Letter from the Editor

We lost another one of America’s “Greatest Generation.” Walt Knoepfli died at age 86. He was a fixture in Norman, having lived in Norman longer than me. He came in 1955, worked at Central State Hospital, now Griffin Hospital, and had forgotten more people than I’ll ever know.

Saw him earlier this month. He brought in some news for the state hospital retirees group, scribbled on a paper sack. That’s the kind of hometown news release that gets my attention.

Walt was a World War II and Korean War veteran and an active American Legion member. He volunteered for lots of causes and didn’t mind others getting the credit.

 He always had a war story and was quick with a clean joke. He was one of the local veterans that got to go on the Oklahoma Honor Flight to visit Washington, D.C. monuments this fall.

“Pretty neat,” he told me later.

He identified himself as “Knoepfli,” when he called, knowing I was one of the few who could spell his name. He said he learned to spell my name when he worked at Central State and my grandfather was a psychiatrist there.

He once called when he learned I was active with the Boy Scouts. He wanted to know a Cub Scout leader who would take a dozen or more live chickens off his hands. In Walt’s mind, the leader would show the youngsters how to kill, clean and cook live chickens as part of a campout.

“I’m thinking that might not be appropriate for 8-year-olds,” I told him. “They have to learn how to do it some time,” Walt said.

Walt once called on me to speak to a retirees group. Afterwards, he said he had a gift for me in his old truck. It was a dozen, green eggs. It ranks right up there with a jug of moonshine from a reader.  “These came from those chickens you wouldn’t take off my hands last year,” Walt said. That’s how I’m going to remember him. Always with a twinkle in his eye.

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The last time I saw brothers Butch and Ben McCain we were judging the Miss Nursing Home Oklahoma contest in south Oklahoma City. They were the local TV personalities and I was the designated print scribe. They knew how to make those senior women swoon. I’m not sure the women knew I was there.

They grew up in Muleshoe, Texas and are proud graduates of Bovina High School. Butch forecast the weather and Ben read the news. Somehow, when they talked about the need for rain or the price of pork bellies, viewers knew they talked from experience.

After stints at KTVY and KOCO in Oklahoma City, they moved to Los Angeles, seeking some of that gold in those Beverly Hills banks the country musicians sing about. They are on television, appear at state and county fairs and have taken their country rock and roll sound on the road.

They have four albums to their credit on Rise and Shine Records. A new album, “The McCain Brothers…Best So Far” was just released. It’s a collection of favorites from 25 years of making music.

It includes their hit single, “If Love Was A Crime I coudn’t Get Arrested,” songs from their “Hee Haw” and “Nashville Now” appearances. There’s one dedicated to Buddy Holly and the Crickets called “Holly Would” and a parody of Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine,” song called “Propane.”

The CD is available at killertumbleweeds.com. For inquiring minds, more on the McCains is available at www.mccainbros@aol.com

“God Bless Oklahoma,” they wrote on a note to me this week.

Imagine if the new Rock Creek Road overpass over I-35 that opened this year had paid banners promoting Subway sandwiches on it instead of the concrete art designs.

Or what if a bank’s banner advertising free checking hung from the new Robinson Street railroad crossing or the water towers were leased to a car dealership in exchange for a paint job?

That’s the dilemma faced in Chicago where I visited this week. Newspaper columnists are taking shots at the city’s new policy which allows the sale of advertising space on public facilities. The famed Wabash Avenue Bridge house on the Chicago River is now adorned with a Bank of America logo.

 It’s a temporary thing, designed to help cash-strapped Chicago raise $25 million. City council members, lead by former Mayor Richard M. Daley, gave the city and the Chicago Department of Transportation permission to sell space for banners, posters and other promotional items on the bridge houses.

 The city that prides itself on its architectural legacy may take a beating on this. The Wabash bridge is among the most well known and revered structures. In 1930, the American Institute of Steel named it the most beautiful steel bridge.

Columnist Blair Kamin suggests the ads cheapen the city. The famed Bean structure might soon sport a pork-and-beans ad. The iconic Water Tower building could have flashing neon signs.

For now, the bank’s logo stands out like graffiti on an old building wall. The good thing about it. It’s only temporary. The signs come down Dec. 12.

Father forgive me for I have sinned. This weekend, I was a lonely Sooner in Cowboy country even when my team wasn’t there.

Longtime friends invited us to the OSU Homecoming festivities in Stillwater. It’s an amazing festival of yard displays with moving parts, tailgate parties and thousands of students, parents and fans decked out in orange. (It’s not that wimpy Texas orange, either).

Although my family is pretty evenly divided, it was my first real trip to the campus since college days when roadtrips were part of fraternity tradition. My mother, her mother and dad, three sisters, a sister-in-law and countless cousins attended OSU.

 Grandmother Lela Stafford, before she died at age 100 in 2001, was believed to have been the oldest living female graduate.

 Here are some observations: Students for the most part seemed pretty tired. Some didn’t even make it up for the 2:30 p.m. game after weeks of “pomping.” That’s the intricate process of placing the colored plastic in the chicken-wire displays on fraternity and sorority lawns and on residence hall floats.

Some groups start working on their displays the first week of school. Pledges have minimum work hours and the outside decoration master is an exalted office in any chapter house. Freshmen often learn to weld before they learn where the library is located. 

Homecoming began in 1913, but the outside decoration tradition began in the 1920s when sororities started decorating their doors. Those doors became walls and now are often as tall and long as the houses themselves.

The festivities were honored in 2001 as “America’s Greatest Homecoming Celebration.” 

The game itself was a blow-out with Baylor’s offense sputtering each time it got within scoring range. But there are as many activities outside the stadium as there are going on inside.

Unlike OU’s Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, OSU ticketholders can leave the stadium during the game and return. The concessions stands were not crowded as many fans returned to their tailgates for their own plates of food.

The traffic doesn’t seem as stifling since many fans come early and stay throughout the day. And another thing, these Cowboy fans are proud of their orange vehicles. A classic Toyota Land Cruiser was painted bright orange. Nearby, an orange Smart Car was the center of tailgate attention. 

 My mother gave me the fashion rules, just like they did when she attended in 1949: Cowboys wear pressed blue jeans, white shirts and boots. Hats and sunglasses are optional but I wore them anyway just to keep recognition at a minimum.