Today's postcard:
The caption on the back:
Oklahoma City, OklahomaMain entrance to the mall at Penn Square. This beautiful entrance is accented by clusters of tall pedestal canopies which look like huge mushrooms or inverted umbrellas. Penn Square is Oklahoma's largest shopping center--it covers more than 580,000 square feet of shopping area.(This is the entrance on the east side of the mall. The store on the right was John A. Brown's, which would eventually become Dillard's.)When my brother and I were much younger (back in the early 1960s), our parents used to take us to Penn Square on Sunday afternoons after church for some window shopping. (This was back when everything was closed on Sundays and window shopping was about the only kind of shopping you could do.) The only two places that were open were Val Gene's cafeteria, which was just east of where the center court is now, and the Humpty Dumpty supermarket, which was north of the center court--roughly where Macy's is at now, but a little closer to the main part of the mall.
Today's postcard:
The caption on the back:DODSON'S CAFETERIA4101 S. Western, Oklahoma City 9Continuous Service 11 A.M. to 8 P.M.7 Days a Week"Our Best Advertising is Not Written . . . It's Eaten."(Not sure what the "9" after the address means, but that's what's printed on the card.)This is the Dodson's that used to be at the Reding Shopping Center at SW 44th and S. Western, which was torn down quite some time ago to make room for expansion of the parking lot and facilities at Integris Southwest Medical Center. There was a second Dodson's at the Hillcrest Shopping Center at SW 59th and S. Pennsylvania, but that one is gone as well.I have very fond memories of eating at both locations because the food was incredibly good--I really liked the fried chicken, green beans and devil's food cake, which is what I usually got. (I especially enjoyed going there on my birthday because it meant getting a complimentary cake, and they had the best birthday cake I've ever tasted.)
Happy Birthday to my sister-in-law Charlotte (hope the card I sent got to you on time).************I found out a few days ago that SoonerCon has opened an online store where they're going to be selling t-shirts, caps, posters, coffee mugs, tote bags, and maybe some other stuff later on. Scooter says check it out. (I've added it to my list of local science fiction links in case anyone needs to find it later.)
Happy Fourth of July! I hope everybody has had/is having/is going to have a safe and fun holiday. (Nothing special going on here . . . I was invited to join some friends for dinner and a trip to a local park to watch the fireworks from downtown Okla. City, but I decided to stay home and try to catch up on some rest since I haven't been sleeping well for the past few nights.)I've been intending to mention (and kept forgetting until tonight) that JediOKC has seven pages of SoonerCon 2007 photos posted on their site, including some good ones from the charity dinner and show on Friday night and the costume contest on Saturday night. Just go to the main page of their site and look for the photo album link on the left side of the page, under "Board Navigation."
Today's postcard:
The caption on the back:
WILL ROGERS FIELD
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Will Rogers Field, Oklahoma City's Jet-Age Airport, with five scheduled airlines operating daily offering approximately 60 flights per day and the latest in Jet air service.
"The Merlene Show" was a skit that the funny and talented folks at Yard Dog Press performed on Saturday evening at SoonerCon. I thought it would be a good idea to discuss it in a separate post since a lot of people may not be familiar with the history behind it.
Several years ago, the writers at Yard Dog Press came up with an idea for a collection of humorous stories about a plague called Yuppie 25 that kills off most of the people on Earth and turns them into brain-eating, yuppie zombies, or "Yumbies." The only survivors of the plague are the "Bubbas," the redneck, white-trash, trailer park denizens who are rendered immune to the virus by the ingredients in the cheap barbecue sauce that they put on everything they eat The first collection of stories was called Bubbas of the Apocalypse, followed by The Four Bubbas of the Apocalypse: Flatulence, Halitosis, Incest, and . . . Ned and International House of Bubbas. A fourth collection, .Houston: We've got Bubbas, is currently in the works.(Still with me? Good. If you're not, it's not going to get any clearer. Sorry.)"The Merlene Show" was intended to be the Bubba version of "The Martha Stewart Show"--arts and crafts and home decor with a redneck, white-trash twist, plus a beauty pageant between a couple of trailer park beauty queens, Harley Dee and Nova Dawn. The final production was loud, raunchy and incredibly funny, and I hope whoever took the video of the show will post it on the net sometime soon. (If I see it posted anywhere, I'll post a link here or send it out by e-mail, or both.)Here's the cast:Merlene--Sherri DeanBilly Dee--Bill AllenNedina--Selina RosenSecurity guards--M.H. Bonham and Rie SheridanRhonda Lee--Rhonda EudalyHarley Dee--Audree HitchcockNova Dawn--Sally AllenPearl Mae Ledbetter--Susan SatterfieldGlen Tirwiliger--Glenn SixburyDavid Lee Anderson--playing himselfBennie Grezlik--also playing himself (I think)Plus the Stonebender Sisters:Cary On--Cary OsbornBerly Ann--Beverly HaleKatie Ellen--Katharine E. KimbrielRuby Sue--Kristi Hutson-PriceIf you have any questions about "The Merlene Show," SoonerCon, or any of the pictures I posted, please e-mail me or leave a comment and let me know.
