Sam the Chihuahua is always listening for the magic words.
As my wife and I sat in the living room this afternoon, I casually mentioned to her that I’m thinking about taking our 10-year-old Chihuahua, Sam, out for a walk.
Immediately, Sam shot off the couch, where he had been sleeping, and raced to the front door.
“Whoa!,” I said to Paula. “It’s like he’s monitoring our conversation and waiting for certain code words.”
Sam’s reaction is like that of the Echo Dot we have in our bedroom that might not react to anything for months, but responds the instant you say” ‘Alexa, what’s the temperature outside.’ “
Meanwhile, Sam impatiently snorted and pawed the door as we continued to talk. Of course, I then had to find my shoes and the leash and a ‘doggie bag,’ to clean up after the dog.
By the time I collected everything, Sam was running in a circle and barking in the foyer.
All of which reminded me of an episode of the old Andy Griffith show where a visitor to Mayberry is impatiently pacing on Andy’s front porch as Barney and Andy are spending a lazy afternoon.
Barney says he’s going to go home, take a nap, then over to Thelma Lou’s to watch a bit of television.
But he never moves. Instead, he repeats his intentions about three times before the visitor has had enough and yells at him to ‘just do it!’ You can watch the hilarious scene from ‘Man in a Hurry’ below:
Finally, I found my shoes, the doggie bag and the leash, which I managed to clip on to the restless Chihuahua.
Out the door we went.
The episode has repeated itself in our home countless times over the years. It shows there’s more to this 9-pound canine than meets the eye.
He’s always listening for the magic words. Careful what you say.
The 9th and McKinley location of the Cross & Crown Mission
Paul and Suzanne Whitmire are “urban missionaries” who serve a vast underserved population in the heart of Oklahoma City at 9th and McKinley. Cross & Crown Mission was launched in 2001 by the Whitmires and others from their home church group. They immediately began rehabbing a dilapidated old church property, and for the last 20-plus years have remade the surrounding neighborhood and the lives of many of those they serve. Paul and Suzanne emerged from the church I attend when it was known as Quail Springs Church of Christ. Our congregation, now known as The Springs Church of Christ, still supports our urban missionaries two decades later. Paul recently took the time to answer a few questions about his ministry for this BlogOKC feature.
Question: Where were you raised and what did you do in previous life before Cross & Crown?
Answer: My father was a minister. While living at home, we lived in seven different towns, mostly Texas. I graduated high school in Houston, college from Abilene Christian University. I served as a youth minister in Fort Worth from 1979-1984, youth minister in Edmond from 1984-1992, operated an antique business from 1992-2001. Began Cross & Crown in March 2001.
Q: Tell me the story of how you came to launch this ministry in this part of the city?
A: We considered moving to Honduras. God moved us to 9th and McKinley. Most people said ‘don’t go to that area.’ God said ‘go to that area.’ (For more on the founding of Cross & Crown Mission, read this story by Bobby Ross published in The Oklahoman in 2001 ).
Paul and Suzanne Whitmire
Q: Who has worked with you and your wife, Suzanne, over the years to advance the ministry?
A: The work was originally shared by our house church with the ultimate plan to be primarily operated with people from the community. God keeps sending people. Some receive and leave, some receive and come back for more, some receive and come back to be a part of giving to others.
Q: What obstacles have you faced in this journey to provide ministry through the Cross & Crown Mission?
A: Big obstacles early. Most were because we said ‘but how?’ Finances, trust of the community, paying the bills, getting enough food. Someone asked early on if I knew how much it would cost to make the old building usable? I told him I know someone that has more money than we could ever need. He wanted to know the guy’s name. I gave him my Bible.
Q: What population are you serving, (and how have you gained their trust over the years?
A: We serve whoever shows up. About 65 percent are hispanic. The group with the most to fear. We try to meet their request; we ask to pray; we act humbly. It has worked. Many gave fake names early, then shared their real names later.
Q: How do you balance providing for physical needs and well being of those you serve and being a spiritual influence or leader for them?
A: We have discovered that graciously meeting physical needs eventually leads to them asking the question of ‘why?’ You get the rest.
Q: How would you describe the impact Cross & Crown has had on the neighborhood surrounding your location?
A: Early into the work, housing became an ongoing need. We followed Isaiah 61:1-4 and decided we would ‘restore the places long devastated and renew the ruined cities.’ It has significantly changed the landscape.
A: Sunday morning worship; Monday-Wednesday: food pantry, clothing, furniture. Wednesday: legal aid; Thursday-Saturday: projects in the neighborhood. Primary focus: being in the neighborhood constantly to meet people’s needs, being Jesus to others.
Q: How often do you offer worship services?
A: Worship service: Sunday morning 10:30-12, English and Spanish.
Q: From where have you drawn your volunteers over the years?
A: Our volunteers come from around the city or live in the neighborhood or are in our housing programs. Our paid staff are all self-supported missionaries , such as myself.
Q: How do you measure the success of your ministry?
A: I wish I knew how to measure success, but I trust God with that. I knew if they were hungry and we fed them; needed clothes and we provided them; they were thirsty and we gave them drink; homeless and we housed them; alone and we invited them in; were drunk for 40 years and we helped them to be sober for one day; never thought God loved them and we showed them love, led them to Jesus, became family when they had none; then it’s a good day to me.
Q: How has the ministry expanded, and its mission changed or evolved over the years?
Luke Whitmire & family
A: The ministry began with food from ours and your pantries, then relationship with the Regional Food Bank, relationship with Walmart, Dollar General, pastry shops. Taking people home with us — to 11 properties to house people; two attorneys to address legal needs to 150 partnering attorneys available. From after school with children in basement to new Youth Center, to Classical Arts school for neighborhood children. And on and on. In the midst of the pandemic we began a south side mission in Capitol Hill. It’s known as the Christian Service Center, with Luke Whitmire as director and minister.
Q: How do you describe yourself to people you meet along the way?
A: When people ask what I do, (I say) ‘I’m the director of an inner-city non-profit.’ Then it’s up to them to be curious. An hour later they have a pretty good idea of what I do, and maybe wished they had been satisfied with my first answer. It’s normal that I will be in tears, and maybe them, as well. God is pretty amazing.
Q: How can local people contribute or participate as volunteers?
A: Donate or volunteer. Donate almost anything if it works. Clothes, food, appliances, furniture, cars. Call Paul at (405) 232-7696. Volunteer — let’s get past COVID.
Q: What else would you want readers of this blog to know about you or the Cross & Crown mission?
A: This work is the Lord’s. He wants it to be the work of all of us. We need financial donors, we need prayer warriors, we need material donations.
Q: What do you want to say to the people of The Springs church, where you were when you began the ministry?
A: The people of The Springs were there with us when we began in 2001. They have supported and prayed for us continually. They have never burdened us with expectations or demands. They have faithfully been family to us and blessed us richly. We are not alone because of you.
This is cruel month of February, 28 forgettable days of cold and dark.
It was dark when I went out to get my paper off the driveway this morning — yes, I still get newsprint delivered to me every day — and noticed there was ice on the windshield of the car.
So, I decided I should pull the windshield wipers up so that they won’t be stuck in place in should I need to drive later in the day.
Big mistake.
The wipers clung to the windshield like the kid’s tongue to the flagpole in A Christmas Story. So the rubber squeegee part ripped into shreds. Arrgh!
All of which made me hate the month of February even more than normal.
In fact, as I brooded later, I decided to figure out which months of the year I dislike the most and why. Here’s what I came up with:
Most hated months from worst to first
No. 12: February — No explanation needed. See February 2021 for guidance.
No. 11: January — Other than a New Year’s Day holiday that gives us time to assess the damage Christmas spending caused us, January doesn’t offer much. Mostly cold and darkness with few redeeming values.
No. 10: November — We’re losing daylight and warmth, plus we’re plunging headfirst into the Christmas buying season. And Daylight Savings ends, throwing our internal clocks out of whack. Thanksgiving and the wonderful weekend of college football it brings is the only redemption.
No. 9: December: — I’ve told my wife for years that my favorite day of the year is December 26. Too much stress and pressure to enjoy Christmas properly. Redeeming value: days DO start inching longer with later sunsets after December 21.
No. 8: August: — Oppressive heat. Little rainfall. Only saved by baseball and the kickoff to the college football season late in the month. Redemption comes only with rare temperature break or thundershower.
No. 7: July — See August. Oppressive heat. Little rainfall. Plus, Fourth of July fireworks drive our Chihuahua up a wall. And KD dumped us on July 4th. Rarely do we get a break on temperatures or rainfall. A bright side: Big vacation month, plus NFL training camp begins and MLB All-Star game.
No. 6: June — June brought so much promise as a kid. Weeks at my Grandparents’ house. Church camp. Lying in the grass and making images out of clouds. Now it means anticipating two full months of oppressive heat. See July and August. However, June baseball holds my interest.
No. 5: May — Oppressive heat still not in full effect. Vacation season coming. Baseball season in full throttle. School ending. The lake beckons. Downside: Tornado season is in full bloom.
No. 4: March — Spring! We’re starting to see some warmth and daylight here. Baseball Spring Training fully under way. March Madness. We’re making the turn to a happier time. The bad news is the resumption of Daylight Savings, which throws our sense of time into disarray once again.
No. 3 September — NFL season kicks off, which means we have weekend days and nights covered by football. The oppressive heat breaks about the third week. Perfect outdoor walking weather. On the downside, days are noticeably shorter. And the State Fair, but I won’t hold that against the month.
No. 2: October — A glorious month, all in all. Football races shaping up. The World Series. NBA season tips off. Weather is cool but not cold. Leaves morph into beautiful colors, even here in central Oklahoma. Downside: winter’s coming.
No. 1: April — The absolute best month of the year. Opening Day. The Masters. Daily walks through the neighborhood. More daylight each day. The smell of a fresh mowed lawn. April showers. Warm weather with oppressive heat still a couple months away. Tell me what’s not to like
Facebook has become somewhat of a boogeyman for millions of people worldwide, and the criticism is well earned. The social network collects data on subscribers. It tracks users across the web. And it’s a boiling concoction of crazy conspiracy theories and crazy uncles.
But sometimes Facebook surprises me in a good way.
Today, it showed past January 27 posts from my timeline, and one popped up that I had given no thought to until I saw it.
On this day in January 2019 I underwent double heart bypass surgery at Oklahoma Heart Hospital. It’s an anniversary of a life-saving medical procedure that is definitely worth noting personally.
So, I decided I should share it with you. The FB memory was actually posted by my wife when it was clear that I had survived the surgery and had a good prognosis.
I spent the next four nights in the hospital before making a very anxiety-filled trip home where the real recovery began.
Three years later I’m close to being my old self and moving on with my life pretty much as before. Maybe just a little slower.
Thank you, Dr. Randolph, the gifted surgeon who literally held my life in his hands for about six hours.
And thanks to Facebook, which made sure I remembered the milestone day in my life.
I was sitting in a news writing class at Abilene Christian University in 1977 when I heard something so preposterous that it has stuck with me for more than 40 years.
Our professor, Dr. Charlie Marler, speculated about the future of the newspaper industry. He said that some day we could get our news on a TV -like screen and have the choice to print out the stories that we wanted to read.
No one laughed out loud, but I had a good laugh to myself. Yeah, right, I thought. Not sure where Dr. Marler came up with this kooky idea.
At the time, the IBM Selectric typewriter was cutting edge technology for journalists. We were privileged to be able to type our stories on one in the late 1970s for The Optimist, ACU’s student newspaper.
Fast forward four decades. We can now see how dead-on Dr. Marler’s prediction was in the 1970s.
The fact that most of the world now gets its news instantaneously via a screen attached to a computer, tablet or phone made my old college professor appear to be a modern-day Nostradamus.
The rapid decline of the newspaper industry has been well documented. From my perspective, it began in the late 1990s as the public began finding news sources online and accelerated in the 2000s when WiFi became ubiquitous and smart phone use proliferated.
In fact, I accepted an early retirement offer in 2008 because my employer, The Oklahoman, reduced its workforce that year by 150 people or so. That ended a 30-year newspaper career that I launched upon graduation from ACU in 1978.
The Oklahoman was (and I think remains) the largest newspaper in the state. It has undergone multiple rounds of reductions in the years since I left.
The paper will be “digital only” on Saturdays, meaning it will be found only on your screen. A host of other daily newspapers owned by the Gannett corporation have announced the end of print Saturday editions on the same date.
You called it 40-plus years ago, Dr. Marler. I’m pretty sure that the “digital only” newspaper model eventually will eliminate print publication on most other days of the week.
Maybe the Sunday edition will be the only day we can actually get our hands on a printed newspaper. If we’re lucky.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so skeptical of Dr. Marler’s prediction at the time I heard it. Because cartoonist Chester Gould, an Oklahoma native, had introduced an even bigger fantasy for his Dick Tracy comic strip back in the 1940s.
I was a huge fan of the Dick Tracy comic strip as a kid and infatuated by the device that Tracy wore on his wrist through which he had instantaneous communications.
The future was right there on the funny pages for decades and we didn’t recognize it.
Gould’s fantasy device became reality when the Apple Watch debuted in 2015. Today, millions of people wear Apple’s incredible two-way communication device on their wrists.
Not sure who laughed at Chester Gould’s vision when it appeared in the Dick Tracy comic in the 1940s.
Or who was laughing aside from me at the outrageous prediction of Dr. Charlie Marler in a 1970s ACU classroom.
As we’ve watched another rise in the number of COVID cases spurred by the highly contagious Omicrom variant, my wife and I have begun wearing our masks again in most public situations. Stores. Church. Thunder games.
I’ve been feeling pretty smug about myself in my new KN95 mask purchased on Amazon.
However, sometimes my good intentions have turned into a total failure. I wrote about one incident that happened on a road trip last year.
Let me tell you about a more recent instance.
Last week, I was invited to the launch event for a new Oklahoma City business publication. It was a great event in which about 100 or so people attended.
The event was held at a co-working space on Main Street downtown. I arrived shortly after 5 pm, parked on the street, put my mask in my back pocket and promptly forgot about it before I walked into the event.
I immediately ran into several people I knew and took a few minutes to network before the scheduled program began. None of my acquaintances wore masks, but I wasn’t thinking about that.
As I was chatting with someone, I saw a friend of mine who is in the public relations business walk in. She was fully masked.
Then it hit me, I had my mask with me, but had never put it on.
I was proud of my masked friend, but ashamed of my own lack of conviction, I guess you call it.
I wasn’t practicing what I’ve been preaching.
Was it absent-mindedness, bowing to peer pressure or misguided confidence that my vaccinations and booster shot have made me bulletproof?
I’m pretty sure it was peer pressure.
Because of the Omicrom variant, COVID is racing through our population, both here in OKC and nationwide. None of us are bulletproof.
John Hodgman (left) as PC and Justin Long as Mac (Apple photo)
It’s no secret that I’ve been an Apple fanboy ever since I first read about the company and how it was founded in the 1970s in a Cupertino, Calif., garage by two guys named Steve.
In fact, my first computer was the Apple II, which brought personal computers to millions of people back in the day.
I’ve also been a fan of its advertising campaigns across the decades. Along with its groundbreaking technology, Apple has always taken a different and memorable approach to advertising its products.
But it gained notoriety in 1984 with the debut of the Macintosh.
Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl ad, which skewered IBM while introducing the Mac, is hailed as perhaps the most groundbreaking ad ever. It only aired one time. In case you missed it or it’s been a while, you can play it below.
Then, co-founder Steve Jobs left the company when he was fired by John Scully, the CEO he hired. Apple wandered in the wilderness for a decade before Jobs returned, first as interim CEO and then with the full title.
One of Jobs first and most memorable acts upon his return was to launch Apple’s Think Different campaign. I loved it, and apparently millions of other people did, as well. The company’s sales began to soar. Watch the ultimate Think Different ad here, that celebrates The Crazy Ones.
Another well received Apple ad campaign was known as the Switcher ads, featuring regular people who had switched from PCs to Macs.
My favorite Apple ad campaign of all time was the I’m a Mac campaign that ran from 2006 to 2009. I’m a Mac was actually a series of short vignettes starring Justin Long as the Mac and John Hodgman as the PC.
Long was one cool dude, while Hodgman was hopelessly uncool, out of date and out of touch with popular culture.
But mostly, the ads were funny, which hooked me immediately.
Although it’s been 12 years since the ads were aired, you can easily find them on YouTube. Here’s my favorite I’m a Mac ad of them all, featuring Patrick Warburton, who also played “Puddy” on Seinfeld.
Enjoy the comedy.
BREAKING NEWS: Just saw this from the Wall Street Journal about Apple Inc.
Apple Inc. became the first U.S. company to reach $3 trillion in market value, the latest milestone in a pandemic-era surge that carried shares of the iPhone maker and other large technology companies to unprecedented highs.
Apple shares crossed the milestone when they topped $182.856 Monday. The share price has more than tripled since the pandemic lows of March 2020, adding around $2 trillion in market capitalization.
As we put 2021 to rest and welcome in the promise of 2022, I decided to look through a year’s worth of BlogOKC and see what was important to me over the past 52 weeks.
For the record, this is the 45th post on this blog for 2021. And I decided to rank the top 10 posts that meant the most to me over the past year. BlogOKC touched on a lot of random topics, from noodling to road rage to the COVID vaccine and more.
I hope you’ve found them interesting. So, the blog countdown begins right here:
When my friend Ed learned that the Tulsa Drillers were going to change their name to the “Noodlers” for a weekend to honor the sport of hand fishing, he not only wanted to go see them play, he ordered a Noodlers cap that very day. Ed, his son, Cade, and I made an August road trip to watch the Noodlers, who won on a walk-off home run. But not before we waited out a two-hour rain delay.
“I won’t give a play-by-play of the game except to say that neither team scored for the first seven innings. So it went into “extra innings” where a player was placed on second base to start each extra inning at bat. ‘Free baseball!’ Ed yelled, his theme whenever a game goes into extra innings. We won’t debate the merits of the free base runner in extras.”
I was fed up with the anti-vax crowd by mid-July, and I’m still fed up with those who refuse the COVID vaccine. It’s all a political statement by the Trump crowd, because we’ve faced vaccine mandates as Americans for decades before this one arrived. I stand behind what I wrote in July.
“As one who is proudly vaccinated, I reluctantly keep my mask at hand. I fear more disruptions loom in our future. All because of the unwilling who are making a political statement by shunning the vaccine. So, what’s the point of all of my rambling? What we’re seeing in the unvaccinated is a collective display of the Ugly American. The me-first. The selfish who would never consider doing something for the greater good.”
Yep, I embarrassed myself in the Starbucks drive-thru line.
“The young man rolled down his window, and I started screaming: ‘What are you doing?! Couldn’t you see I was sitting there with my blinker on waiting to pull into the line?’ The guy responded: ‘how was I supposed to know?’ I screamed again that he should have seen the blinker, and then he said ‘I’m leaving.’ He quickly backed out and left the lot. I went back to my car. My wife said I was lucky he didn’t jump out and punch me. Suddenly, my righteous indignation gave way to an incredible sense of shame. What had I done? I was the old man screaming ‘get off my lawn!’”
My daughter and I had a grand misadventure on the Mother Road as we sought a tag agency where we could get her a REAL ID.
“ ‘We don’t do driver’s licenses here, never have,” he said (with a straight face). “But you can just walk in at the Chandler agency, which is about 15 miles east on Route 66.’ I was laughing again as we walked out the door. My daughter was fuming, because I had us on a wild goose chase. We headed east again on the Mother Road.”
My friend Ed really is an idea guy. And he hit on a good one with his concept for a vintage coffee shop.
“ ‘I think we ought to open up our own coffee shop,” he finally said. ‘We’ll call it Vintage Coffee. No espresso machine. No fancy pastries. Donuts only.’ I laughed at the thought of a straight coffee-only coffee shop run by a couple of old school geezers. ‘We’re going to offer only Folgers, Maxwell House and Sanka, which was my father’s favorite coffee,” Ed continued. ‘It’s like a step back in time.’ “
No. 5 from Jan. 3 A Salute to 1971, the coolest year, from a cool kid wannabe
I read an article on New Year’s Day about what an awesome year 1971 was, which happened to be the year I graduated high school. I was hit by a wave of nostalgia.
“So, why did this article hit me so hard? I think it’s because I had never really given any thought to how many years had passed since Graduation Day in 1971. And how I’ve lived sort of my own version of Forrest Gump’s life in the intervening 50 years, still trying to be one of the cool kids and never quite making it.”
No 4 from June 23 For crying out loud: Ted Lasso packs emotional punch
I stumbled on to Apple TV’s Ted Lasso in early June and was hooked right away. I loved his corny, well intentioned motivational tactics that almost worked.
“But Ted Lasso delivers what I see as an awesome message about having a positive impact on people around you — even those who may not be ready to receive it. I’m not crying. You’re crying.”
I love the Oklahoma City Streetcar. The problem is, you can’t really plan a trip and go from Point A to Point B on it.
“New routes would be a major financial hurdle at this point. But the Streetcar needs desperately to connect the OKC Innovation District, the OU Health Sciences Center campus and the Capitol — and NE 23rd Street — to downtown. Someone please make that happen. Then we would no longer have a Streetcar to nowhere.”
My son, who is African-American, was pulled over in July for no apparent reason other than he was a Black male driving East on I-40. I was outraged, as a father should be.
“From my perspective, this was a clear case of racial profiling. Young African-American male driver. Texas tags. Driving alone on I-40 headed east. ‘That’s just the way it is,’ Ryan told me. ‘Every time I’ve been pulled over the cop asks ‘do you have drugs? Do you have guns?” As a 60-something white man, I’ve never been asked by a police officer if I had drugs. Or guns.”
I was pulled over on the Lake Hefner Parkway — by my wife. And had to write about it.
“Then it hit me why Solomon was shouting GiGi! My wife Paula, his grandmother, had cut us off on the Lake Road and was pulling us over. So, I pulled in behind her. She hopped out of her car and began running to our car. I imagined the worst. Had someone in our family died and this is how she was going to break the news to me, here on the shoulder of the Lake Hefner Parkway? I rolled down my window and she said, ‘I think I left my phone in your car.’ What?
BONUS From Oct. 20 Fan’s message to the Thunder: Let’s Play to Win
My righteous indignation over the Thunder’s tanking strategy comes out in a lot of places: on Twitter, in texts to my friends Steve and Ed, and on this blog.
As the NBA season began, I called for the Thunder to play to win. Now.
“Here’s to the new season and hoping the Thunder will be over-achievers. Let’s not chase the luck of the lottery once again.”
The Stafford Christmas gathering in Fort Smith, Ark., December 2021
We’ve spent hours (and hours) listening to Christmas music since October, mainly because my wife keeps the radio on her car tuned to a local station that plays nothing but holiday tunes for two full months.
So, that means I’ve had the opportunity to hear plenty of Christmas songs that I love, as well as many that are total clunkers. But they still get airtime.
Here are a few of what I would call secular Christmas songs that are in heavy rotation, as they say in the biz, and what I love or hate about them.:
Happy Xmas (War is Over)
This is a total non-religious ode from John and Yoko to the hope that Christmas and the New Year bring the world. It’s become a favorite of mine over the years. I love the youthful voices in the choir. It’s played over and over throughout the season.
So this is Christmas and what have you done?
Another year over, a new one just begun.
And so this is Christmas, I hope you have fun, The near and the dear one The old and the young
A very merry Christmas And a happy new year, Let’s hope it’s a good one Without any fear
Little Saint Nick
Might as well tackle one that makes me cringe whenever I hear it. I don’t object to the first line as does my friend, Dan, but it’s like the Beach Boys brought surfer music to Christmas with this cringeworthy song. Yuck.
Christmas comes this time each year Ooh, ooh
Well way up North where the air gets cold There’s a tale about Christmas That you’ve all been told And a real famous cat all dressed up in red And he spends the whole year workin’ out on his sled
It’s the little Saint Nick (little Saint Nick) It’s the little Saint Nick (little Saint Nick)…
Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer
Yes, this is a total novelty song, but it cracks me up every time I hear it. Was it really Santa and his reindeer that whacked Grandma? Or perhaps Grandpa had a hand in the “accident?”
Grandma got run over by a reindeer Walking home from our house Christmas eve You can say there’s no such thing as Santa But as for me and grandpa we believe…
Now we’re all so proud of grandpa He’s been taking this so well See him in there watching football Drinking beer and playing cards with cousin Mel…
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! (Dean Martin version)
This song brings images of Christmas cold and snow and being close to the one you love. Dean Martin brings a sort of smugness to the delivery of Let It Snow that appeals to me for some reason. Also, are there some comparisons to this song with “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” another (slightly more controversial) song that Dean Martin sang as well?
Oh, the weather outside is frightful But the fire is so delightful Since we’ve no place to go Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
It doesn’t show signs of stopping And I brought some corn for popping The lights are turned down low Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
When we finally kiss goodnight How I’ll hate going out in the storm But if you’ll really hold me tight All the way home I’ll be warm…
Baby It’s Cold Outside
I simply must go Baby it’s cold outside The answer is no Baby it’s cold outside The welcome has been How lucky that you dropped in So nice and warm Look out the window at the storm My sister will be suspicious Gosh your lips look delicious…
You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch
Another novelty song that dates back to the ’60s, but I’m fascinated by the incredible number of insults the song makes to the foul Mr. Grinch. It’s in the regular rotation of the local Christmas music station.
You’re a mean one You really are a heel You’re as cuddly as a cactus You’re as charming as an eel Mr. Grinch, you’re a bad banana Mr. Grinch, with the greasy black peel
You’re a vile one You got termites in your smile You have all the tender sweetness Of a seasick crocodile…
Wonderful Christmastime
This is a huge departure from, say, Helter Skelter or Back in the USSR, for Paul McCartney. But his music has grown lighter and more sentimental since his Beatles days. This song is way overplayed on the local Christmas music station.
Wonderful Christmastime The moon is right The spirits up We’re here tonight And that’s enough Simply havin’ a wonderful Christmastime Simply havin’ a wonderful Christmastime
The party’s on The feelin’s here That only comes This time of year Simply havin’ a wonderful Christmastime Simply havin’ a wonderful Christmastime…
I could go on and on about the dozens of secular Christmas songs that we hear all the time or have heard over the years. The Chipmunk Song, anyone? But I’ll end this with a few lines from a favorite of mine from Robert Earl Keen, because everyone has a big, messy family gathering over the Christmas holiday, right? (Disclaimer: alcohol plays no role in our family gatherings)
Merry Christmas from the Family
Mom got drunk and Dad got drunk At our Christmas party We were drinking champagne punch And homemade egg-nog
Little sister brought her new boyfriend He was a Mexican We didn’t know what to think of him ‘Til he sang “Feliz Navidad, Feliz Navidad…
Fred and Rita drove from Harlingen I can’t remember how I’m kin to them But when they tried to plug their motor home in They blew our Christmas lights
Cousin David knew just what went wrong So we all waited out on our front lawn He threw the breaker and the lights came on And we sang “Silent Night, oh Silent Night”…
I was focused on the sports radio banter this morning and negotiating heavy traffic on the Lake Hefner Parkway when my 2-year-old grandson began shouting “GiGi! GiGi!”
I didn’t pick up on it immediately.
However, Solomon was relentless from his car seat in the back. “GiGi! GiGi!”
Suddenly, a red Ford Escape cut sharply into my lane just in front of me. I looked at it and thought that it resembled my family’s vehicle. Then the Ford Escape slowed, put on its blinker and began pulling to the shoulder amid the heavy traffic.
That’s when I saw it. The small sticker on the bumper. That WAS our car. Then it hit me why Solomon was shouting GiGi! My wife Paula, his grandmother, had cut us off on the Lake Road and was pulling us over.
So, I pulled in behind her. She hopped out of her car and began running to our car.
I imagined the worst. Had someone in our family died and this is how she was going to break the news to me, here on the shoulder of the Lake Hefner Parkway?
I rolled down my window and she said, “I think I left my phone in your car.”
What?
Apparently, she had left the phone in the car when she buckled Solomon into his car seat. And her phone was critical to her work-from-home job.
After we left for Solomon’s appointment, Paula realized she didn’t have her phone, jumped in the car and began chasing after us. She managed to catch up on the Lake Road, but couldn’t get my attention until she cut me off with Solomon shouting “GiGi!,” his favorite name for her.
Paula crawled into the back seat and said “call my phone.” I called it and her phone began ringing from the back seat. She couldn’t find it and crawled back out.
“Call it again,” she said. I called, and it started ringing. She crawled across the back seat again.
I glanced back and saw it.
Paula’s phone was sticking out of the back pocket of her jeans. It had been there the entire time.
We both (sort of) laughed when we realized where the phone actually was.
Q: What population are you serving, (and how have you gained their trust over the years?
Q: What type of services do you provide?
Q: How do you measure the success of your ministry?
A: Donate or volunteer. Donate almost anything if it works. Clothes, food, appliances, furniture, cars. Call Paul at (405) 232-7696. Volunteer — let’s get past COVID.
On this day in January 2019 I underwent double heart bypass surgery at 
As we’ve watched another rise in the number of COVID cases spurred by the highly contagious Omicrom variant, my wife and I have begun wearing our masks again in most public situations. Stores. Church. Thunder games.
As we put 2021 to rest and welcome in the promise of 2022, I decided to look through a year’s worth of BlogOKC and see what was important to me over the past 52 weeks.
Jim Stafford's BlogOKC 