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PrintBarry Friedman at large
We need a fundraiser.
Any more popular and it would still be open. A NewsOn6.com report on the closing of Marie Callender’s restaurant began: “A popular Tulsa eatery has shut its doors for good.”
Divorce hurts everyone, including livestock. In 2008, the City of Broken Arrow allowed Greg and Brenda Copeland to keep a miniature horse, Dakota, in their back yard. Fast-forward three years: The couple is now divorced, the house is in foreclosure and the neighbors are furious about the overgrown weeds and manure. The city came to its senses recently and outlawed the practice of keeping cows, goats, sheep or horses, even teeny-weenie ones, at homes on less than an acre of land. Unfortunately, Dakota is still there, surrounded by those overgrown weeds and manure. It’s his manure, granted, but still, you have to feel for the little guy.
Dumb Criminal of the Month The Tulsa man who robbed Panteras Video last month. Hey, Dillinger, did you consider while planning this heist that you were robbing a video store that might have, I don’t know, video surveillance? And nobody goes to video stores anymore! What did you get — six, seven bucks and two packages of stale microwave popcorn?
Damn federal government and its … its … generosity. Recently, the Oklahoma Legislature approved eight special license plate themes, including a Tea Party favorite: the Gadsden Flag, a coiled rattlesnake with the words “Don’t Tread on Me.” Now, before you start ordering extra plates to give as gifts, keep in mind: Oklahoma receives $1.36 in federal aid for every $1 it pays in, according to a nonpartisan tax research group. To put it another way: We do better than 35 other states. Secession will cost us money.
There has to be an “open carry” joke in here somewhere. When police approached a man walking on Skelly Drive, they discovered a 1-liter pop bottle in his pocket that was actually making meth.
And I can’t get through courthouse security without sending my iPhone through the X-ray machine. Richard Smothermon, Lincoln County district attorney, decided not to file charges against a group of Republican women who brought firearms into the local courthouse, which made the Lincoln County Republican chairman, Steve Buoy, very happy.
“These ladies are pillars of the community,” he said. “They didn’t come out of some bar north of town,” which we assume is his way of telling us where we can find the Lincoln County Democrats. In not pressing charges, Smothermon said he explained the seriousness of the offense to the women and they understood.
You mean these “pillars of the community” couldn’t grasp the danger of bringing assault weapons to the courthouse without your help? Did you remind them that acetylene torches, bags of fertilizer and nuclear-grade plutonium are also frowned upon?
According to the Lincoln County sheriff, Republican Charlie Dougherty, the women were let into the courthouse by a Lincoln County commissioner, Republican Don Sporleder, whose wife was part of the group. Once inside, the women donned T-shirts that read “Heels packing heat” (they’re so cute at that age) and posed with their firearms for a fundraising calendar, benefiting — wait for it — the Lincoln County Republicans.
Rule 110 Stores that advertise they’re “Going out of business” have to, at some point, actually do so.
Eavesdroppings On Lewis Avenue, between 21st and 31st streets:
Out-of-town passenger: “What’s this road going to look like when they’re done tearing it up?”
Driver: “Pretty much the way it looked before they started.”
Francis Ford Coppola really liked the place, too. Newsweek placed Tulsa and Oklahoma City in the Top 10 cities with the brightest future for college grads. Shame nobody’s reading Newsweek anymore.
Ups and downs
UP … Lexi and Pili, the new female giraffes at the Tulsa Zoo. Two things: It’s a long story, but if you get a cold or your neck hurts, either one of you, let us know immediately, and Samburu, our male giraffe, will be held separately, but he will be allowed into your holding area, according to zoo officials, to touch and sniff you. Don’t feel like you have to reciprocate.
DOWN … Tulsa weathermen who insist on saying “further” when talking about distance. It’s farther. This, too: Few of us actually have hatches that need battening down anymore.
UP … Linda Mix of Jenks, who won $1.3 million on a “Wizard of Oz” progressive slot at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa. Mix said she’s not planning to quit her job. If I won that kind of money, someone else would be writing my next column.
