Category Archives: history
Summer Solstice 2025, Part 1: OKC
We barely left town over the 2024-2025 Winter Break, and while we had planned to get away to Oklahoma City during Spring Break, a dust storm led us to just enjoy lunch at one of the two surviving El Chicos … Continue reading
The Meanings We Make Up
Flags are inherently symbolic, with meanings often both subtle and mutable. The associations of colors shift over time and vary among cultures. In the Byzantine Empire, the Blues and Greens chariot racing groups evolved into powerful political and social factions, … Continue reading
The Lonely Washing Machine Repairman
Throughout my childhood, from 1967 to 1988, actor Jesse White portrayed “Ol’ Lonely”, the Maytag repairman who never had enough to do. Eventually other actors, including Gordon Jump of WKRP in Cincinnati fame, played the role. The campaign rang true … Continue reading
Puzzled
The oldest item I have from my childhood is a jigsaw puzzle of a boy pasting up posters. When I was very young, I enjoyed putting it together, charmed because it had four “figure pieces” in the shape of objects: … Continue reading
Edwin E. Foster’s Spiral Spring
One of my favorite tools is from the early 1960s and has been superseded by its cousins. My parents received it around 1963, when Mid-States Supply Company of Kansas City, Missouri opened a warehouse in Oklahoma City. It’s a metal … Continue reading














