(Book 2)

When I wasn’t being a sheriff-cowboy, kicking Black Bart’s buttooskies and roping stampeding cows, I was showing off my Potawatomi heritage.

That meant roaming the vast prairie at 851 Nebraska Street, wearing my Indian headdress and killing buffalo with my trusty bow and arrows.

I think bow-and-arrow sets cost less than a dollar, and the return on Mom’s investment was huge. When she gave me a new set, I would disappear for hours, days even.

I would silently stalk bison, played by the neighbor’s poor collie, and occasionally break into a war dance if I saw a paleface (like my best friend Steve) who needed to have an arrow shot deep into his chest…

#Oklahomahumor #simplertimes #growingup #cowboysandindians #kidsbowandarrowset

(Book 2!)

Greg, Steve and I decided to escape the brutal August heat by camping out in my backyard in our big Lake Thunderbird tent. I’m not sure why tents amp up the goofiness of 12-year-old boys, but they do by about a million percent.

The first time Steve cut a major cheese, I lit a match and the burnt smell quickly overpowered the “bean bouquet”. But things escalated quickly.

Every time Steve would drop another fart bomb, Greg would spray the Off!, I’d slash the billowing fart-smoke-and-mosquito-repellent cloud with my Dad’s WWII bayonet, everyone would flash their flashlights and we’d all die laughing.

If our lungs hadn’t been cauterized by riding our bikes behind Norman’s DDT-spraying Jeep, none of us would have survived...  

#Oklahomahumor #simplertimes #growingup #fartjokes #tentstories #sleepoverstories #sleepout #knuckleheads #boysbeingknuckleheads #farthumor

(Book 2!)

I was an “old hand” around guns before I started grade school, thanks to my Fanner 50 cap pistol and daily TV doses of the "Foreman Scotty" television show. But my Cowboy world expanded exponentially when Bill, my sister Lynn’s future husband, started taking me hunting when I was 7 or 8.

I did not like it at all in the beginning, because there were RULES about everything!

You had to treat EVERY gun like it was loaded. You NEVER carried a loaded gun over a fence! You ONLY aimed at something you planned to shoot. And you NEVER talked back to Bill.

It almost took all the fun out of shooting stuff. But I have to admit that the lessons had some pretty hysterical moments, too.

Bill delivered one of them on a hunting date with Lynn who, it's important to mention, stood 5’1” and "weighed as much as a popcorn fart", according to Bill.

After all the big safety stalks, Bill finally handed his Browning 12-gauge to Lynn and told her to shoot at an old squirrel nest that was way up high in a blackjack tree. She was standing on a steep hill at the time.

When she pulled the trigger, Bill's semi-automatic shotgun kicked like a mule and knocked her straight backwards, exactly as planned. Bill, who was right behind, caught her with one hand and his shotgun with the other, just like John Wayne or something...

#Oklahomahumor #simplertimes #growingup #huntinghumor

(Book 2!)

I’m not sure why I thought I was going to be the Best Man at my oldest sister, Lynn’s, wedding, but that’s what I thought.

I was nine at the time, and she was 18.

At some point my role was clarified. I was to be the Ring Bearer, which I heard as “Ring Barrier”, and I thought that sounded awesome as heck.

But, slowly, the enormity of the situation started to dawn on me.

I would be required to carry the wedding rings on a fancy pillow, down a long aisle at church, in front of millions of people who ALL knew me and, thus, fully expected me to drop the rings, or chuck the pillow at Steve, or race off to pee before anybody could say “I Do...”

#Oklahomahumor #simplertimes #growingup #weddinghumor #sisterswedding #sistergettingmarried #littlebrother #knucklehead

(Book 2!)

There comes a time in every boy’s life when he gets way too big for his britches.

When I was 11 or 12, my little 5-2 Mom was still taller than me, but she no longer seemed bigger.

One day Steve and I had made a mess in the kitchen with Root Beers and cookies, and we were celebrating by making massive burps.

I guess Mom wasn’t having a good day, and she abruptly booted us out of the kitchen.

Behind her back, I pinched up my face as bitchy as I could make it, put my hands on my hips and pretended to scold us like she had.

This cracked Steve up.

Then, totally out of left field, my little apron-clad Mom spun around on her left heel and caught me full on my left cheek with her open right hand. It sounded like a bomb had gone off in my head…

#Oklahomahumor #simplertimes #growingup #momsandsons #slap #knucklehead

(Book 2!)

I’m not sure exactly how much extra power I coaxed from my Deluxe Renegade bicycle when I put a playing card in the spokes, but I’d guess at least 900 horsepower.

You had to bend the card just so, reach inside the chain and attach it to the frame with a strong clothes pin. Not only did this make your bike go faster, it made it roar like a Harley Davidson. Then somebody came up with the idea of putting cards AND balloons in your spokes.

When my Hog was totally kitted out, it had two playing cards in the front wheel spokes and two balloons in the back wheel. Baby, when I roared down Nebraska Street, the houses shook…

#Oklahomahumor #simplertimes #growingup #ridingbikes #Normanstories #harleybikes #cardsinspokes

(Book 2!)

I’m pretty sure that banjo-playing hillbilly kids from Arkansas smoked a LOT of grapevines in the Sixties.

Steve and I were keen to try them when we were 10 or 11 after he smuggled some back from a family vacation. 

Strangely, our parents didn’t seem worried about it. In fact, I think I saw them winking at each other when we snuck them out of Steve’s house.

I realized we’d been had after lighting up a big, fat grapevine. It felt like 10,000 wasps had stung the tip of my tongue. My lungs felt like they were going to burst into flames.  The room started to spin, and I felt like throwing up.

All within 10 seconds of my first puff of Arkansas’ Finest.  Even so, we kept smoking, because we were not quitters, and because we were stupid...

Oklahomahumor #simplertimes #growingup #normanstories #smokinggrapevines #Arkansasfinest #lickingfrozenposts #lickingfrozenpoles #knuckleheads #kidssmoking

(Book 2!)

Of all the really great songs from the Sixties, without a doubt, the one we sang loudest and with the most gusto, was 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall  on the church youth group’s epic trip to Six Flags Over Texas.

I bet we sang it eleventy hundred thousand times, give or take. But more important than the sheer number, was the value the song had in building community.

When we were officially out of the church parking lot, every 12-year-old boy worth his salt was absolutely screaming out the lyrics.

99 bottles of beer on the wall

99 bottles of beer  

Take one down and pass it around

98 bottles of beer on the wall...

Oklahomahumor #simplertimes #growingup #normanstories #sixflagsovertexas #churchtrips #99bottlesofbeer #bustrips

(Book 2!)

The simplest grub was the best grub for young cowboys on Nebraska Street, so every saddle bag had to be filled with Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwiches.

Grape jelly was best, but strawberry would do. Anybody who tried to use marmalade, whatever the heck that is, was cruisin’ for a bruisin’.

If Steve was joining me on the cattle drive, a HUGE menu change was required. He would only eat Peanut Butter sandwiches. He was a purist. No jelly. End of story.

One time, out of curiosity, I took a bite out of his sandwich. I thought I was going to choke to death. It was drier than a cattle drive. I would’ve been a goner if Mom hadn’t just made a pitcher of grape Kool-Aid. I had to glug a whole glass to wash it down my gullet...

Oklahomahumor #simplertimes #growingup #normanstories #boyfood #cruisinforabruisin #cowboygrub #PBJ

(Book 2!)

Mom was 18, and Dad was just 17. It’s said that he lied about his age to get married and to join the Navy before War II was over.

Dad’s proposal was less than romantic: “If we’re married, and I get killed in the War, you’ll get my Navy pension.” So they quietly got hitched in Oklahoma, and soon Dad was off to San Diego for training.

He was given a small amount of leave before sailing to Japan. So Mom decided to catch a bus to California. Up to then, her most exciting trip was the two-hour drive from Norman to Altus with her parents to see Grandma Ashley.

After travelling 48 hours to California, the small city girl got off the bus, exhausted and overwhelmed. She had no idea how to get to the Naval base.

Another woman noticed Mom’s distress and walked right over to her. She was a bigger, boobsier woman, with red nails and red lips; a woman who had been around the block a time or two…

Oklahomahumor #simplertimes #growingup #normanstories #Momlipstick #sonsandmothers #warbrides #redlipstick #longbustrip #wwIImarriages