Bill & Sheila Become Grandpa Bill and Grandma Sheila

Our first grandchild, Benjamin Robert Schatz, was born at 5:38 this afternoon at St. John's Hospital in Tulsa.  We were up at 5:00, had breakfast at the Diner at 6:00 and were walking into St. John by 7:00 AM.  It was a long but good day with lots of time to talk, think and simply be around each other.  My good friend Bruce DeLay came by and spent much of the afternoon with Sheila and I.  Funny how guys with "Rev." before their name somehow know how to show up at exactly the right time.  Around 4:30 things started picking up and a little after 5:30 Little Benjamin was here.

Back to the Farm

Not my picture but almost identical to what we saw.

Sheila and I spent a nice long day at the farm Saturday not doing much of anything.  The fall color seemed to be about at its peak and the last couple of miles of tree lined dirt road were a real treat.

We spent a couple of hours puttering around the house, doing light cleaning, etc. In the afternoon, I put in a nice hour in the backyard with my new Remington 597 HB, shooting at pieces of 1/2 inch lath stuck in the ground in the dirt embankment lining the storm cellar wall. 

By dark, we were ready to go and had our hearts set on dinner at Charlie's Chicken in Sallisaw.  Unfortunately, Charlie's was closed  and the only thing open worth consideration was THE Chinese place.  For the past couple of years, the Chinese place on Highway 59 South north of the I-40 junction (the only Chinese place in town) had gone down hill and we had been avoiding it.  However, we were pleasantly surprised to find new owners and a great selection on the buffet.  It was really a very good meal and quite inexpensive.  We were home by bedtime and a good time was had by all.  

Bill and Sheila and the BBC

It would seem that Sheila and I don't care much for American TV anymore.  We just don't watch it for the most part.  It is mindless at best and at worst insulting to our values.  I can't remember the last time we watched anything from the major networks.  Now that technology has given us multiple choices, we watch a lot and I do mean a lot of UK produced programming.  Here are some clips from a few of our favorites:

Dowton Abbey.  Previous seasons available on Netflix Streaming.  Season 3 will air early 2013 on PBS Masterpiece Theater.  Another period drama which began before the First World War and is now continuing into the post war years.  Too many plot twists to explain in a paragraph.  Just very entertaining.

Foyle's War.  Available on Netflix Streaming.  The adventures of an aging British Police Inspector in WWII Britian.  Probably the best of the host of very good Brit mysteries.

Doc Martin.  Available on NetFlix Streaming.  Only a Brit could think this one up.  What happens if a snooty big city surgeon suddenly begins fainting at the sight of blood and gets a last chance to continue practicing as a GP in a small fishing village?  We have already watched the whole series but for those who haven't it is now showing on OETA.

Lost Empires.  Available on Net Flix Streaming.  A Granada Televsion mini series based on J.B. Priestly's novel of the same name:


A very young Colin Firth is the orphaned nephew of a mysterious and highly cynical (but usually correct) star performer on the U.K.'s music hall circuit.  In this clip, he and his love Nancy are having what appears the perfect afternoon together which is interrupted by the sound of distant gunfire from an army rifle range, symbolizing the onset of the World War One in a few months.  Firth's character does not notice but his uncle has already set the premise up in an earlier scene when he predicts the horror of the coming war and observes that Great Britian is sliding into a morass it will never completely recover from and nobody was doing anything to stop it.

Midsomer Murders.  Again, NetFlix Streaming.  This is one of Sheila and I's favorites but for entirely different reasons.  She likes the light, breezy "Murder She Wrote" tone which I have to admit is pleasant enough.  I like the fact that the program is better than sleeping pills and can usually render me unconscious in less than half an hour.

Three World Class Musicians You Can Hear in Tulsa for the Price of a Drink or a Meal

Tommy Crook, the guitar player the late, great Chet Aktins called the best guitar player he had ever heard.  Mr. Crook plays at Lana Thai on South Memorial on Friday and Saturday nights.

 
Rocky Frisco of the legendary JJ Cale Tulsa circle of friends.  Rocky plays several nights per week at various local drinking establishments. His personal "About Me" page at TulsaWorld.com says he hangs around at: Utopia, Cimarron, Roadside, Scotty's and Blind Lemon's.




Little Joe McClerran is a very young man who has already won several awards in blues competitions.  He has also toured the Middle East and South America through a program sponsored by the U.S. State Department in cooperation with the Jazz At The Lincoln Center program.  Little Joe and company often play at Bodean's on the weekends.