All posts by Red Dirt Kelly

Every Point on the Map

EPTOM: Holdenville, OK (“The Best Place on Earth”)

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We were playing chicken with the Sun, pushing our last stop that day  as we swirvingly navigated through a crowded parking lot full of cars bearing license plates from all over the U.S.

The scene: The “Expo” building on the Holdenville fairgrounds.

The event we were trying to crash: A 50-year Holdenville High School class reunion, lovingly given a “Prom 2.0” theme by those who had been planning the event since their 45th “Prom,” five years back.

The whole city of Holdenville seemed like an eager high schooler, all dressed up for a party. Continue reading EPTOM: Holdenville, OK (“The Best Place on Earth”) →

Art, Music Scene

Merry Christmas 2014 – FREE Seasonal Music for Readers of the RDC

As a “Merry Christmas” to our sweet friends on this venue, I’m sharing all the files from a 2004 Christmas album my friends at Cherokee Hills Christian Church and I recorded at the University of Central Oklahoma Jazz Lab.  Thanks to Paul Eastland, Sam Pappas, Mark Hinderliter & Brandon Smith for the good work.  Peace, Merry Christmas and Blessings to you this Season!

P.S.  When you right-click the links, you can then “save as” to your own computer and keep this music as our gift to you! Continue reading Merry Christmas 2014 – FREE Seasonal Music for Readers of the RDC →

Every Point on the Map

EPOTM: Tulsa, OK (God Bless George Kaiser)

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While we continuously sort through what our project is, we are fairly certain of what it is not.

Every Point on the Map was never intended to serve as a vehicle for promotion of business, places or people.  Rachel and I have already had several discussions about how to decline when someone asks to be the person we speak with in certain towns.

We neither intend to sell features of certain locations, nor do we intend on framing them with any perspectives other than those shared with us by our participants. Continue reading EPOTM: Tulsa, OK (God Bless George Kaiser) →

Every Point on the Map

EPOTM: New Lima, OK (By the Grace of God)

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Rachel and I drove in circles around Lima and New Lima, Oklahoma on a hot summer Sunday afternoon.  We failed at our task: trying to distinguish a border between the two towns.  So we asked the locals and received a brief history lesson about the boundaries, and who we might talk with when we reached each side. Continue reading EPOTM: New Lima, OK (By the Grace of God) →

Every Point on the Map

EPOTM: Little, OK (The Bathroom Ghost)

_DSC0061Rachel and I were standing outside in the August sun, waiting patiently on a woman to finish her cell phone conversation. She looked like an overdressed Flo, talked with a vernacular that could only be Alabaman, and made eye contact with us every thirty seconds holding up her index finger as if to say, “I’ll be right with you.” Continue reading EPOTM: Little, OK (The Bathroom Ghost) →

Every Point on the Map

EPTOM: Wewoka, OK (Or…How Tori is Getting Her Groove Back)

_DSC0104Dimples slay me.

Regardless of race, age, creed, color or sexual orientation, dimples have always slayed me.

They were the first thing I noticed about Tori. The second was the fact that we were sitting at a picnic table talking to this sixteen year-old girl who had a hundred year-old soul. Continue reading EPTOM: Wewoka, OK (Or…How Tori is Getting Her Groove Back) →

Every Point on the Map

EPOTM: Cromwell, OK (or Willie Simpkins and the Board of Education)

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_DSC0045Everything about our visit with Willie Simpkins surprised me.

We felt we were too far into the Cromwell countryside to find someone, but  there was a home that beckoned us.  No one looked home when we pulled into Willie’s driveway, but he answered the door.  And although his face looked like “no” was the inevitable answer to our key question, he said yes.

Continue reading EPOTM: Cromwell, OK (or Willie Simpkins and the Board of Education) →

Homestead and Garden, Oklahoma culture

How Billie Holiday, Hoboken Coffee and The Pioneer Woman Talked Me Down from my Starbucks Addiction

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Technology news is full of information about self-tracking apps helping to “quantify” yourself.  Fitbits track your sleep and exercise.  Apps like Mint help you track your spending habits. And…no, let’s just stop right there.  Apps like Mint track your spending patterns and help you see how out of control your coffee drinking habits are.

Okay, let’s stop again.  Mint tracked my “Coffee Shop” budget for six months and slapped me into reality.  And now, I’m better.  Here’s what happened…

A conversation sometime last year:

Me: I’m setting up our monthly budgets in Mint.  How much do you spend for golf every month.

Mick:  I don’t know, I don’t keep track.

Me:  Well, my one “luxury” every month is going to the coffee shop, relaxing with a latte, and reading.  I’m budgeting $120 per month for me.  That’s my luxury item.  How about you?  What’s your average golf expenditures?

Mick’s golf budget is not part of this story.  But, the idea that I was using social exchange theory is.  In one sense, quite honestly, I was trying to justify my coffee spending habits by externalizing Mick’s golf activity spending habits.  Fair for you; fair for me…

In another way, however, I was trying to find a “number” that fit with how much we were each going to allow ourselves on luxury items per month we had already been spending, but needed to acknowledge.  This “budget line item” allowance we gave ourselves worked like a charm.  For six months or so, we kept a silent tally in our heads of “approximately THAT number” for “our THING.”

But at some point, however, my number began to slip.  I quit paying attention to my “Coffee Shop” line item. And, it gently creeped upward. Until April of 2014.  April was big month.  A full month.  Cram packed with activities, late nights, extra projects, and…extra stops at Starbucks.  I met colleagues at Starbucks to go over goals for research.  It was legislative session, so I had planning sessions at Starbucks followed by phone meetings at Starbucks.  All of the sudden, my $120 Starbucks habit had turned into…wait, WHAT? TWO-HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SEVEN DOLLARS??? Continue reading How Billie Holiday, Hoboken Coffee and The Pioneer Woman Talked Me Down from my Starbucks Addiction →

Every Point on the Map

EPOTM: Meeker, OK

_DSC0126“You could probably just talk with anyone here.  We’re all like family…that guy just had a horse kick the valve stem off the tire on his trailer, so I helped him fix his flat.”

Rachel and I had stepped outside the car to find out what the assembly of hundreds of trailers, horses, and people was all about.  The man explaining the flat tire scenario had been looking at us with anticipation as soon as we told him about our project. Continue reading EPOTM: Meeker, OK →

Every Point on the Map

EPOTM: IXL, OK

_DSC0215Mother’s Day Eve, 2014, was full of more emotion than I would have liked.

Rachel and I had just finished our conversation in Boley and were cruising north on Highway 48.  We were running out of daylight, and had thought we might get to Bristow in enough time to find a good dinner.  We needed to debrief; our heads were full of pieces of life that needing sorting. Continue reading EPOTM: IXL, OK →

Every Point on the Map

EPOTM: Payne, OK

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_DSC0150I could tell by his face that he wasn’t inclined to speak with Rachel and I.

Our first official “no” was discussed as we exited the driveway.  Glancing back at the two-story white house, I knew the owner had a story to share.  But there were hints of physical frailties, and wrinkles on his brow that, coupled with his own perspective, kept those stories from strangers. Continue reading EPOTM: Payne, OK →

Homestead and Garden

Mother’s Day Strawberries

photo-5As my blade makes its way through a cool, ripe Stilwell strawberry, I breathe in the heady sweetness wafting upwards and across my face.

It’s Mother’s Day, and I’ve just returned from a two-day road trip to places I’ve not been, visiting with people I’ve only just met, with one daughter at my side.

A gathering of family on Mother’s Day brought my other daughter to my side accompanied by her man. Along with them came my husband, and we all celebrated his mother by eating food she had prepared for us on the day she should have rested, and received.

The berries for our dessert had been left behind, so we joyfully ate cake with whipped topping and drank our tea.

Tonight in my own kitchen, as I finish cleaning the berries previously selected for today’s dessert, I close my eyes and remember the slice of homemade pound cake with orange glaze.  I pretend to spoon my just-prepared berries over the cake, lift a full bite to my mouth, and enjoy the sweet goodness of Mother’s Day.

Thank you, God, for my own mother who helped me learn to prepare food, for my mother-in-law who prepared our food today, for my two daughters who are standing on their own as they continue to prepare food leaps and bounds over my historical 20-something capacity.  Thank you, God, for the sweet goodness of Mother’s Day.

So incredibly sweet and good.

 

Oklahoma culture

Fruit and Nut Trees Native to Oklahoma

The reasons people choose to use our RDC Contact Form are vast.  Recipes…questions about relationships…companies asking us to review a product, etc.  Yesterday, however, we fielded a question about native Oklahoma fruit trees that led me to a phone conversation with my father.  I thought it might be helpful to pass the information along to others looking for the same information.

If you want to grow trees that have a good chance of survival and are native to our great state, here is a fairly comprehensive list created from using the “Forest Trees of Oklahoma” book by Dr. Elbert L. Little Jr.

List of Fruit and Nut Trees Native to Oklahoma

  • Persimmon   60 ft.
  • Paw Paw   10 – 30 ft.
  • Red Mulberry   50 ft.
  • Prairie Crab Apple   20 ft.
  • Plums (American, Hortulan, Mexican, wildgoose) all 20 ft.
  • Black Cherry   50 – 70 ft.
  • Choke Cherry   15 ft.
  • Pecan   70 ft.
  • Hickory (several varieties)   60 ft.
  • Black Walnut   50 ft.

You can also eat the berries from a Hackberry tree, but I’m not sure they are native to Oklahoma.  They definitely grow here!

There are several fruit trees that have been introduced into our forests and Oklahoma landscape, but are not native to Oklahoma.  An example of this would be a small, wild pear tree my Uncle found on his land in Clayton.  It appeared as a small, slightly roundish fruit with the texture close to an Asian pear.  It’s pretty cool to happen upon something like this, but isn’t “purist” if you want your trees to fit naturally with the original climate and environment.

There are quite a few grapes and a currant bush native to Oklahoma as well as several berries.  I don’t have an exhaustive list, but I can point you to a wildcrafting website that is educational.  The information on THIS PAGE isn’t delineated between native, and what simply grows naturally in our state because it was introduced.  You can, however, learn quite a bit by just scrolling through the info and photos.

Please make sure that you are well informed if you decide to go wildcrafting for fruit in Oklahoma.  There are many “look-alikes” across our landscapes and I want you to stay healthy!

Happy planting…and eating!

[kelly]

persimmon photo above by Rylee Roberts

Every Point on the Map

EPOTM: Preview of Dibble, Criner and Payne, OK

As Rachel and I sat on a porch in Dibble, on another porch in Criner, and in the living room of a couple who had been married 65 years in Payne, we weren’t aware of something that had been happening.  Our brains had been filling up with stories of the Oklahomans with whom we were interacting.  They were filling up with the histories, and mysteries, of those we had just begun to know. Continue reading EPOTM: Preview of Dibble, Criner and Payne, OK →

Every Point on the Map

EPOTM: Next Steps for the Team

Okay, so we completed our pilot run.  I mentioned we had a few hiccups.

That was probably an understatement.

Going into a project as a novice, I knew there would be corrections.  In order to be completely open about our learning curve, here’s the list:

  1. Problem #1: I ordered an HD camera I thought was a good deal.  The camera was high quality, but didn’t have the capacity to record directly onto a SD card.  It used tapes, and had to be converted to digital files.  This would have cost us a huge amount of time in transferring files.  So, we sent it back.  That mistake cost the project $70 is shipping penalties.  OUCH.
  2. The fix for #1: The first video was shot completely using an iPhone and a condenser mic.  We were actually pretty pleased with the quality, but we may also order a GoPro Hero 4.  I’m not ordering it until I make sure we can get the sound we want, because evidently they don’t have a portal for lapel mics and we’ll need to make sure our condenser mic will work as well as it did on the iPhone.  If we rule that out, we’re back to the drawing board on a larger Sony HD camera again.  I just found that it’s laborious setting up so much equipment, and timing is a key issue.  However, with larger cameras, you can set them on your shoulder and take video while walking without bounces.  You might notice several bounces in our first piece.
  3. Problem #2: Rachel’s first try at the large format film may not have worked.   Continue reading EPOTM: Next Steps for the Team →
Every Point on the Map, Man Cave

EPOTM: Carney, Oklahoma

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The learning curve was steep.  Our final cut isn’t where I’d like it to be.  But, our first documentation piece for Every Point on the Map has reached the “good enough” standard.  Now, we’re ready to share it with you.

We’re grateful to Assistant Volunteer Fire Chief Robbie Clark, and self-described “rookie” Micheal “June Bug” McCorkle for their time and thoughts.  And, we hope you enjoy this glimpse into the lives of two citizens of Carney, Oklahoma.

[kelly]

If you’d like to read more about Carney, check out THIS LINK written on Carney history from OSU.  To read demographics about the town, and other general information, here is the Wikipedia link.  And, here is a KOCO video of the tornado from last year.

For other Every Point on the Map posts, click here.