Small Town Oklahoma on Road Trip Day Six with My Dad - Eufaula Memories / Mickey Mantle Home & MORE
Road Trip Day 6 with my Dad
Transcript
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welcome everyone adam the woo
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here today number six
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of the road trip that i am currently
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going across
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with my father who is behind the
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oklahoma
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state sign we're going to be going to
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quite a few spots from our younger years
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today
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we are we're going to stop by a couple
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of places and wind up in eufaula
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and then commerce and then up into
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joplin missouri and a busy day today
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it's going to be good i'm inviting you
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to join me and my dad
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into oklahoma holy moly nolan
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take two as we go into oklahoma
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oh oklahoma oklahoma oklahoma oklahoma
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i forgot about the dirty rotten
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scoundrels reference in there that's
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right
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join me shall you using the
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self-pumping gas nozzle fueling up
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279 here and we get in the last couple
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states we've been in hasn't been any
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issue with
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any gas shortage but not taking any
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chances
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anytime i see a station and have
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you know i i could i could use a little
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gas in the tank
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i fill up just to be on the safe side up
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okay it's filled up
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just now pulling into you follow lived
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here from
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what years were here 89 90 and 91
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3 years moved here from niceville
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florida
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early 89 and stayed three years
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a lot of memories here in 89 i would
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have been 15 years old 15 16 17 years
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old
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a lot of memories pulling into town
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on the corner of maine and pine
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is where we're standing what's located
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here this is the
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facility where the first christian
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church used to meet
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this is the church i preached at from
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1989
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through 91 here in eufaula oklahoma
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there's a picture of the side of the
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building looking at this angle
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uh the sidewalk there high now
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there's that sign like that the old one
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has been removed and they now now it's
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called the legacy
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on main street some kind of a city
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facility of some sort
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then over here are some bricks
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and you were telling me earlier on the
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drive-in that some of the
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the members of the congregation you see
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the people had their names engraved in
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these
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different uh bricks here some kind of a
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donation
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thing this all happened before we came
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oh these were here these were here
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already when we arrived
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yes okay they were done in memory of
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people
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and so forth and so on
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and it was generally in reference to the
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church building here because notice it's
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not going on down the street
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right just directly in front this was
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the entrance
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this was the main instrument it was like
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a a secondary we call that not an alcove
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but there was a a four-year four-year a
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four-year through here
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can't really pick down is it locked it's
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locked
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and there was a second floor there was a
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loft
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up top they got them screened up you
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can't see them
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looking through all the way to the end
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was where
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the pulpit was and the where the
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baptistry
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looks as if the baptistery has been
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removed
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if you look down in there that's that's
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where you'd stand with the
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sermons all the way at the end
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maybe we can see from the side window
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and around the back was the fellowship
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hall
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and your office yes if memory serves me
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the building facility
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when i first came here a room up here in
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the front was my office but then
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they remodeled this fellowship hall and
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made a corner of it into an office for
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me back here
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we used to play ping pong and a ping
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pong table right against the other side
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of this wall
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this was a kitchen area right here still
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looks like it is
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so that corner was the window to your
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offices on that end
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here and then the ping pong table we had
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kind of in this section we played a lot
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of ping pong
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we played a bunch got pretty good that's
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where we had our fellowship meals and
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stuff
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that would be nice if we could have
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gotten inside but we can't
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this is a photograph of myself and
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daughter of one of the members of the
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congregation so i'm
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i am standing right against
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that window right there this wall and
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window
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so podium and baptistry
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right over there towards the end and
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this hallway
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would be right into this kitchen area
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right here
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no more pews in there the seats have
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been removed
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and the stage has been
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fixed up a little bit pretty decent
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sized
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area my recollection it was a little
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smaller than this but
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pretty good size room
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so it has the the brick walls
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yup
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yup get any memories flooding back
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oh yeah just all kind of stuff i
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remember
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you and your sister for having a
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fellowship meal
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and you and your sister were out here in
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the auditorium doing who knows what
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i came in and you guys were having some
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kind of an altercation
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arguing about an altercation do what
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brothers and sisters do your sister was
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trying to kick you
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and i remember i was i got
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upset and i was mimicking her trying to
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kick you and i was doing this
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and you both started laughing at me i
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think yeah we were then we started
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mimicking you
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it was hilarious of how exaggerated it
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was
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how stupid it all looked now it is tough
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to see because of the glare through the
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window but there's a balcony up there
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do recall that there's also a an old
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photograph of what the building looked
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like
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into what were the sunday school rooms
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there and the entrance
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which is just right over there so it
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would be the front where
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all the members the congregation would
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walk in
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bringing back a lot of memories walking
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in here and just a block away
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jm's restaurant out of all the places
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that we ate here in town i would say
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this was the one that we went to the
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most we did eat at a lot of places but
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jms was kind of our
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our local spot it was a go-to place it's
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a burger
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burger joint always full always packed
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always standing room only it was tiny
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the kitchen was over in here
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they have painted this kind of a 3d
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mural now
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the booths started over in that corner
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now the sign the old neon retro sign is
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still there and a nice coca-cola
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mural one time i went to out of town i
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went to
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camp and when i got back my sister said
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guess where we went while you were at
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camp jms
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maybe i was maybe it wasn't camp cause
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you would have been there with me as a
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counselor
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i would have been at camp so what i
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wasn't a camp i was
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at a friend's house or you ran away or
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something i ran away
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when i got back they said your
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punishment for running away is knowing
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that we went to your favorite burger
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establishment
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why you were isn't it interesting how
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the mind works
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i thought it was a camp i wasn't a camp
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because she would have been there
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well maybe mom and my sister went to jm
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without us maybe they did
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we're going to tell them they moved
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across the street yes jms
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has now moved it is obscured by you can
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see the top where it says
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jms it is under new management
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and is over there i thought about eating
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there however it's kind of early
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and after we go around the other you
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follow spots there's
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another place that we were here for the
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grand opening you know what place that
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is i'm remembering the very place
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what is it wrong brahms hamburger is an
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ice cream
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hello ernest p worrell jim varney
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used to promote brahms so we'll go to
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the house we'll go to the lakefront
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a few other spots and then we'll hit up
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brahms on the way out of town
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sounds like a winner the front entrance
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was right here
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there were some newspaper racks a front
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door you walked in
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see this they even have the the bricks
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here with the names from way back in the
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day
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this was the front entrance this ramp
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was built new we walk up the ramp but
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the front door was right here
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there's a receipt from back in the day
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that still there's a receipt from jms
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going over to the booth my favorite
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booth was over in this corner
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so here was the kitchen you would pay at
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the register here
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the kitchen was all right here booth
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started here and there was a separate
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room
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over there in that area you kind of go
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through a couple of doors
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and sit over in that area
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any names you recognize on there
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this is people that contributed to have
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all this mural done
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apparently there were probably different
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designation
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of amounts get the platinum donors and
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the
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gold and silver and the bronze boners
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we donated a few dollars here and there
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for a meal or
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bit for two it's nice
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it's got the name of the harvest
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lee's thumb 2020.
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from this angle if you're standing here
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where the camera icon is
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oh yeah looks like a 3d mural
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yeah check it out
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go stand right there on the side of that
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little cliff
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right over there and see if it works see
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if the illusion
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works you're kind of in the booth that
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we used to sit in or stand in
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well we didn't stand in a booth
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oh you're now teetering watch yourself
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dad
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watch yourself get your berry get your
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sea legs don't go over that cliff
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yeah that's a good illusion currently
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over next to the church is a store
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called
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boy howdy but back when we lived here
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i think it was my grandpa that called it
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howdy duty so we just always called that
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we're going to go up to howdy duty
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but it was boy howdy and it used to be
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somewhere in here
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and since then has moved down the block
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we're so expanded quite a bit
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howdy doody boy howdy definitely
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you follow thing what was the special
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event they used to have every year they
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had a holiday called whole
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hog day whole hog day we first moved
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here
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festivities everybody got a rubber
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hog that you were supposed to wear
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around
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you had a a rubber hog nose you put it
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over your nostrils with a rubber band
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around your head
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and they said if you did not wear the
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rubber nostrils
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that they would put you in jail in jail
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yeah so we
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showed up with our hog nose pig noses on
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ten minutes later we realized we're the
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only ones
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only people following the ordinances of
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wearing the hog noses
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so i don't think it was enforced and by
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by putting you in jail
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they would put you in there and then
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someone would have to donate a couple
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dollars that went to a local charity
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and yeah and that would be the point of
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and they would put like
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some of the local prestigious local
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people in there politicians and
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yeah they go in there people would
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donate exactly some of the politicians
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never were released they're still in
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there so the next year they had a chili
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contest
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actually they had a chili contest every
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year but the next year
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i got to be one of the judges i got to
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taste every pot of chili that they had
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on main street that day
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that's not a bad job so this is this is
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main street
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this is foley ave we lived on foliave
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we're gonna go back to the car in a
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minute and drive down there but this
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building the center portion of this
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building used to be a video store
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and i was in there when it caught fire
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and started to burn down i also recall
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they were doing a newscast
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maybe one of the tulsa stations came
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over is you know there was something
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happening here and you follow
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underneath that bank of eufaula sign and
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i made it
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into the news cast no teller whatever
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happened to that
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footage but a younger me right over
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there underneath that bank of you follow
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sign
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on the news in a lot of ways
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this reminds me of main street usa
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a lot of these small towns do i didn't
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realize while i was here but
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i was knee-deep in a true americana oh
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you can see the water tower poking up
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over the top of the former video store
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this building here
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constructed in 1900 where boy howdy now
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sits was a
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five and dime so five and dime are five
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and ten
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a five and dime and i didn't purchase my
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first
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baseball glove well the first baseball
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glove dad purchased for me but i started
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mowing yards here in town kind of like a
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impromptu self-employment
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opportunity because i was too young to
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to get a traditional job and i mow
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some of the locals yards saved up and
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bought a baseball glove inside
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the five and ten the five and dime where
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this boy holiday what if they still have
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bait they have baseball gloves
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i might buy i might buy a baseball glove
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for old times they did not have
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any baseball gloves this is the post
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office where i got in a
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bike wreck one time right here on the
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curb
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did you this where you would go the post
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office dad i believe it is
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yeah erect a bike kind of a premonition
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of
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things to come with lots of bike racks
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in the future right there on that curb
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and down here about a block or two was
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our home
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next to the park and across from the
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baptist church this home here was where
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one of my friends was speaking of
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baseball we would play
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over in the side yard right there there
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was a lot less foliage
16:04
and we would kind of throw the ball
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around practice some bunting
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and whatnot and they had a tree house up
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in one of these trees
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right up here now where we lived was up
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here on the right-hand side where they
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have constructed a brand new
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fence a new wooden fence but over here
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on
16:23
this side of our home these new houses
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have been constructed used to be a
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school used to be a school right in
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here and didn't you go down and help the
16:34
janitor or something i did
16:36
i mentioned how i mowed yards around
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some of the local residents
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but i also helped out the gentleman who
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was a nighttime janitor
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so it would have been one of my first
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paying jobs of some sort
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under the table yeah kept him into the
16:50
trash and stuff
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and that was right across from this
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alley here
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which you used to pull all the way
16:57
through this alley would go to the next
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street over
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now if you went through those double
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doors of the wooden fence
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there was our garage right off to the
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side
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oh there we go there's the garage so
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this
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is located on the other side of that
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just in fact you can see up here you can
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see
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the the window on the top of the house
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you can see it barely peeking over
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see those right there and those pillars
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there from our
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next door neighbors this was almost well
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it wasn't quite a half acre but it was a
17:30
good sized yard
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that i had to mow with a push mower in
17:34
the heat of summer
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i think that's part of the reason i
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don't like yard work anymore
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and the exact perspective of where the
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front of the school was
17:43
was you see the ditch there and the
17:46
school was right there
17:49
passed through here a few years ago well
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i've actually been here a few times
17:52
and the school was torn down and this
17:53
was an empty lot and these homes are new
17:56
well this is the front of the house when
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we lived here
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there's me and your mom and your sister
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faith you took the picture
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notice we have a swing on the porch
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there
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and uh that swing was wonderful as long
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as it lasted and one night
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one day i'm sitting in and then for some
18:13
strange reason it broke
18:16
now you notice they have enclosed that
18:18
porch area
18:19
which makes it look very nice and
18:23
it looks like they got the basic same
18:24
color but they repainted it looks very
18:26
nice
18:26
yeah it in in the past i've been by and
18:30
it wasn't fixed up as nice as this so
18:31
they have done a lot of work on it
18:33
looking pretty good again there's a
18:34
story about those steps that go down
18:37
from the yard down to the street
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it ices over here in oklahoma and uh of
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course we're just a few blocks from the
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church building so one wednesday night
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i'm
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i'm all dressed up got my nice suit on
18:49
and got a nice overcoat on
18:50
i'm gonna come out and walk up to the
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church building i tell
18:54
you and your mom and your sister i'm
18:55
gonna walk up to the church building
18:58
and so i come walking out and i get to
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them at that second or third
19:01
top step and it's totally iced over
19:04
and i slipped and fall and smack
19:08
my coat all in my hair's all disheveled
19:11
i go wandering back in the house and
19:13
your mom says what what are you doing
19:15
back what happened
19:16
i told about falling down the steps so i
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rode the car up to
19:20
to the church building it gets slick on
19:22
that ice it does
19:23
oh yes lots of memories
19:30
i remember you used to sit there on that
19:30
front porch
19:31
going through all your baseball cards i
19:33
was i was thinking the same thing
19:36
i really loved baseball when i was here
19:38
i think you had every card that existed
19:40
at the time i had a lot
19:42
tops flier upper deck all of them and
19:45
you were a wheeler dealer i mean man you
19:47
had all the kids in town swapping i
19:49
traded a lot i traded a lot of cars with
19:50
a lot of the local
19:52
neighbors now while on the subject of
19:54
baseball i would walk up here a block or
19:56
two away
19:58
and i wasn't on a team here in town
20:01
so a lot of times i would just show up
20:03
out here alone
20:06
i prefer to handle this alone and i
20:09
would
20:10
pitch the ball up in the air and hit it
20:12
with a bat out into the outfield
20:14
then run out get
20:17
the dozens of balls that i had and
20:19
launched them from here and see if i
20:21
could get them back
20:22
to home plate i had a halfway decent arm
20:25
at that time
20:27
now you she was pretty pretty accurate
20:28
there was also a house here
20:30
and the lady that lived here i would mow
20:33
her yard about once a week
20:35
right in here she had a house right in
20:36
here the house now has been torn down
20:40
and i believe the driveway was
20:43
right here to the foundation
20:46
there you go one of my first first jobs
20:50
self-employment jobs mowing a yard right
20:53
when i say my sister and i spent
20:57
a heck of a long time on this piece of
20:59
equipment
21:00
that would be an understatement not
21:03
hours
21:03
not days not weeks but if you add it up
21:06
it would be
21:07
months upon end time wise
21:11
of us here in this park and it still
21:15
has the water when it rains the water
21:18
still accumulates
21:20
just as it did back then
21:23
now you would you would show up sometime
21:25
you were busy working most the time
21:27
so it was usually me and my sister out
21:30
and a couple of our friends and we we
21:33
had a thing called
21:34
flying we would spin this around well i
21:37
would spin it around
21:38
very quickly and my sister would run
21:41
along the side
21:43
grab onto it and fling
21:46
around and this created
21:49
a lot of mishaps a lot of injuries
21:52
was not the wisest thing the fact that
21:55
this still exists now there was one of
21:56
these in
21:57
aberdeen we went by where your hometown
22:00
was and there's still one of these
22:02
and you follow one of the hometowns that
22:04
i remember
22:05
best this is still here this is this is
22:08
amazing this is
22:10
a integral part of my youth in a lot of
22:12
ways this when i think of my youth and
22:14
memories this is definitely
22:15
probably in the top ten this just piece
22:18
of metal this hunk of metal
22:20
funny how that works there is an
22:22
infamous
22:24
viral video a viral video
22:27
that someone that i put on my youtube
22:29
channel years ago
22:30
someone stole that footage from me and
22:33
ended up putting it online
22:35
to a website and it ended up getting
22:38
hundreds of thousands if not millions of
22:39
views
22:40
of me spinning my sister around her
22:42
grabbing
22:43
and i believe she clipped out the legs
22:46
of one of her friends
22:47
right here yeah that's what oh and then
22:50
there was another time
22:51
no the video was not the clipping of the
22:53
legs
22:54
but her friend grabbing on to flock
22:56
quote-unquote fly
22:58
and she did fly because she could not
23:00
hold on and she went
23:01
and she went over here and landed before
23:04
this concrete was here thankfully
23:06
went about eight feet into the ground
23:09
oh yes lots of memories the internet
23:13
don't just locate this show oh my god
23:15
you're going it's pretty fast
23:20
oh wow it's a little it's
23:23
it's a little more difficult not to get
23:25
dizzy the older you get
23:27
i'm already getting dizzy
23:36
oh yeah it's all coming back to me now
23:36
now across the way at the market the
23:38
market has changed names
23:40
that was the grocery store look at this
23:42
relic
23:44
wow used to sit on these the board
23:47
the planks going across either side
23:51
going up and down
23:52
that's been there since the late 80s
23:56
so cool out towards the main highway
24:00
on the outskirts of town was the vid the
24:03
other video
24:04
store the one that did not burn down
24:08
and look at this this is an old school
24:11
video returned vhs tape
24:15
slot here you would put the tapes in
24:18
where it says tapes it's now it says
24:21
the sign says it's a realty agency
24:25
but i am seeing some vhs cassettes still
24:29
this place
24:30
appears to be closed and abandoned
24:32
there's some vhs
24:34
behind those windows are there not
24:38
all the way down the wall all both sides
24:40
you don't reckon this place is still
24:42
active do you if people still renting
24:44
vhs and you follow
24:46
i can't imagine i'm going to say no but
24:50
goodness gracious like how who's who's
24:53
renting vhs anymore in 2021
24:56
maybe they don't know what year it is
24:59
you follow stuck in the past
25:01
stuck in the 80s i mean it doesn't look
25:04
dilapidated or disheveled or anything it
25:07
looks like they're still in order
25:09
and that's odd very odd
25:12
wow
25:25
we're having a revival meeting uh the
25:25
guest speaker
25:26
and our family and everybody came out
25:28
here to eat dinner after church
25:30
we're at this cafe the anglers cafe
25:32
watching the
25:33
the screen of the tv it was the third
25:36
game of the world series in san
25:38
francisco
25:39
and about 5 30 that evening just before
25:41
the game started
25:43
wham they had the earthquake of 1989.
25:46
we got to watch it all on tv they
25:48
canceled the game and everything
25:51
yeah wow i definitely recall that
25:55
vividly and it was inside the anglers
26:00
cafe right in there
26:03
yeah wow that brings back memories
26:06
somewhere down here in this curve
26:08
was uh the business where we rented the
26:12
u-haul
26:13
truck to move down to saint cloud
26:16
florida when we left eufaula
26:18
i don't remember which building it was
26:20
and obviously we haven't seen any u-haul
26:22
trucks down here
26:24
but one of these places was where they
26:26
rented them and
26:27
that's where we got it when we left to
26:29
go to saint cloud
26:31
could have been a place like this right
26:32
over here maybe something like that our
26:35
church our christian church was called
26:36
first christian church downtown
26:39
and we had a morning service we did not
26:40
have an evening service this
26:42
congregation the lakeview fallen
26:43
christian church
26:45
had a morning and an evening service
26:47
sometimes on the evening
26:48
i'd come out here and visit the church
26:51
out here and the minister here then
27:00
within a couple weeks of moving here i
27:03
kind of started to explore the town
27:07
along the lakeshore and at that time
27:10
i believe you follow did not have a
27:12
leash law for
27:13
dogs so a lot of the local dogs
27:17
chased me oh as i as i recall
27:21
of course this spin a long time ago but
27:22
i ran over here there was a gate
27:25
and i had to shut this gate to protect
27:28
myself from the dogs
27:31
that's the way it is in my mind anyway
27:34
it probably was not as dramatic as i
27:36
recall i don't know with dogs around
27:39
here it could have been worse
27:40
there was a lot of dogs and it was a
27:42
couple blocks away and
27:44
it was almost like the rocky moment when
27:45
everyone's when he's running
27:47
and all the town folk are chasing after
27:49
him that's how i felt with all the dogs
27:51
now since then i'm noticing
27:53
there is an ordinance right up here that
27:56
says
27:56
city dog leash law is now enforced
28:00
here in eufaula so if we moved here now
28:04
i wouldn't have to worry about that
28:12
there you go ordinance 4-102 you and
28:12
your sister
28:13
and your mother and and i would come
28:16
down here and play
28:17
tennis well actually your mother and i
28:19
would play tennis and
28:20
you and faith would pretend like you
28:22
were playing tennis i used the term
28:24
this is for posterity very
28:27
often and i got that from you
28:30
because we borrowed a video camera from
28:32
one of the members of the church
28:34
that footage has been lost forever you
28:37
were
28:37
filming a couple of the locals out here
28:40
shooting some hoops
28:42
and you were over here and you
28:44
documented it on that
28:46
old school clark griswold style vhs
28:49
camera he said all right make it a good
28:52
one guys
28:53
more posterity this was for
28:57
and the footage is gone so it didn't
29:00
matter if they made the shot or not
29:03
but the phrase lives on it lives on look
29:06
at there's a dog over there
29:08
there's a dog over there he remembers me
29:10
that dog
29:13
it's a descendant of those dogs that
29:15
chased me
29:16
back in the late 80s you've heard the
29:18
stories dogs
29:20
yes
29:27
he's looking this way okay is he on a
29:27
leash
29:28
i can't tell oh he hears us
29:32
okay he's looking away this is our time
29:33
to move oh he's looking over here again
29:36
run run if you look out on the lake
29:38
there there's a family
29:40
of geese going by in a single file line
29:45
there was a restaurant over here that
29:46
we'd go out onto the water
29:48
and yeah we went there a couple times
29:50
restaurants still there it's changed
29:51
names
29:52
but it's over there where all the boats
29:54
dock
29:56
yeah it's pretty neat never seen a row
29:57
of geese like that
29:59
they're not they're not flying they're
30:01
just wading along
30:03
now there was a time the lake froze over
30:06
here is myself and my sister
30:09
and very difficult to pinpoint because
30:11
the picnic tables have been removed and
30:12
the trees have been removed
30:14
but if i was a few feet over to the side
30:17
i can't go over there there's a car
30:18
parked
30:18
but you'll notice in the distance the
30:20
tree line appears as if
30:22
well in the tree line the distance seems
30:24
like that was the spot where the lake
30:26
completely
30:28
froze over if i was just back a few if i
30:30
could pull the car back a few feet
30:31
that's the same
30:33
same dock at least i'm assuming it is
30:35
yep
30:36
lake eufaula completely froze over i
30:38
remember that you could walk out on it
30:41
you guys did in fact over in this plot
30:43
of land
30:44
used to be a water slide it wasn't a
30:47
water park it was just a water slide
30:49
that we would frequent quite a bit it
30:50
was here next to the railroad tracks
30:52
we went here quite a bit we came here
30:54
often
30:56
maybe over there where that that piece
30:58
of concrete is is where the water slide
31:01
stood and my sister and i would get
31:04
halfway down the slide
31:06
and we would stop our momentum
31:09
and people would back up behind careen
31:12
into us so we would have half a dozen
31:15
wedged at the top of this water slide
31:18
and the water itself would almost like
31:20
dam up if you will and then
31:23
eventually someone very heavy would come
31:26
down
31:26
and break the the half a dozen people
31:29
that were stopping the slide
31:31
and we'd all end up at the bottom of the
31:33
lifeguard would say where is everyone
31:35
we get to the bottom and there'd be like
31:37
15 of us
31:38
hopping down in the pool i remember
31:40
those days oh yes
31:42
the water slide whatever happened to
31:44
that water slide
31:46
long gone and right beside this is
31:49
brahms
31:50
when we were living here the grand
31:52
opening of this establishment
31:54
took place we attended the grand opening
31:58
of brahms
31:59
because we love jim varney who played
32:01
the character of earnest and he promoted
32:02
brahms so
32:04
brahms had to be good a little earnest
32:07
jim varney memories
32:08
we kind of have the best of both worlds
32:10
here i went with uh is that one of them
32:12
brahms hamburgers
32:14
got the meat the cheesy onions yep
32:17
it is and dad went with the bananas that
32:20
is
32:20
quite a banana split went ahead and
32:22
purchased myself a souvenir bag
32:24
also some party peanuts and orange soda
32:28
with the brahms logo on it and check
32:30
this out an ice cream
32:32
scoop that has the brahms emblem
32:35
on it there pretty cool
32:42
all right bronze it's been fun i got
32:44
some mementos
32:45
to take with me back up the bag is now
32:49
all right moving on
33:14
now pulling through miami oklahoma
33:14
you always know when someone's from
33:15
oklahoma when they don't call it miami
33:18
pronounced miami to be the hardest
33:21
took me a long time to ever get used to
33:23
that how people say miami miami
33:26
people from this neck of the woods miami
33:28
we're going to pass through
33:30
miami spelled with an eye at the end
33:33
and go to commerce which is the next
33:35
little town over and always enjoy
33:37
looking at the classic neon
33:38
also a classic car alert but also some
33:41
classic neon
33:42
under the weyland's hamburgers at the
33:45
cuckoo bird
33:47
and there is a cuckoo clock bird
33:49
protruding from the front of this
33:52
awesome which also just happens to be on
33:54
route 66
33:56
structure in miami right before pulling
33:58
into commerce
34:00
nice i've eaten here before but we ate
34:01
at braum so i'm not hungry right now
34:03
and now commerce oklahoma
34:07
this over here was a store a grocery
34:10
store
34:10
yep on the right-hand side we
34:14
shop there often water tower and
34:18
chamber of commerce was that was the
34:20
first christian church building
34:22
in the day when i preached here
34:30
and next to behind the building
34:30
was where we lived now it's a vacant
34:34
lot right there and we have pictures to
34:37
prove it
34:38
part of the sidewalk still there
34:53
the foundation looks like it's been
34:53
pulled up
35:18
going across here is the sidewalk we're
35:18
standing on
35:19
so where i'm standing this is this is
35:21
little me this is the part that's now
35:23
gone
35:24
yeah that would have led up to the house
35:28
so this would be the angle walk back
35:31
over here let's stand
35:33
more or less we're the same yeah your
35:36
mama's standing probably at this
35:38
at the steps of the house she's probably
35:40
standing here when she took this picture
35:43
there's this sidewalk there yeah there's
35:47
so if we go off of this kind of step
35:50
over into the middle so that would be
35:52
right about there more of a ditch now
35:56
than there was then
35:57
a more prominent ditch you know but this
36:00
has been
36:01
47 years ago
36:04
there's the street we have another angle
36:06
of the ditch nope
36:13
there's yours you and your mom uh
36:13
in front of the porch that would be
36:15
facing this way
36:16
that was you taking the photo from the
36:18
sidewalk
36:19
thereabouts yeah maybe maybe on the
36:21
walkway up to the house
36:24
i want that yeah okay true
36:32
that would be that angle there
36:32
and then here you and i are yeah off to
36:34
the side of this porch
36:37
i forgot that we had a swing here how
36:40
about that sure dude
36:41
like we like the porch swings we did
36:42
like the swings there you are
36:44
with me probably a sunday morning i'm
36:47
guessing
36:48
it would be kind of over about here
36:51
yeah taken from the side there's another
36:55
photo where you can see around the back
36:57
okay yeah this is it this is you and you
36:59
can see there was a garage back there
37:02
see there's some concrete there what if
37:03
we could find that concrete car was
37:05
parked back there and the
37:07
line and there's an alley you can see an
37:09
alley
37:10
back that ran beside the garage
37:13
watch out for this this water here
37:21
sidewalk is gone and the shed is gone
37:22
that was back over there
37:26
where that blue van is is where i would
37:29
park in front of the
37:31
front of the garage
37:38
the corner of walnut street and a street
37:38
and we had a a street yeah
37:42
and we had a clothesline
37:47
one of the clothesline posts
37:50
here in the yeah picture there's another
37:53
shot of you on the sidewalk leading up
37:55
to the front porch
37:57
as you can see here is here's this
37:59
sidewalk that's showing here
38:01
and there is that tree that's now only a
38:04
stump
38:10
wow and you can see the road embankments
38:10
of the ditch
38:11
here for the roadway over there yeah
38:14
and this house over there has been
38:17
redone
38:18
but it is the same formation same type
38:21
of roof line
38:22
and the same kind of little patio a
38:24
little corner patio over there yeah
38:28
take a look at that
38:45
you were standing in about the middle of
38:45
that parking lot there in this
38:47
in this picture yeah here's the pole see
38:50
the pipes
38:51
coming down here
38:57
sure was and the stairs around the back
38:57
there's the stairs
38:58
and then you see this portion is kind of
39:00
protruding out here
39:02
that is a that's a flat roof
39:06
so one day i'm out here i don't know if
39:08
you were with me or not
39:09
i'm kicking in the football
39:12
and i kicked the football up
39:16
onto that flat roof yeah of course it
39:19
didn't roll back down
39:22
so i had to get a one of those sliding
39:24
stepladder things
39:26
yeah go up those steps
39:30
put the sliding step ladder thingy on
39:33
the top of the and
39:34
up to the roof and climb up there to get
39:37
that football
39:39
i do not like climbing up that ladder
39:41
yeah that's hot
39:46
all right this is inside the house
39:46
obviously this is christmas time
39:48
apparently we bought you a new rocking
39:50
horse it would have been like right over
39:51
here so
39:52
kind of horse house is elevated a little
39:54
bit front steps there
39:56
front porch very tiny house
39:59
right there oh there we go and it snowed
40:02
in oklahoma mom and dad had to get in
40:03
the picture too
40:05
yeah oh here we go okay so this is taken
40:09
so over here these houses
40:12
have been torn down and now it's another
40:15
establishment this was a daycare at the
40:17
time
40:17
this house still is a daycare
40:21
well they just what did they do they've
40:23
changed they've torn the building down
40:25
and built a new building you think it's
40:29
the same
40:29
i think it is look at look at the
40:32
construction of the
40:33
roof line i think that's it man
40:37
it's been rebuilt pretty close though
40:41
but there there yeah
40:44
is that building on the corner so this
40:46
side sure is
40:48
and this is going the other way there's
40:50
the poles there are the windows
40:51
and there's the church building yeah
40:53
there it is
40:55
wow let's see what else
40:58
up there okay there's off to the side
41:00
that's
41:02
that's over there that's the same bush
41:05
that's the same angle
41:07
yep yeah look look that's me right there
41:11
how about that and then the other one
41:13
with grandma
41:14
or grandpa grandma on the photo this was
41:16
years later yeah grandma
41:18
and grandpa there's me years later my
41:20
sister my mom
41:21
and you your grandpa and grandma came
41:24
here after i was the minister he came to
41:27
be the minister
41:29
and then at some point in time we came
41:32
back to visit them
41:34
and this is there's here's the house
41:35
there's the front of the house the front
41:37
porch of the house
41:38
yep there's that tree on the corner back
41:42
right there we're standing right where
41:46
in the house
41:49
that i lived in nineteen
41:56
seventy seven five seventy five seventy
41:56
six seven seven
41:57
seventy five seventy six seventy seven
41:58
seventy eight how many years was i
42:00
residing here for about three and a half
42:01
years three and a half years i slumbered
42:03
on a nightly basis
42:05
right here in this spot
42:16
that's pretty amazing wow yep
42:16
how far back did it go oh let me just
42:19
sit here
42:28
well we've learned through this trip how
42:28
bad our memories are yeah
42:30
we're a little hazy i think that's one
42:32
of our favorite things to say we're a
42:33
little hazy on the details
42:36
i don't know maybe right around here so
42:38
it's pretty decent size
42:40
it was not all that small it was kind of
42:42
narrow narrow
42:53
we should see if there's someone in the
42:53
building if we can get in walked over to
42:55
the exact spot
42:57
grandma and grandpa mom and dad sister
42:59
and myself grandpa's car was parked
43:02
right at the edge of what appears to be
43:05
used to be concrete or it still partly
43:07
is concrete
43:08
you can see some of the concrete
43:10
protruding out there
43:13
asphalt with the dirt and mud on top of
43:16
it but that
43:17
is it and i recall
43:20
this photo being taken
43:23
okay i do i do recall that
43:27
i don't know who was taking the photo
43:31
a family friend perhaps a church member
43:34
guessing i do remember this day
43:43
wow we had gone to a bookstore
43:43
and bought a sticker for the back of
43:47
grandpa's car
43:49
and he stuck it on the back of his car
43:52
why i remember that i do not know better
43:55
than me
43:57
wow now we did manage to get in the
43:59
building kind enough to let us look
44:02
but ask that there we know pictures or
44:04
videos inside for obvious reasons on
44:05
what it is
44:06
used for now it was very nice gotta have
44:09
a little stroll down memory lane
44:12
inside there you remember way more than
44:14
i did because i was young
44:16
okay it's either this store
44:20
or it's the corner store on the next
44:22
block
44:24
it may be that next block one of these
44:26
was a hardware store
44:29
your mother and i walked down and we saw
44:32
two bicycles
44:35
and we decided we wanted to buy
44:38
a bicycle each so we bought
44:42
probably now that i'm looking at
44:43
probably this place right here because
44:44
they used to sell
44:45
appliances and so on anyway so we bought
44:48
a buy
44:48
i had a bike she had a bike and we put a
44:51
child
44:53
seat on the back of her bike
44:56
and you and me and mama used to ride
44:59
around town on this bicycle
45:02
somewhere we've got pictures of those
45:05
bicycles i have no idea where
45:08
i don't remember seeing them when we got
45:10
the photos
45:11
went through the albums we went through
45:13
a lot of albums yes we did
45:15
and a few blocks away yankees baseball
45:19
star
45:19
mickey mantle grew up right here in this
45:22
home
45:23
and the shed that his father
45:26
and him would play baseball in front of
45:30
still standing no one lives here
45:38
pull over and take a look when he was
45:38
three years old his family moved here
45:40
the age of five and six his father
45:42
started teaching him how to hit
45:44
they use the ten barn as a backstop his
45:47
father's name was
45:48
mutt would pitch righty and mickey's
45:51
grandfather
45:52
would pitch lefty teaching him the fine
45:56
art
45:57
of switch pinch-hitting switch
46:00
hitting what did i say pinch hitting in
46:03
a pinch
46:04
if you know how to switch it you can hit
46:07
then you can hit
46:08
mickey once said i was the only kid in
46:10
town that didn't get in trouble for
46:12
breaking a window
46:14
because that was a good thing why was it
46:17
a good thing i'm just assuming it was a
46:18
good thing i
46:19
gotta skip past a lot of this oh
46:22
a ball hit below the windows was a
46:24
single above the windows was a double
46:26
and the roof was a triple over the house
46:30
was a home run so when he hit a triple
46:34
could have taken out a window and a home
46:37
run would be
46:38
over the top of the house
46:42
remember the time we met yogi berra you
46:45
and i
46:45
i do remember you want to tell your yogi
46:47
bear story in commerce
46:50
um was that the houston oilers houston
46:53
astros
46:54
we used a spring train in kissimmee
46:56
florida timmy at the at the ballpark
46:58
there and
46:58
yogi was the man a co he was helping
47:01
coach
47:02
so the team was coming off the field or
47:05
coming out of the
47:06
ballpark you and i were there because
47:08
you wanted to watch them for a while
47:10
i wanted to get i want to get my
47:11
baseball signed have a i got the
47:13
baseball signed
47:14
so of course i was this close
47:18
to yogi berra and i said
47:22
i used to i used to live in
47:25
mickey mickey middleton soaked
47:28
out he wasn't impressed
47:32
he said he didn't even say anything he
47:34
got in his car
47:35
drove off
47:42
one of the two dumb moments of my life
47:42
one of the two
47:44
you know yogi berra once said when you
47:45
come to a fork in the road
47:47
take it it's one of his famous yogisms
47:52
this is amazing that this still stands
48:02
or should also mention boy howdy did not
48:02
have
48:04
baseballs and baseball gloves but i
48:06
stopped at a store on the way here and i
48:08
purchased two baseball gloves and a
48:10
baseball
48:11
ball should we like have a quick little
48:12
catch out here we should chunk
48:14
wow wow we've caught everyone we've
48:16
caught everyone we back up a little bit
48:18
scary your shoulder doing all right no
48:19
i'm okay wow look at that
48:22
it's all coming it's all coming back to
48:24
me now
48:26
the old gymnasium
48:33
i'm going to throw you a knuckleball
48:34
phil negro
48:40
nice stepping inside you'll notice that
48:40
a few have
48:41
signed the banisters i almost said it's
48:45
a rite of passage if you will but there
48:47
really is not a lot of signatures
48:49
here's one here says thanks mick
48:52
now i signed in here
48:55
years ago yeah up here see okay yeah
48:58
a lot of people have signed it's
49:01
becoming almost like a
49:04
a shrine there we go someone named steve
49:07
lane
49:08
okay yeah there's a lot of people have
49:11
signed
49:12
all through here and i have an
49:14
assortment of pins oh you have a pen
49:16
i found an old pen in my pocket let's
49:19
somewhere where the elements will not
49:21
wash it away
49:22
good point but maybe over over in here
49:25
of course this thing might not be here
49:27
in a couple of years but for
49:28
posterity yes let's mark up make sure i
49:32
can leave my name next to yours
49:45
jww on the move
49:45
5 15 21. that's the recording of this
49:48
may 15th
49:49
2021 i'm going to put my name right
49:51
below yours all right now
49:53
documented for posterity
49:56
okay good to go for posterity
50:10
and just like that crossing over the
50:10
kansas line
50:43
crossed over into missouri now made it
50:43
to kansas
50:45
city corner of forest and 31st street
50:49
which is the former home of laughagram
50:52
studios
50:59
which i had heard
51:04
is under some renovation and i did not
51:06
believe the rumors because it has been
51:08
rumored before
51:10
however there is some heavy machinery
51:13
over here and some scaffolding
51:16
and around back which i'll walk back in
51:18
a minute i would it's safe to say they
51:20
are doing something to the building
51:28
for about a decade you know every every
51:28
couple of years
51:29
i will swing by here hoping that
51:31
something
51:32
is taking place to renovate this
51:35
historical building
51:37
where walt disney himself the top on the
51:40
back side of this
51:42
very end on the two back rooms was where
51:44
he had laughagram studios
51:46
and it looks like it's happening now
51:47
under the plans from what i had read
51:49
they're going to take the entire
51:51
building even though it originally the
51:52
entire building
51:53
was not laughagram but they are going to
51:55
take the entire building
51:57
and make it a museum of sorts
52:01
might take a while till it's completed
52:03
and quite a bit of money you can see it
52:06
is under
52:06
major disrepair at the moment now in the
52:10
past
52:11
you could go around this was all this
52:14
more accessible you could go up on the
52:18
of the hill there and climb up
52:22
climb up to the side of the hill but you
52:23
cannot go
52:25
up there at the moment but if you were
52:27
on that corner
52:28
that is where the offices were and
52:30
that's where those one or two photos a
52:31
wall at laughagram
52:33
are in the two the two rooms right on
52:36
the other side of
52:37
those bricks there a nice way to finish
52:40
off the day
52:40
gonna drive for a little bit more have
52:42
an adventure planned
52:44
again for tomorrow this road trip is
52:46
continuing
52:47
glad i stopped by to check this out also
52:49
by the way it is
52:51
heavily rumored that the inspiration for
52:53
mickey mouse
52:54
originally named mortimer was a real
52:57
mouse found in the wooded area behind
53:00
this building pretty dang cool
53:06
that's gonna do it for today i'll see
53:08
you in the next video
53:09
the vlog is over yep
53:13
right in here mortimer are you around
53:16
mortimer
53:17
is the spirit of mortimer around in this
53:19
wooded area
53:20
and you can see they are definitely
53:22
getting some work done the two windows
53:24
in question
53:25
are the ones over there on that end but
53:27
look this one's open
53:29
the door's open it's all fenced off
53:31
there are some signs up i'm not gonna go
53:33
over there but this
53:34
is exciting i am looking forward to
53:36
whenever it whenever it happens
53:38
doing a little update when this is
53:40
completed