Charlie Marler – Jim Stafford's BlogOKC

‘Gotta put myself back in that place again’

Those are the first words in Jerry Jeff Walker’s live version of “London Homesick Blues,” which I consider as the soundtrack to my years on the campus of Abilene Christian University in the late 1970s.

Written by fellow Outlaw Country artist Gary P. Nunn, the song was recorded in Luckenbach, Texas, in 1974 as part of Jerry Jeff’s landmark “Viva Terlinqua!” album.

“London Homesick Blues” is one of the best examples of what became known as the Outlaw Country genre that emerged in Austin, Texas, in the 1970s. But it’s also a song about loneliness and longing for home when you are far removed from the place you love.

“Well, when you’re down on your luck and you ain’t got a buck
In London you’re a goner
Even London Bridge has fallen down
And moved to Arizona
Now I know why
And I’ll substantiate the rumor that the English sense of humor
Is drier than than the Texas sand
You can put up your dukes or you can bet your boots
That I’m leavin’ just as fast as I can”

So, why am I writing about a 52-year old outlaw country song in 2025?

Well, I was an aspiring journalist as an ACU student, and my campus life revolved around the student newspaper, The Optimist. Several of my classmates who were also enrolled in ACU’s Journalism and Mass Communication department became lifelong friends.

Along the way on my ACU journey, the Optimist staff embraced “London Homesick Blues” as something of an anthem. A couple of guys played the guitar and we organized a faux band that played the song with gusto.

My role was only to stand with the band and sing the song’s famous chorus really loud and off key. Of course, that’s the only way I know to sing.

I fondly recall a party hosted by our beloved journalism professor, Dr. Charlie Marler, where we played and sang that song in his living room.

“I wanna go home with the armadillo
Good country music from Amarillo and Abilene
The friendliest people and the prettiest women you ever seen”

If you are a fan of the PBS show Austin City Limits, you know that chorus because it opened the show for 27 years.

Back to 2025. I’m not sure how or why, but I began listening to “London Homesick Blues” on replay over the course of the past couple of months.
A wave of nostalgia washes over me when I hear it, and it really does take me back to that place — the ACU campus and the people with whom I shared classes and The Optimist newsroom.

“Well, it’s cold over here, and I swear
I wish they’d turn the heat on
And where in the world is that English girl
I promised I would meet on the third floor?
And of the whole damn lot, the only friend I got
Is a smoke and a cheap guitar
My mind keeps roamin’, my heart keeps longin’
To be home in a Texas bar”

The song plays pretty much nonstop my head these days, and I really sense the longing and loneliness of the tune. It’s a pretty heavy message for an Outlaw Country song, and it’s come to mean so much to me.

So, I asked several former classmates their thoughts on “London Homesick Blues” nearly 50 years removed from our days together at ACU. Since it was a small campus and student body, we had many classes together.

Here are their responses:

Scott Kirk was Sports Editor of The Optimist and remains a close friend from our college days together:

“It is one of my all time favorites. Nancy and I are going to London for our anniversary this year ,and I’ve been singing this song when I walk the dogs. It does take me back to the Optimist, as does any Jerry Jeff Walker song.”

Karen Latham (now Everson) is one of the smartest people I’ve ever known and a great writer as The Optimist’s film critic and features editor.

“It makes me think of playing records in The Optimist office, y’all singing at Dr. Marler’s house, and when I would hear it while living in Arizona and then New York City, I would think of my Texas (which is not today’s Texas) and shed a tear.”

Michigan native Ron Hadfield was editor of The Optimist for two years and then built a 40-plus year career leading ACU’s marketing efforts.

“Little did I know at the time, but in the late 1970s I was in the process of becoming a Naturalized Texan (I claim dual citizenship as a Michigander) in those years when the world was discovering Luckenbach and that genre of Texas country music, thanks to Willie Nelson and others whose music I came to enjoy.

Jerry Jeff Walker and Gary P. Nunn and Michael Martin Murphy were among the pioneers of that sound, perhaps even before Nelson, as I recall. I was fortunate to interview Murphy in between concerts at ACU one night in 1978, and remain a big fan of his.

Their music has always been imminently singable. And although I won’t be confused with a vocalist of note, and don’t drink or hang out in honky tonks, it represents the soulful sounds of this part of the world that have quietly become part of my DNA.

‘They will always be a part of me whenever I think of Texas memories,’ as Jerry Jeff sang in ‘Leavin’ Texas,’ a deeply introspective ballad I have come to love dearly and queued up on the 8-track tape as I drove east out of Texarkana for what I thought was the last time decades ago. It still makes my eyes water after all these years.

So I live these days in San Antonio, not far from the amazing Hill Country, and still get deep satisfaction out of listening to ‘London Homesick Blues’ and Jerry Jeff’s iconic ‘Viva Terlingua!’ album and any other number of songs that remind me of time spent with dear and friendly Native and Naturalized Texans from Amarillo and Abilene and elsewhere.

As James Earl Jones described so eloquently in a famous scene in the baseball movie, Field of Dreams, ‘those memories are so thick, I have to brush them from my face.’ The background music of my Texas life makes a world of difference.”

Thank you to Scott, Karen and Ron for sharing your perspectives on “London Homesick Blues” and the Outlaw Country flavor of Texas music.

When I hear that song, it really does put me back in that place again.

“Well, I decided that I’d get my cowboy hat
And go down to Marble Arch Station
‘Cause when a Texan fancies he’ll take his chances
Chances will be taken, that’s for sure
And them limey eyes, they were eyein’ the prize
That some people call manly footwear
And they said ‘You’re from down South and when you open your mouth
You always seem to put your foot there

I wanna go home with the armadillo
Good country music from Amarillo and Abilene
The friendliest people and the prettiest women you ever seen’

Editor’s note: I went back over a year’s worth of BlogOKC posts and picked out the 10 that meant the most to me. I hope you take the opportunity to browse among these and find something that pique’s your interest. Enjoy!

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The Opportunity Cost of a New OKC Thunder Arena

For all sorts of reasons — amenities, size, not built specifically for the NBA, perceived second-rateness — the city must build the Thunder a new arena within the next decade.

A new showcase arena will set us back at least a half billion dollars, if not much more.

Consider that American Airlines Arena in Dallas was built in 2001 at a cost of $420 million (and the Mavericks already are pushing for a new arena). How high will inflation drive the cost past that?

Holt’s job now becomes that of selling OKC residents on another special financing package, whether it’s part of a new MAPS deal or a special sales tax like that passed in 2008. I hope the city can negotiate a deal that requires the Thunder to share some of that cost.

Hot Wheels Fire Alarm in the Kitchen

As I screamed for help from my wife, our son, Sam the Chihuahua — anyone — I found the right button and shut the microwave down.

When the smoke cleared, I saw four Hotwheels cars inside the machine. Flames were still coming out of two of them.

Meanwhile, our 3-year-old grandson was in the living room screaming and crying.

it wasn’t a coincidence.

Presti screen — OKC Thunder general manager Sam Presti speaks to the media in the weeks leading up to the 2022-23 season.

The Thunder Way Sets NBA Gold Standard

It’s obvious that Presti pours a huge amount energy in learning all he can about the players, their personalities and their families, in addition to assessing their level of talent.

I loved the way he described watching the players in various settings months or years before the moment their names were announced.

And how he uses locations of historical significance to introduce new players to the community.

All of that’s probably the reason broadcaster Dan Patrick described Presti last year as “the best GM the NBA has seen in a long, long time.”

The ‘first’ video game, Pong turns 50 this summer

If you remember Pong, you know it was a simple game that featured two paddles and a sort of ball-like squarish blip that made a cool sound when it connected with the paddle. You connected Pong to your television and used simple controls to move the paddles to return the “ball” to your competitor in a crude table tennis simulation.

That’s all Pong could do, but the world had really never seen a game like this that could be played on your TV. Pong even kept score for you at the top of the screen.

Turns out, Pong is hailed as the world’s first video game and it was released 50 years ago this summer. It was created by a young inventor and entrepreneur named Nolan Bushnell, who founded Atari to market Pong and other games.

marler office — Portrait of Dr. Charlie Marler in his office/ACU photo

Dr. Charlie Marler & the divine coincidence

Turns out, Dr. Marler was traveling through the state that Sunday morning and randomly decided to attend the Quail service. Quail was a large church, but somehow he ended up sitting directly behind me.

I took it as divine coincidence.

I had only been attending at Quail for about a year and had begun dating the woman who would become my wife, Paula Bottom. She was sitting next to me at that service, so I introduced her to Dr. Marler.

“Oh, you need to stay away from this guy,” he said with a smile.

I was at Quail because of the influence of Dr. Charlie Marler. Not only did he help guide me and motivate me to stay the course to graduation at ACU, he also modeled a life of faith for me that led me to Quail Springs church decades later.

Mike Turpen before leading an educational session at a convention last week in Norman.

Oklahoma legends and a spelling disaster

My friend Steve Buck asked me to serve as a room monitor in Norman at the spring convention of the organization he leads.

As I was stationed outside the door to my assigned room before the workshop began, I turned and found myself face to face to Mike Turpen.

If you’ve lived in Oklahoma any time at all, you know Turpen is long-time co-host of the Flashpoint issue/debate show on KFOR in OKC. He is also a former Oklahoma Attorney General and chairman of the Oklahoma Democratic Party.

“I’m the last Democrat in Oklahoma,” Turpen joked after we introduced ourselves.

Thunder arena — Plenty of good seats available shortly before tipoff at a Thunder game in February this season.

A proposal: let’s destroy ‘The Process’ in the NBA

If you’re not a sports fan, you should know that tanking means a team is trying to maneuver for the best possible draft position. It does that by having as bad a record as possible at the end of the season.

Sometimes it’s called ‘The Process’ (wink, wink).

Teams tank not by asking their players to not play hard, but by manipulating the roster so their least experienced get most of the playing time. I offer the Oklahoma City Thunder’s mostly G-League lineup down the stretch this season as Exhibit A.

Oklahoman columnist Berry Tramel put it best last fall when he wrote “losing is the path to winning.” The idea is that if a team is horrible for two, three, four seasons it will eventually be able to draft the next ‘unicorn’ that will turn it all around.

Meanwhile, local fans lose incentive to follow their team and actually show up at games. The thousands of unused seats on a nightly basis at Paycom Center this season is a prime example.

The 1970s vintage IBM Selectric typewriter

The newspaper visionary and the skeptical student

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.

That’s Houston Astros star Jose´ Altuve batting for Sugar Land against the OKC Dodgers on Friday night.

Fun at the ‘ol ballyard with game on the clock

I saw something Friday evening at an Oklahoma City Dodgers game at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark that I’ve never witnessed before: A 9-inning professional baseball game played in 2 hours and 14 minutes.

And it was a fun, action-filled game between the Dodgers and the Sugar Land Space Cowboys that was won by OKC 3-2.

Thanks to new rules that mandate no more than 14 seconds between pitches — 18 if runners are on base — the game moved incredibly fast.

There seemed to be no complaints by players or managers over the mandated fast pace. However, there appeared to be a Sugar Land player called out at one point because he wasn’t ready for the pitch in time.

I was able to witness the Dodgers game thanks for my friend Steve Buck and two of his children. Steve had an extra ticket and invited me at the last minute.

NAMI Walk1 — Walkers begin their trek around the Myriad Gardens this morning in the annual NAMI Walks event

It’s not your 19th nervous breakdown

Every family — mine included — likely has first hand experience with some form of mental illness. I long ago decided that it’s my job to support my loved ones who suffer from mental illness, try to get them professional help and not make rash judgments or punish them for what’s out of their control.

I say all of that because today was the annual NAMI Walks Your Way event down at the Myriad Gardens. It went off without a hitch amid unseasonably cool weather but with no rain to hamper the program or the walkers.

The important thing about the NAMI Walks event is that it is designed not only to raise money to support the efforts of NAMI Oklahoma — the National Alliance on Mental Illness — but to help end the stigma of mental illness.

Tag: Charlie Marler

‘London Homesick Blues’ puts me back in that place

My favorite BlogOKC posts from 2022