite a bit lately and is leaving his artistic fingerprint on the culture of Oklahoma City. Here are just a few impressions…
Ink, before color was added.K-N-M. Spraypaint, serigraphy, wood and plexiglass - All three photos from Dusty's Facebook Art Portfolio Page.
Co-owner of Tree & Leaf Clothing, Dusty and the rest of their team have been on their own, growing their business for about five years. You can follow him on Twitter, check the local papers or culture scene for his next spray-paint gig, or serendipitously notice one of their t-shirts being worn by a local somewhere on the street.
However it is that you run across Dusty and his work, you can be certain there’s more to come. After all, he’s just begun his third generation influence on Oklahoma…who knows what’s in store from TRUDust around the corner of the art world? Or for that matter, life in Red Dirt Country? Congratulations to you Dusty, for what you’ve accomplished thus far. Congrats to the Tree & Leaf Clothing team. And, best wishes as you continue to carve your name, and that of what’s around you or how it influences you, on our Oklahoma hearts.
Monday afternoon I was sitting in the window seat of a plane flying toward Minneapolis. During take off preparations, some of the shiny chrome trim on the tarmac equipment caught a reflective beam of sunlight and sent it directly into my eye; so, I had shut the window cover. But now I was curious. I wanted to see the view, to look around and say hello to the sky.
Ice crystals. Some of them looked like tiny caterpillars or stands of mitochondria.
When I lifted the plastic shade I was met with a view of tiny ice crystals that had been forming on the outside of my window. I examined them and looked for purpose or replication in their pattern. I thought about Minnesota and wondered if the quilted jacket I had with me was enough to keep the cold air at bay. My thoughts turned toward the conference. It had been a long day, so I reached up to once again close the shade and try to nap. I had been up since 4 a.m. and had a long night of preparations still in front of me.
Just as my arm started the downward motion to close the shade, something caught my eye. I stopped and took in the “skyscape” moment, visually tracking the long blanket of cloud cover beneath the plane all the way to the horizon. I’ve seen the clouds before, but I almost missed them this time.
Oh, HEY clouds. Good to see you!
I had allowed what was right in front of my eyes to be all that I considered. I then wondered, who had I done that same thing to today? Yesterday? This week? So my hope for you today is:
Remember to also step back, take in the whole person, and enjoy or consider their sum. After all, their whole being is always so much more than the sum of their individual parts.
On the day you were born I looked down into your tiny pappoose face, your three inches of thick black hair pointing every direction possible within a 180 degree range, and thought about you on your wedding day. Who would you be? What would you look like? Who might you marry? How would you meet him? What would he see in you that would make him fall in love? What would make you know that he was the one?
I had these thoughts because your dad was holding you, and when I watched him get up to walk you around the hospital room, he and I had only been married for one year and nine months. We were still newlyweds ourselves. But we’ve recently celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary and we have changed a great deal over that quarter-century. A friend used to say, “I’ve been married to seven different men during my lifetime, and all of them were the same person.” Well, I think your dad and I are at least on person number three or four in our own marriage.
However, you and he are on your first. So I thought I’d share in the best way I can my memories, thoughts, lessons and wisdom from our marriage for your upcoming life together. This is all I’ve got, sweetheart, except the fact that we’ll be there if you two need us along your own journey together.
Years one and two
At this present point in my life, all I can conjure up in my head from our first year together is that we did a lot of running around, said “We’re married!” quite a bit, wrote lots of thank you notes for the gifts we’re STILL using, and learned quite a bit about each other’s families. By the way, if you get a few things you could stand to go without, I recommend trading them in for one good set of culinary knives. You’ll use them every day.
I think we also had to work out the “self-imposed weirdness” regarding the unspoken assumption that we were having sex. Seriously, the first time we went to the lake with your Roberts’ grandparents and spent the night in one bedroom together, we couldn’t even look people in the face at breakfast the next morning. Not that anything happened; I feel quite certain I wore three extra layers of clothing during that trip and felt mortified that your dad’s family was walking around in their robes drinking coffee and reading the paper. We were shy, awkward, and probably were much more uncomfortable than anyone else at the cabin. So, perhaps the lesson from year one is: Enjoy the newly wed high, and work out the weirdness…as best you can. We’ve already talked about the essential premarital preparation, so I won’t harp on that. You’ve made your appointments, right?!
Years three through five
For us, these were our hardest years. Your father began working nights six months after we got married – stressor #1. I began a sales and marketing job with a good deal of travel-related requirements – stressor #2. We had you – blessing, but in reality the addition of children to a family are also stressors, #3. We internalized our feelings, didn’t communicate, began distancing from each other and really considered splitting up, results of stressors #s 1-3, plus we didn’t know how to handle conflict or much of what it took to manage distance and conflicting schedules – stressors #s…well, a whole bunch of them.But, our friends, our family, our leaders at work, and a therapist didn’t give up on us when we were giving up on ourselves.
So what’s the lesson from us to you for years 3-5? Use your support system, ask for help or get it if you need it, and when you find yourself turning inward – then that’s the key time to begin reaching out to each other.
Years six through fifteen
These were our regrouping years, our managing years, our family life years, and our time together where we really began to learn how to be a family. We got involved in your school, we had your sister, we downsized to a smaller house so I could spend more time with you and your sister (among other reasons)…in a sense, we started our second marriage. We began learning how to parent, how to co-parent, how to trust each other better and how to manage all the responsibilities that came with a young family. In other words, we were getting to the place that I wish we had been in years 3-5, but it just didn’t happen that way.
What’s the lesson here? Well, mostly it’s that if you begin a family, you will always be considering your actions, your goals and your decisions based upon not just you, or even the “us” in your marriage, but the “we” as an entire family. You may give a little more than you expected at this point in your life, but the entire family gains. We were worn out, broke, and sometimes at our wits’ end with parenting demands, but those were really, really good years.
Years fifteen through twenty
At some point in your family life, there will be a juncture where you don’t have to drag around baby paraphernalia, you’ll be able to sit down and eat entire dinners together as a family and enjoy the conversation with everyone there…you’ll be able to sit back and take a breath as a parent. This was during years 15-20 for us.
Wow, it took a great deal of energy to get there, but – wow again, it was such a good feeling to be able to allow you and your sister to: Go to your friends’ houses and spend the night, take a short vacation with just Mick and I, and allow you to drive to places we had always shuttled you to before this time. You became more autonomous, and we began enjoying that change.
The lesson? I hate to write this phrase because it has sort of been captured by the bullying community now, but it holds true in marriages as well… “it gets better.” When you pour your love, your energy and all you have together into child rearing, family development and professional development – eventually, it DOES get better. To have enough money to eat dinner out occasionally, to sit back and watch you and your sis go to prom and then to college – – what a rewarding and blessed time those years were for us!
Years twenty through twenty-five
I think of these years as the time where your dad and I got to shift a few resources from you and sis and begin redeveloping ourselves. Your father began to really enjoy golf again, he began to get tickets to sporting events and take a few trips with men from church. I went back to school and began really working at my career in a more in-depth way than before. I’ve worked on developing a few ideas I’ve always wanted to do. In other words, we got to help you begin your own journey, then begin enhancing our own.
The lesson of this time in our life? I think for one thing, you WILL be able to change your role as parenting/overseer to parent/mentor and encourager. You’ll be able to sit back and offer guidance to your children when they ask, but enjoy watching them manage their own lives as they can. You’ll be able to rediscover the desires of your own heart and take more than two or three-day vacations with your husband. And, you’ll be able to go to dinner with your children – oh, say – at a restaurant in south Oklahoma City, where they tell you, “Mams, Paps…we’re getting married.” And, you’ll be able to celebrate with them, because you’ll know they are as ready as they can be at this special time in their life.
Dear sweetheart – when you and your fiancée are in the middle of a stressful time somewhere in your future life, just let us or his parents know…and we’ll do our best to help you get through the wrinkle. The main point of this letter, though, is that you CAN. There will be struggles, you can get through them, and to have a husband you can grow with over the next twenty-five years and beyond…well, it’s a blessing that I could never had comprehended.
Your dad and I love you very much, sweetheart, and we love your chosen man too. May your first twenty-five years together be all you could hope, and may our Lord richly bless you and he over the next few months as you get ready to begin your life together.
All my very best….Mams
My daugheter at six months old. Fall, 1987.My daughter and her boyfriend goofing around at the movie theatre, in Spring 2007. They had been dating about 3 years or so at this point.
Hm, what to do for fun on 10/24/10? "Muddin'!" Okie girls making the most of it in Sparks, OK - photo provided by Micah Owens.When the ewes put on their bright red fall berries, it looks like Christmas came early. Photo by Red Dirt Kelly, taken at Ruth Roberts' on 10/23/10.A mommy in central Oklahoma didn't have this on her shopping list! Children seem to be able to sleep anywhere, huh? - photo by a friend of the RDC."Yo," I am a Toyota. Photo by Ann White.Fall visits Oklahoma. Photo by Ann White.Good morning! - Photo by Ann White.Q: What's one of the best smells in Oklahoma during the fall? A: Driving behind a hay truck with your windows open. Mmmm. - Mobile phone photo by Red Dirt kelly.
Editors Note – It seemed fitting that I publish this particular post late on All Hallow’s Eve. I might also mention that this essay is about dealing with death on the farm, and is probably too graphic for the queasy-stomached. (PG-13 rating.) Please pass on this one if you’d rather think happy thoughts…RDK
I get a little overwhelmed when I think about all the animal death passages I endured during my children’s literature stage of life. Old Yeller got shot by his owner. Old Dan and Little Ann died protecting their owner in “Where the Red Fern Grows.” Laura Ingalls ran to the cabin and stuck her fingers in her ears so she wouldn’t hear the pig squeal on butchering day. Even Walt Disney children’s films don’t spare the gore; indeed, the 101 Dalmations were going to be skinned for their fur. And don’t even get me started on fairy tales – they are chock full of swords, axes, poison and all sorts of deathly possibilities for both the animal and human characters filling the pages.
The problem with these stories, however, is that generally the fairy tales (at least those originating from England and the US) have happy endings. Laura Ingalls got to have fun with her sister roasting the pig’s tale and making a kick ball out of the bladder. There was something tragically sweet about the great lengths the owners of Old Yeller, Old Dan and Little Ann went to in order to try to save their beloved pets. And of course, the Dalmations got the best of Cruella DeVille and the family adopted every last one of the orphaned pups.
There is a gap, however, between a literary youth tragedy, a cartoon or a “gently told” story of a little girl in the Big Woods on butchering day…and real life. These stories were written for youthful audiences and therefore didn’t include the harsh realities of what death looks like up close and personal. Those experiences came suddenly or unexpectedly in all sorts of ways while growing up on the farm. Animal death scenes and farm life seem to go together like Alfred Hitchcock and scary movies. There really isn’t a way to separate the two in my mind.
The stories are many so I’ll only share four short vignettes. The first one begins at my grandparent’s farm on a day where I was innocently sent to gather eggs from the hen house. The task is managed by opening the wooden lid of each setting box, taking the eggs left by the hen, or if she’s still there, gently lifting her up and removing the eggs from underneath her. Sometimes hens peck at the hands entering their box and leave little tiny bleeding marks on those with more tender skin. I never saw my grandpa’s hands bleed, but my little girl hands did quite a bit.
One day I reached into the box and felt not feathers, not eggs, and not wood. It felt like – wait, what was that? I opened the lid further and stared at a dark mass of coils for a bit longer than I should have; the sight sunk in slowly, registering through a foggy brain clearly not expecting anything other than chickens. It was a huge black snake and the coils filled the entire box.
I slammed the lid down and ran as fast as I could to tell Grandpa. I don’t know how I expected him to react, but he immediately headed to the hen-house and grabbed a hoe on the way. I followed him wondering what was in store for the snake. He threw up the lids of the boxes until he found the snake, stuck the hoe handle in through the middle of the coils and lifted the snake up and out of the box like he had done that sort of thing before. I backed away as he headed out of the hen-house and out to the gravel driveway. He shook the hoe and the snake fell off. Uncurling quickly, the snake began to slither away but Grandpa began hacking with the blade end of the hoe, chopping at the snake with a vengeance.
I watched the whole scene with horror, and then let out a scream when the visual went into overdrive. Evidently, the snake had swallowed five or six eggs whole, and when Grandpa’s hoe hit those large lumps in the snake’s throat, its head raised about two feet off the ground, the mouth involuntarily opened up and spewed yellow yolk everywhere. I couldn’t look anymore – I turned around and ran in the house. The image of Grandpa hacking the snake to bits while it spewed yellow goo was burned into my brain, and played over and over in my mind over the next few weeks.
Vignette number two involved a fight with my cat. I was up in a mulberry tree one summer, my face and fingers covered in purple juice from my harvest, when I heard a horrible screech from my cat. I looked down to see that it wasn’t my cat making the noise, but a rabbit that my cat had caught. The poor thing was bleeding and fur had started scattering. The cat was eating the little bunny! I dropped out of the tree and began chasing my cat who felt threatened that I was taking her meal. The cat was fast, but every once in a while it had to stop and adjust the weight of the bunny she was dragging…her prey was half-dead.
I slapped at my cat. “Leave the bunny alone! Let it go! Let IT GO!!” I love my cat, but I wasn’t going to let it have that bunny. I finally caught the cat in such a hold that I could pry the bunny out of its claws and teeth. The bunny was stunned and didn’t move. I was wrestling with the cat, trying to hold it while nudging the bunny along with my foot. “Run!” I told the bunny… “Run!” The bunny finally hopped away, the cat scratched me deep enough that I couldn’t hold on any longer, she ran after the bunny…and killed it.
I remember running across that bunny tail a few days later. I picked it up, let it dry and kept it for a while. “Animal body parts” were fairly common on the farm. I once found a squirrel tail (probably left after the cat ate it), I found a few rabbit feet over the years, and I would frequently find carcasses of one sort or another in our pasture. I know there is a food chain, and I know animals do what they do. What I didn’t know is that some animal parts look like others.
Vignette number three was especially gruesome and I couldn’t get it out of my head for a very long time. I was skipping along one day, spied a white tail from a rabbit, picked it up and began to inspect it. When I turned it over, I saw two tiny closed eyes and a baby mouth. I uttered some kind of creeped-out yell, threw it down, and realized it was the leftovers of one of our new baby kittens, probably eaten by a tom cat who had come back to visit. I had always heard that tom cats ate kittens, but had never seen tangible evidence until that day. I felt like throwing up. Seeing “the food chain” up close and personal, especially when it involved tiny baby kittens, was too much. I think I probably stayed indoors for a few days.
And finally, vignette number four has to do with cows. When you lived on a farm, it was common to have people come to your house, ask about hay, or drive out on your property for one thing or another. One day I looked out my bedroom window to see a white truck driving around in our front pasture. The cows were running around and I began to wonder what was going on because there was a man in the back of the truck. Startled, I realized he had a gun. Just about that time he raised it, aimed at a cow and pulled the trigger. A rifle-shot rang out and I saw the running cow stumble, then eventually fall. I was gripping the window sill…I had just witnessed one of my cows dying! We named our cows, for crying out loud, and we usually only kept about thirty at a time. My stomach tightened and I sat down. I always knew we butchered a cow or two, but I had never witnessed a death like that. I felt like I had seen a person killed and couldn’t shake that scene in my head for another week or two.
I was recently corresponding with Becky Winsor, a childhood neighbor of mine, and we were talking about the “cow death” experience. She was one of four sisters and wrote me her “death on the farm” story:
Growing up on a farm was, in hindsight, a very good experience. Over the years, I have put to use many of the life skills that I learned. I won’t lie, it was hard work. We raised cattle, sheep, chickens, pigs, and had a couple of horses. We also got to chop and pick cotton, bale and put up hay, and plant numerous crops.
My memories are however, for the most part, good. One of the hardest lessons I learned came when I was about 10 years old. My father gave baby calves to my sisters and I. We were allowed to name them, bottle feed them, pet them, and visit them as much as we wanted. This went on for about 7 or 8 months. One day, we came home from school to find that the calves were gone. We were understandably upset.
When my father was questioned about this disappearance, he stated that they had been sold. He explained that we couldn’t keep the calves forever, that this was a natural consequence of raising farm animals. He had to deal with 4 teary-eyed girls for several days. He never allowed us to have our “own” farm animals again. Of course, he never again really complained about the 10-12 cats we had running around either.
What I realized when I read her story was that my experiences were not isolated. There were (and are) children everywhere learning about death first hand on farms every day of the year. However, I would venture to say that those lessons are never cartoons, they rarely have happy endings, and they aren’t written by a children’s author with gentle phrasing and puppy grave sites that grow red ferns.
In fact, the doggie grave sites MIGHT just end up like mine. One day when I was running toward the creek to go play with my brother and my foot dropped about two feet down into a hole. As I pulled my leg out I saw rib bones lying around the hole, and when I moved my shoe I saw more bones. THEN I realized that was where we had buried our dog, Peppy, a few weeks before. Evidently, an animal had dug her up and had her for dinner. ARGH! It was so creepy!!
If there is any redeeming value in animal death stories on the farm, it is that the most recent trauma usually replaces the creepiness of the former traumas. Honestly, that’s the only good thing I can say about the subject. Well…and, the fact that my clients can tell me just about anything in my therapy office and I’m hardly ever shocked.
Hmm…can it be that there was actually some redeeming value in all those creepy death experiences? Naw…then it wouldn’t be a Halloween story, right?
You did it. You braved the freezing weather in your skimpy ballerina costume, or perhaps warmer than usual weather under your furry gorilla garb. You might stink due to the combination of a spandex superhero suit that didn’t breathe, or the nasty greasepaint you put on your face three hours ago. You’re possibly a little worse for the wear, sporting more than one Halloween badge of courage. Maybe you cut your tongue on the breathing and talking-hole cutout of your hard plastic mask; you know, the one with the single string of elastic that probably broke before you hit the third house in your neighborhood?
Or perhaps you stepped in a mud puddle wearing only your blue fuzzy Smurf house shoes – the ones you thought were a perfect finale for your blue sweats, blue face and white beard. You might have cuts or bruises, acquired from tripping over one too many steps on the dark sidewalks you ascended as you neared the front doors of a hundred neighbors. You may have ripped your costume in four places or cracked your tiara right up the middle.
None of this matters. What matters is that your pillow case, your plastic pumpkin with black paint flaking off the eyes, or your neatly crafted candy bag with the stuffed ghost on the side is bursting at the seams and making your arms ache from carrying it for 27 city blocks… It is now time. It’s time to pour it out on the floor of your bedroom in its bountiful splendor, look lovingly at the treasure, and start your Halloween candy sorting ritual.
Chocolate bars – these are the “exchange units” of all other candy types. They are the golden standard to which everything else is compared. You put all of them together and do a quick calculation as to how many you’re going to keep for yourself, how many you’ll need to hide from the chocolate-loving freak in your family, and how many you might use to trade with your friends or siblings for other treats on low-inventory status within your stash. And, depending upon your particular sweet tooth, you might make an extra pile for your favorite no-exchanges, no-returns bars. For my kids, these were the Reese’s cups. No amount of cajoling would get me even a crumb of a Reese’s cup.
Sour stuff – these are still valuable, but slightly below the chocolate. Included in this pile are the SweetTarts, Smarties, Sprees, Pixie Sticks, Sour Gummy Worms, etc. While still valuable, it usually takes a few of these to trade for one chocolate bar. Sometimes several. At this point, because they’re not the prime standard, you probably treat yourself to at least one packet of SweetTarts, praying that at least two of the three pieces inside the tiny packet are colors you like.
Suckers – Blow Pops, DumDums, Lifesaver Lollipops, Tootsie Rolls…you carefully pick through your stack until you find every one of your suckers. You have fun with them by arranging them into spirals on the floor, or placing them in gradually decreasing mass size, down to the tiniest ones. You think about sticking them into your ponytail the next morning (or not), and you anxiously look around to make sure you have at least one cherry flavored blow-pop and tootsie roll. Find them? You might hide those too.
Good Little Stuff – Your pile is looking messy so it’s time to start sorting the “pea-gravel.” You quickly look through the pile and pull out all the Hershey’s minis, the Hershey’s kisses, the hard candy you like, the prime bubble-gum brands, the Jolly Rancher’s and anything else of value. The entire time you’re hoping that the “good” little stuff outnumbers the “icky” little stuff. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. But you always hope.
Icky Little Stuff – For me, this is where those orange and black wrapped peanut butter taffies go. Also included is the single Bit-O-Honeys and the little packages of candy corn. That’s just me. For you? Who knows…but you know you have them. The ickies are the candy that you know you’ll either give away, beg off to someone as a “bonus” when trading other pieces, or might eventually turn hard, stale and go in the trash in February. You do your best to find any last redeeming value from this pile, but usually by this time the ickies have sorted themselves out and are the last remaining candy on your floor.
Task complete, you lean back and assess your candy bank account. Was it a good year or a year of famine? You look down at your muddy Smurf house shoes, rub your bruised ankle, glance once again across the beautiful bounty of your effort and smile. You are the king or queen, and this is your treasure. Now you know exactly what it’s worth, and begin your plotting on how you’ll steward this beautiful booty.
Okay, there’s just one problem with this picture. Where do you put these weird red wax lips wrapped in cellophane?!
Let’s face it. “Super sized” any-food is too much unless we’re talking about athletes, extremely physically active people or adolescent boys. I once saw a six-foot, thin-as-a-rail boy down two super sized Mc-Meals without blinking an eye…his body was a consuming machine, growing nightly and amazing those around him daily. But for most of us, the super sized phenomenon has resulted in a proverbial thunder thighs and badonk-a-donk butt plague gripping America by the cholesterol-packed veins.
But this essay isn’t about America’s battle of the bulge. Rather, it’s about the something else that makes you feel like you’ve just eaten way too many calories and and you can’t shake the weight of what’s getting you down: a super sized conflict with someone you love.
When someone begins eating healthy, the first thing they usually have to do is come to terms with what it is they are actually putting in their mouth. Sometimes you look at a plate of food and it just doesn’t seem that 1200 calories are sitting there waiting for you to engage. It’s the same thing with fights…people rarely understand how they started, the result is overwhelming and they feel as thought they bit off way more than they could chew. And…frequently they experience physical symptoms like indigestion!
However, if you break down a Big Mac into all its parts, you can see what you’re getting yourself into. From the seventies we know this is…
Click photo to view the Big Mac "Two All Beef Patties..." commercial.
And, once you know what you’re getting into sometimes it seems easier to make choices that affect outcomes. For a Big Mac, we could pull off the middle layer of bread, one of the patties, all of the sauce and have a moderately decent meal. For fights, however, the ingredients are invisible. Here’s the list: feeling, action, intent, interpretation, and response…FAIIR. And, fair fighting is something the world could all use more of so we’ll stick with that acronym to help you remember our anatomy lesson.
Generally about this time in an article I would provide an example of an argument. However, I think what I’d like you to do instead is think back to one you’ve had recently. What was it about? How did it start? Got it in your head? Okay…here’s the breakdown –
Feelings There are feelings surrounding every action, interpretation and response in an argument. Identifying those feelings and being clear about them is the first order of business. If you started it, what were you feeling? Sometimes you have “feeling salad” wherein you have several at the same time. Make sure and list them all.
Action Usually the feeling precedes the action; feelings are the propulsion, so to speak, for your move. So, what did you do? What action did you take? Sometimes a fight is precipitated by feelings and the action becomes “shutting down.” It doesn’t always have to be a forward-motion behavior. It’s important to note, however, that there is always an intent for the action.
Intent Here is a major key for you – most all intentions within normal couple fights are positive. It’s actually a positive thing to want to resolve an issue. It’s a positive thing to want the fighting to stop. It’s a positive thing to think you’re protecting someone’s feelings. It’s a positive thing to try to change something that’s not working. Even though your partner may not view your action as having a positive intent, it usually does…even if that intent is only to protect yourself because you’re feeling attacked. That’s a positive action! No one wants to feel attacked!
Interpretation The next part of the argument, however, is the interpretation. In most every fight, the “intent” of one person is “interpreted” in a negative manner. This is where the real problems lie. A history of hurts pile up and so many times interpretations are based upon historical “sameness,” even if this fight is different. Further, negative intents are often labeled (correctly) as “mind-reading.” No human being can read minds, have ESP about another’s feelings, or judge what an intent really is…you’re just not that good. Neither am I. But over time, trust erodes when fights continue and it’s difficult to remember that your partner is a living, breathing, autonomous person with their own thoughts and feelings. So, this is where you need to be the most cautious: assumptions of negative intent are toxic.
Response You can tell where this is going now, right? If you have an behavior that was feeling inspired, had a positive intent, but then a negative interpretation…the logical “response” would be to then counter with a behavior that is feeling inspired, has a positive intent, but will probably be negatively interpreted. This is how humans, and for that matter pretty much most of the animal kingdom, are engineered. And many times, we can’t even really identify where these fights began or how they ended.
If this type of escalation continues, it becomes super sized. And before you know it, your relationship may have some pretty heavy baggage (thunder thighs) to slowly repair with healthier interactions. However, the cool thing about healthier eating and exercise, AND about healthy communications and interactions, are that they make a difference immediately. And both, over a longer period of time, can radically change your outlook on life.
Envisioning a relationship with healthy communication (clear, open and FAIIR dialogue) feels good doesn’t it? As I think about it, I am experiencing absolutely NO indigestion!
(Now that you know the anatomy of a fight, follow THIS LINK to learn what you can do better to avoid some of that mess I just shared with you!)
After you do that, if you’re still not there…write us and we’ll get you more resources. Thanks.
Persimmon Time - Oklahoma is great place for finding edible treasures across the land. NOW is the time for Persimmon foraging. Have you seen any around? - Photo by Red Dirt KellyThe "Zac" group did their best to help OSU win their homecoming contest against Nebraska, but it just wasn't meant to be. This photo and more from "America's Best Homecoming" celebration at http://www.osupics.com/ Proof positive that fall IS coming to Oklahoma...eventually. Photo by Kenny Bomgardner, taken of his tree.While the weather is still good...make sure and plan a trip to the Wichita Wildlife refuge. You might find yourself sharing the road with this guy. Photo by the Oklahoma Tourism Department. Click to read more about the area.
If you do what I did and accidentally search for the Ludivine restaurant in Oklahoma City by typing “Ludivine dot com” into your browser, you’ll be met with a screen full of drop dead gorgeous, blond – um…nakedness. Evidently Ludivine Sagnier, the French actress, is famous for her nude acting scenes. And, still photos of these scenes are displayed on the front page of her website in case you needed to be convinced of her ability to pull off the roles into which she was cast. Certainly it’s not just to garner website attention and attract high internet traffic, right?
I’m sharing this uncomfortable detail of my personal life because the information could be valuable in case you wish to eat at a new restaurant in the Mid-Town OKC area and you might happen to do a search at your place of employment. And, if you’re already past that stage and you work for a state agency like I do, then you might also want to do what I did: Immediately call or write your information technology friend and let them know of your faux pas. Here’s a copy of my e-mail…
Dear [Name of IT friend]–
I was looking up Ludivine restaurant because I want to go eat there tonight. I typed in Ludivine dot com (rather than the correct ludivineokc dot com) and for a brief moment was flashed with naked women photos.
Eek! I’m just telling you this because I may have set off some kind of filter or monitoring system within the workplace internet software…
See ya,[me]
In case you’re wondering if I’ll be the next state employee on the 10:00 p.m. news, the answer is no. Evidently, my anxiety level was much higher than my friend’s and his response was basically, “This stuff happens. Thanks for the heads up.”
I’m saving my e-mail just in case.
Enough about me…let’s talk about Ludivine. The restaurant. In Oklahoma City.
The Red Dirt Chronicles has already covered the establishment in three ways: a) We gave a shout out to Peach Crest farms, one of their local suppliers; b) I wrote an article about why I’m crazy about the concept of the restaurant and featured a link to their YouTube video library educating the viewer about various aspects re: their growers or producers, their purchasing philosophy, etc; and, c) the fact that they are now open for business. This review will wrap our regular coverage of the restaurant and we’ll only go back if we do some specialty work such as an interview or collaborative event. Oops – still talking about “us” now…time to get down to business.
Ludivine, New Prairie Cuisine…A Review
The restaurant site and interior
Located on the corner of 7th and Hudson, Ludivine sits diagonally across from the new Federal Building in the Mid-Town area of Oklahoma City. The streets in the vicinity are not too busy and provide ample parallel parking. At night, the restaurant sign beacons you with its bright robin egg blue color and a scissortail flycatcher punctuating the logo.
Enter the restaurant and you are met with a smart décor stitched together with pewter-look delicate chandelier placements, commissioned paintings that will keep you glancing at them throughout your entire visit, and heavy dark wood tables juxtaposed against seating covered with moss-green and soft gray textiles. A color palette of burnished fulvous, deep brick-red, ebony, gray, accents of goldenrod and a knock-out indigo made my synapses start firing…astute choices indeed. My favorite tabletop item was not the flowers grown in the Shawnee area, although they’re close. Rather, I was especially drawn to the flatware design – the forks have a 45-degree angle at the base of their tines, so they lend a trendy finish to a comfortable, sharp context.
The kitchen is in full view and guests are given a choice of sitting at the surrounding counter to watch the cooking action, or sit at a table in the dining area. The only drawback to the dining area I could see is that they could use between two and four feet more floor space width. The wait staff and guests move fluidly enough, but can be seen jockeying for position to find their way, regardless of the engaging and friendly banter.
The bar has plenty of space for a comfortable hang out, or to meet and greet prior to a meal. I’m still mulling over the large stripe patterned curtain chosen for the south window in the bar, but I’d take out-of-town guests there in a heartbeat. Overall, even with the space constraints factored in, I give the space a solid “A.” And, I tip my hat to the person or team who sweated the details to bring it all together. Nice job, Ludivine. You won’t be redecorating your space for a good long while.
Food and drink
A server fully invested in the restaurant, as well as his role as our dinner guide greeted us. He mentioned we were “lucky tonight because they had Coq au Vin on the menu,” kept the chilled water coming and answered all our questions. I had my eighteen year-old daughter with me; she decided to order the lamb burger. I ordered the Coq au Vin. We held off on appetizers because there was a strong possibility of dessert in our future, and I ordered one of their house specialty cocktails to start the evening.
A drink with a grown-up finish: The "Bees Smashed Kneecaps." Gotta love that lavender finish... - RDC Photo
I chose this particular drink because I had watched a video demonstration on their Facebook page and decided the beverage needed further investigation. When my Bee Smashed Kneecaps (an adaptation of their Bee’s Knees cocktail) arrived, I was not disappointed. A mixture of Broker’s gin, lemon, lavender, and honey – shaken and strained, filled the glass. At the same time refreshing and bold, the finish of lavender filled my “exhale” after the first gulp. I had been concerned there would be too much honey or sweetness but this fear was put to rest immediately. It was a grown up drink and a dandy one at that. The Ludivine bar also gets a solid “A.”
The chilled water plus the assortment of breads was a nice filler between courses. My daughter appreciated the pumpkin bread. I liked the bacon crumble extra-chewy baguette.
Coq au Vin - Ludivine, 10/9/10 - RDC Photo
Next came dinner. I’ve had several variations of Coq au Vin over the years, so I was curious about the Ludivine approach. They served their chicken quarter over whipped turnips, with a few Crowder peas, steamed turnip wedges and a small pickled okra spear, the Vin sauce pooling on all sides. My most important question was answered on the first bite: Yes, the chicken came before the Vin, and was not covered up by the reduction. There is a spectrum of “done” for cooked vegetables and I was surprised to find the turnip wedges at the front edge of that range. I thought they might have been slow roasted for some time. This was a good choice because with a roasted chicken in rich sauce, plus brown Crowder peas and whipped turnip bed tending to take on the Vin flavor, a difference is needed. The barely-done turnip wedges and the tender okra spear provided that difference. I’d like to see perhaps one more element of variety to set off the complete dish; perhaps kicking the whipped turnips for something that holds up better, or pooling less sauce. Still, this dish earns an “A-.”
We ordered a plate of four assorted desserts. I’m sure these rotate every evening, so I won’t dwell too much on the detail. I will say, however, that the chilled blueberry soup was one of my top picks for the evening. If that soup is available when you visit, order it. They serve their coffee French Press fashion and for that I was grateful. The blend of their beans was roasted one to two shades too dark and oily, with a slightly bitter finish. Perhaps an intentional choice to compliment the sweet palate of desserts, but I think a bit more mellow of a finish would sit better with the majority of those dining. Dessert, A; coffee; B.
Here are a few extra notes to finish off this particular review – I noticed there wasn’t a huge amount of noise coming out of the open kitchen. This is unusual and I wonder if intentional as well? For me, it was a pleasant surprise. They provide a recycled carry out container similar to a cardboard material you would see in egg cartons…another nice touch. And, although they weren’t initially taking reservations last week, they are now. A needed addition if they keep performing like they did for our visit.
In sum, from the moment we exited my car to the moment we left the building after our meal, I felt relaxed, well served, and well fed. My artistic side was nurtured by the interior design. And, I’m certain I will go back again and again. My next goal is to try some of their colder salads and check out the homemade noodles dressed with soft herb pesto.
An overall solid “A” visit. And, I feel good about sending you, your family or your business guests there any time you’d like to go. Enjoy!
Lovin’ the New Prairie Cuisine…Red Dirt Kelly
P.S. If you click here, you’ll get straight to the CORRECT website. Isn’t is nice that we took care of that little task for you?
Lamb Burger with wilted greens and sweet potatoes...Nice! - RDC Photo
Top row, left to right: Beth Pinkstaff, Anita Adair, Kelly Bomgardner; Bottom row, left to right: Regan Barr, Marlon Lambert. Turner Falls, Oklahoma - Spring, 1983.
It’s Spring, 1893…I mean, 1983. I was standing in front of a camera in Turner Falls, Oklahoma with four other friends who had helped me survive my freshman year in college. Four other friends who, together, had walked with me through one of the best years of my life, and one of the most stressful years in my life. The camera flashed, we took off our costumes, and somehow the photograph made its way across 27.5 years of moves, still intact although a bit faded. Last night while digging through a box on a quest to find something else, I found this photo and began to reflect.
I began my freshman year as a music major at Midwest Christian College in Oklahoma City during the fall of 1982. I had not previously met any of the others in the photo except in passing during audition days. As anyone who is a music major will tell you, the time investment in terms of studio hours outside of your regular studies is astronomical. Four of the five of us were in applied lessons such as piano and voice, as well as ensemble for the school choir AND for our school recruitment singing group, “Image;” the name had been taken from the Christian phrase of being made “…in His image.”
Any one of us could write a book of tales from that year. Indeed, life was sometimes stranger than fiction:
1) A man in Western Oklahoma felt led during one of our concerts to pay for us to record an album. Later, the money wasn’t quite enough for a bare bones project so the only way we could make it happen was to record all the tracks during the cheapest studio time, midnight to six in the morning over a period of only two or three days. We did this during finals week of our fall semester…two weeks after our part-time drummer and bass player had been hit by a car and had died.
2) During a bizarre twist of fate, we found that our faculty sponsor wasn’t able to continue his appointment as the coordinator, music arranger, and director of our rehearsals for the second semester of the year. His leadership and mentorship had been extremely important to me during that transitional freshman year and he had managed the entire recording process for all of us. However (and I still don’t know how those making the decision decided to support the request), we ended up basically sponsoring ourselves the second semester. We went it alone: three freshman/sophomore women, and two senior men. Our regional traveling load didn’t lighten just because we had lost our sponsor, so most every weekend we loaded the trailer, found the scheduled church (in Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma or Arkansas), stayed in homes of the church members and led musical worship…or gave concerts. Students, on the road, getting along on their own. We did it, but sometimes when I think about it I really am quite stricken with thoughts of “what were they thinking?”
3) I spent my birthday on a dairy farm in McPherson, Kansas. We became connoisseurs of roadside Pizza Huts. One time we had to load out of a concert site over the “slain in the spirit” bodies of some Pentecostals who took longer to worship than our schedule could allow. I know at least once our sponsor had to stop the van so I could run up to a deserted farm house, go around to the back side and pee. I still wonder if anyone was on that property and witnessed my bathroom break. We rehearsed, arranged music, made jokes, created an alternate universe with a language to accompany it…we got each other through.
The year ended, however, and the five of us began to go our separate ways. Regan headed to an appointment as a youth minister in New Mexico. Marlon and Anita got married. I must have had enough because I enrolled into a college just up the road and changed my major. Beth stayed for another year to sing; she had a really beautiful voice. But shortly after that the college merged with Ozark Christian College and was eventually sold to the Army Reserve as a training ground.
When you find yourself in a closet and you look at a life that existed, but has certainly faded in your memory, sometimes you’re left with only big themes or thoughts. When I look at this photo my big thoughts are: gratitude, friendship love, stress, talent and fulfillment. I’m so incredibly grateful to my four other comrades for getting me through that “best of times and worst of times” year. And, when I look at my children now – who are the same age as those in the photograph, I know their capacity to manage life will always be bigger than I can imagine.
Thanks, friends, for being part of one of the most special times in my life. I love you guys.
Here we are in the 1982 duds we picked out as stylin' fashion. Tom, our director, is on the back row - far right, sporting a mustache.
Born as the “Red Dirt Kelly” blog on May 20th of this year, the Red Dirt Chronicles is happy to celebrate our official five-month birthday today!
We now have ten contributors on our team with two more coming on board next week, have had just over 14,500 total views and will be rolling out our new site very shortly. Here’s a sneak peek!…
Okay, that’s all you get right now. We can’t give away the whole reveal before it’s ready, right?
What we can “give you,” though, is a visual of some 5 month birthday Apple Cake for our nice fall weather. We covet your good wishes and support, and always look forward to hearing from you. Feedback is really important to us! Don’t forget our giveaway this Saturday – each comment on a blog post earns you one name in the drawing!
Looking forward to “The Big Reveal” in about a month!,
Kelly, Julie, Rob, Mark, Joey, Lamar, Kendy, Jen, Dan and Michael (new contributor/partner as of today).
For a little over six years now, I’ve walked the halls of the College of Human Environmental Sciences (CHES) at Oklahoma State University (OSU). One of the things I’ve never worried about is where I might eat my lunch in case I’m in too much of a rush to pack myself a meal. There are two restaurants in the adjoining building to ours, CHES-West. One of them is a little “faster food” style cafe’ serving both breakfast and lunch. The other is Taylor’s Dining Room, the “fine dining Lab for students in the School of Hotel and Restaurant Administration.”
I eat there about two or three times each semester. Every time I go, these thoughts come to my head: 1) The food is a good value compared to other bistro-style restaurants in larger city areas; 2) I’m contributing to the students’ education by eating there and interacting with the staff; and, 3) I get more than a meal when I go. I get a smile on my face; it’s a treat to be welcomed, seated, served and checked on by students in training within the 8th ranked hospitality and tourism programs in the world.
I visited Taylor’s about a week ago and was glad to see they continue to revamp the menu as are newly inspired from students, faculty and visiting chef’s from around the globe. In the mood to welcome autumn, I ordered the Arugula, Pear & Manchego Salad ($9) and a glass of tea.
The salad was complimented by their bread basket. They’ve changed their daily bread service since last year; the added bread sticks with caraway was a nice modification.
Like many salads I’ve had lately, I had to pick out two or three wilted leaves. Other than that, the dish was excellent. I especially liked their choice of the buttery Manchego cheese as a compliment to the sweeter poached pears.
If you have a chance to visit Stillwater and want a good meal for a good price, I suggest Taylor’s. It’s a chance to give, get and eat. Bon appetit!
A small farm town is great for overhearing comments like these: “Oh, he has heart trouble? Better not let him out on that tractor during harvest. You won’t know if he’s had any chest pains until he gets every last acre of that crop in!” Then everyone around bursts into laughter, nods their heads, and asks to hear more about Farmer Brown’s cardiac condition. However…
It’s a human law of nature, isn’t it? We laugh the loudest at that which rings the greatest truths?
Over the last ten years or so, I’ve studied one area about relationships more than others, and it’s because I know so many “Farmer Browns” in Oklahoma: the phenomenon of seeking help. Some of the reasons I began researching this topic are personal. My own husband and I struggled with seeking outside assistance when we were having marital issues around the third year of our marriage. When we finally DID access couples therapy services, however, it only took two sessions for both of us to realize that our marriage was much greater than the two of us sitting in the room. It took longer for our emotions toward each other to repair, but once we made the decision to stick out our relationship we looked at all our other decisions in a very different way. And, recently celebrating our 25th anniversary felt really great.
Another reason I’ve spent so much time researching this topic is because it’s such a pervasive problem. I’ve only found one paper over the years by an anthropologist who wrote specifically about Oklahomans’ inability to ask for help when they need it, but through my own research and that of my colleagues, I’ve found out a little more. Here’s what I know about folks in Red Dirt Country (AND for the rest of the US…I have national data sets as well).:
1) It’s easier for people to tell their friends to go get help than it is for them to go themselves. A full 95% of respondents from one of my surveys stated that they would “encourage their friends to seek premarital or marital education,” or “therapy.” However, around 60-70% of most populations said they thought they might try it themselves – many of that population responded “only when it’s the last option.” It’s easier to suggest to others than take our own advice, it seems.
2) The number one constraint to seeking marital education OR therapy services among Oklahomans in 2003 was the concern about “getting the other person in the relationship to agree to the idea.” In other words, it wasn’t the individual’s attitude or belief about seeking help as much as it was their fear or anxiety about bringing up the discussion, or anticipating how their partner might respond to their request. So it seems that sometimes what we think about others, or how they might react, is even more powerful than what we believe for ourselves.
3) On a better note, however, a greater majority of people were more willing to get couples counseling, attend marriage or relationship education, or other type of couples service (retreat, take an inventory, etc), than they were to seek individual help or education for themselves. So, they are thinking of others or their relationship over themselves, for the most part. This is important information – knowing that someone might make a decision for the sake of another over themselves is valuable when we’re talking about relationships.
These are just a few tiny bits of data out of a very large amount of information but I think they might be useful for a couple of reasons. First of all, what this information tells us is that it’s NORMAL to feel conflicted, worried or resistant to opening up our relationship to outside help. Some even feel that going to an educational workshop over relationship skills will “make things worse;” that if they just ignore the issue and keep the boat steady, maybe things will blow over.
Others feel ill-equipped to know where to begin when asking their partner to go with them. This is NORMAL too! If you’ve been arguing or the two of you readily step into “blaming mode,” then it’s easy to see how something well-intended could turn sour quickly. The very best way to bring up a topic like this is to make sure to “own your own wishes” (say, “I’d really like for you to go with me. Here’s what we can learn. Would you please think about this?”) and resist the urge to blame or to criticize, or make things personal (for example, “Maybe this will keep us from arguing about the dogs.”) If you talk about what you can GAIN, and avoid bringing up what is WRONG, chances are the conversation will go better.
Telling your partner about skills the two of you can learn is a much clearer message than telling them what’s been wrong. They already know what’s gone wrong; reiteration isn’t needed in a committed relationship. You know each other very well.
Finally, if you happen to be the one who is thinking about inviting your partner to begin therapy or attend a relationship education workshop, having the information handy is also important. Don’t know where to start? I’ve got four links for you I’ll share at the end of this article – you can look up the information right now!
So, what have we learned? Seeking help is hard. People are scared to ask their partners to go with them. People are willing to do something for others over themselves. How does this work together? Well, the fact that “people are willing to do something for others” actually increases the chances that your partner will accept an invitation from you. Now, all you have to do is ask. Good luck…and let us know if you need extra support.
