Joe's is no Joke

Big Al insists that I am prone to exaggeration, a possible byproduct of working in public relations for over 20 years.

Apparently, only twice in our marriage has my heartfelt endorsement of an eating establishment been on target. The first instance was many years ago when describing the cheese enchiladas at Armando’s Restaurant in Grove as “the best anywhere”. The second recently when we had lunch at Eskimo Joe’s in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Eskimo Joe’s bar and grill is synonymous with Oklahoma State University (OSU). Located only a block from campus, it is popular with students and faculty alike. No doubt many students over the last three decades have spent enough time there to have qualified for an academic minor in “joesology”.

My first apartment at OSU was next door to Joe’s. It was the top floor of an old two-story home that had been divided into apartments. Even with the windows and doors closed it was hard to shut out the sounds of students either free of studies or simply blowing off their responsibilities stopping in for a hamburger and to listen to Blues music.

I’ve often stated that in my mind I still view the world as a young adult, somewhere around 21 – 23 years of age. It was interesting to be in a town that was so influential to me at that pivotal age while at the same time cheering on Sister - at nearly the same stage in her life.

Eskimo Joe's opened July 21, 1975. That same day, sales began for their wildly popular t-shirts, featuring Eskimo Joe and his ever faithful canine companion Buffy. The interior of Joe’s hasn’t changed too much in the 20 years since I was a student. The floors are still wooden; the tables are still tall with high stools. The ceilings are still stamped tin and antique advertising posters and OSU memorabilia remain splashed across the walls.

“This is exactly how I pictured it,” said Big Al, followed by his pronouncement, not entirely unjustified, that I often paint my descriptions with an overzealous verbal paintbrush.
After we ate lunch the boys scanned the Joe’s clothes, each picking out a new Eskimo Joe’s t-shirt that like all twin-clothes at our house, were similar in color, while still maintaining their individual style in design.

They were fascinated reading the “history of Joe’s” and curious how two guys could open a little burger joint that would turn into the Eskimo Joe’s phenomenon it has become. I think the answer is that they were enthusiastic, used teamwork to their advantage, and never once thought about failure.

I’m always reading something new, this week it is the inspirational book “You Can’t Send a Duck to Eagle School.” It is all about finding what your good at and sticking to it. Also, for managers it provides lessons in picking the right people for the job. Good customer service, full of enthusiasm, is a skill that not everyone is good at but it's what's made Joe's famous.

Wired Tight

I don’t think I’ve shared this yet but I’m a big zero in the pain threshold department. I've been limping around the house all evening, complaining about my sore feet following a couple of hours in heels this evening at a function. (What a baby!)

I asked for a spinal block at the first quiver of childbirth. The nurse asked me if I was “in labor?” I replied, “No…and I don’t plan to be.”

I’ll fuss over a hangnail for hours. Every purse, every piece of luggage has an antibacterial/pain relieving ointment tube strategically stashed away for emergencies. I’m like Elaine in the Seinfeld episodes where she’s sure there some secret message for all the doctors stuck in her medical file. My note would read “big baby.”

Subsequently, I am very impressed with tough people: people who live with chronic pain, who finish marathons with every muscle aching….women that give birth naturally! I wrote a few weeks ago about my new hero in the tough guy department, my nephew Blake Henry.

Blake was at high school baseball practice a month or so ago, when he and a fellow teammate collided while both attempted to catch a fly ball. Blake is pretty tall and the other kid was a bit shorter, so when they both smacked into each other the top of the other kid’s head slammed into the bottom of Blake’s jaw.

It was pretty obvious that both boys were hurt, but nobody was going to quit practice that afternoon. When Blake left the field he wasn’t feeling any better and the front of his shirt was red with his own blood.

The ER was busy and there was no way to tell how bad his injuries were, so he waited for a while before he was seen. A couple of x-rays later it was clear that Blake’s jaw was broke in two places!

This kid finished practice with his face in pieces. He never asked to come out. That’s tough.

In the very early morning hours of the next day he underwent surgery to repair the breaks. For the next three to four weeks he’ll have to function with his teeth wired shut and screws in his jaws. Here’s the kicker: all of this on very little pain medication. It was too big of a risk that he might become ill on the medication and be in further danger with everything wired closed.

Blake was the first family member to take to me when I began attending family events. He was just barely walking and would wobble over to me, turn around and then slowly back up so he could sit on my lap. We were buddies from that first afternoon.

When I visited him in the hospital following surgery it was with arms full of every car and sports magazine available in the gift shop. I told him how he was the toughest person his Uncle Alan or I knew.

He ended up only have his jaws wired for a couple of weeks.

He's so active and his metabolism is revved so high that he needed to eat - real food...not just protein drinks. He was dropping weight too fast and needed more nourishment.

I'm thinking about Blake and his pain threshold as a nurse a paper cut and pad around in house slippers. At least some of the folks are tough in this family!

Call 'em all honey

We have a new male vs. female argument at the Marble household. It revolves around my use of the word “hon”…as in thanks “hon” appreciate it “hon”.

For clarification purposes I should note that the men in my home do not object to me calling any of them “hon”. They are also only mildly belligerent when I call Fez-the-wonder-puppy “hon”. No. They save their “hon” badgering for when I use it to refer to waitresses.

That’s right. I call women I do not know “hon”. (I call men/waiters I don’t know “bud”.)

Maybe its part of the public relations game that makes me very uncomfortable when I can’t remember someone’s name. Even when it is a member of a restaurant’s wait-staff I feel the need to use their first name…and use it often.

Many times when we eat out, the waiter or waitress is a former student at Crowder or someone I know from parent events at Central School. If I can’t remember their first name it starts driving me nuts. I invariably call them “hon”…which then drives Big Al and the boys up the wall.

In fact, a couple of months ago, they bet me money that I couldn’t go the whole meal without calling the waitress “hon”. Am I competitive – you bet. Always ready to add to my Brighton jewelry collection – you bet. I was game.

Five minutes later I’m calling her “hon” after she brought some more tea. I lost. Lost my pride and had to endure the jabs and ribbing throughout the rest of the meal.

You know it’s a weird thing. I don’t mind if a woman calls me “hon”, but if I guy said it (who wasn’t family) I would think they were either condescending or odd.

Maybe its just one of those nurturing, wonderful, caring things about being a girl or maybe I’m a nerd.

Either way. I would rather be called “hon” by someone who obviously couldn’t remember my name, but wanted to be nice. Than addressed as Lori by some snobby chick. How about you?

Mrs. Foree

I’m pretty sure every kid has had a teacher that they were sure was not from this planet. The type you learn to expect in college…a little eccentric, very vocal with their beliefs, constantly pushing the envelope asking the class to consider topics a little bit broader than what was originally expected. My junior high science teacher, Mrs. Foree, was that teacher for me.

Anytime the weather gets out of whack like it has this past week, my sisters and I look at each other and whisper “Mrs. Foree”. We use soft, breathy, scared voices you hear in horror movies, when the heroine is getting ready to be killed by the mutants. We whisper because we’re scared that the teacher we all laughed at in junior high was right.

Before global warming was cool, before green was something bigger than a color, there was Mrs. Foree. She ruled over her Oklahoma classroom. She loved rocks. Her lab counters were littered with piles of rock. Big rocks. Big rocks that she would chuck at you if you weren’t paying attention. Throwing rocks was something all the kids knew to expect when it was their turn to sit in Mrs. Foree’s class. And for the most part they only came hurling at you when you were caught not paying attention to her theory on the seasons.

Basically she declared that in a very short time we wouldn’t have any more seasons. No more spring. No more fall. We would simply transition from one harsh summer to the next brutal winter in a day or possibly even during the same day. It was Mrs. Foree that I thought of yesterday morning when Fez, the wonder-puppy and I walked outside at 4:30 a.m., for a morning walk and retrieval of that “other paper”. I thought of Mrs. Foree because I was dressed in long pants, a sweatshirt, heavy coat, gloves and a hat – pretty much the same outfit that I wore the evening before when the two of us patrolled the hill looking for renegade squirrels. The temperature Monday evening was around 30 degrees, with a light rain. My winter weather gear was perfect for those conditions.

Yesterday morning, I felt like a pop-tart in a toaster oven standing outside in my front yard, cooking in all those clothes with a rather balmy 60 degree breeze gently blowing across my nose – the only part of my face exposed to the “elements”. Mrs. Foree was right, I thought. By the time I reached my office at 7:30 a.m., the temperature had dropped into the low 40s. We were back to winter in less than two hours.

I don’t know what happened to her or even if she’s still alive. But I’m never going to consider the weather the same way I once did…and I may just take up juggling…rocks, big rocks.

Grandpa Marble

(I originally wrote this in honor of my father-in-law Don and during the annual MS bikeathon held each fall.)

Every day there’s a worthy cause that could benefit from some donation. Most times its easy to pull out some dollars from my wallet and donate to whatever need is presented.

But it’s nice to make larger contributions when possible. A long time ago Big Al and I focused our non-church giving to include Crowder College and the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

My father-in-law, Don Marble, has battled MS for over 30 years. Even after decades of pounding by this incessant, baffling disease, his body still shows evidence of the Marble stature and strength that I’m beginning to see in the twins.

It’s easy to give money. We’re two people with good jobs who are healthy and sane enough to realize how incredibly blessed we are. It’s something entirely different when the one working for a cure is 12 years old and riding his bicycle 40 miles a day to get in shape for the MS ride.

Sam is one of the twin’s football teammates, and last year he asked if he could ride in the MS event in honor of Big Al’s dad. We couldn’t say yes fast enough.

This year Sam asked again, and I thought it appropriate to say thank you to Sam with this column as well as offer a little insight into what type of man he is honoring with his effort.

Don Marble is strong. He was strong when he was in the National Guard – one of the proud 203rd. He was strong when he worked at Rocketdyne, helping to put Neosho’s name on the map. He was strong when he juggled a family, a small business, and a fledgling church. He was strong when he battled a mysterious illness that finally was diagnosed as MS. He was strong when he worked tirelessly to start a mission to the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico, which now serves the spiritual, educational and medial needs of hundreds of families.

Most importantly he is strong when he prays. Maybe he’s the quintessential “prayer warrior”. “Be specific” is what he always says when I call asking for prayer. He’s learned to cut to the chase. Go for the gut. Pray honestly. Pray strongly.

Sam…you’re riding for the twin’s grandfather who has MS. He’s also their grandfather who proudly served his country, helped build rockets that went to the Moon, owned his own business, started a church, and began an outreach program to some of the poorest people in Mexico.

He has MS, but MS has never had him.

So, ride strongly Sam because a strong man’s prayers, and tons of gratitude, are riding along with you.

Girl Myths

The boys’ favorite show is Myth Busters. I’m not sure but there maybe could be an entire MythBusters channel. It doesn’t matter if I’ve been watching a show for a long time….actively engaged, talking back to the TV set, etc., if I get up, if only for a second, the minute I return to the family room the show MythBusters is blaring away.

I’m also pretty sure there are only five episodes of MythBusters. Why would they need to create anymore? If a whole bunch of guys are willing to watch the same explosions, the same flames, the same MacGyver reminiscent experiments over and over…more power to them.

Last week I caught a ride to Joplin with a coworker and we were enjoying a couple of seconds of silence from our early morning chat-fest when the bell on her low gas indicator binged.

“Dang,” she said, “now we have to get gas. I heard the bell. If we had still been talking it would have rang, I would have missed it and we would have made it fine to work. But now we have to stop.”

We laughed when I related that my “GirlMyth” recording a low gas tank was seeing the gas tank icon on my dash glow yellow. I swear I could drive another 100 miles…running on fumes, if only I hadn’t seen the light.

This got me to thinking about other GirlMyths I know well. Here goes. Let me know if you have some I’ve failed to mention.

GirlMyth #2 – You can cram anything, and I do mean anything, down your garbage disposal. As long as you ram it down there fast and especially important is that you’re husband cannot be home during the event. (So far, so good. I’m about 127 to 1 on having this one work. It’s just that the one failed attempt was a little expensive.)

GirlMyth #3 – In the winter it really doesn’t matter how long you let the hair on your legs grow. Simply walk with confidence and wear dark pantyhose. I’m relatively sure everyone will think you’re just sporting some awesome textured hose.

GirlMyth #4 – Drippy faucets, running toilets, squeaking brakes will miraculously heal themselves if you only ignore them long enough. (It helps if the offending appliance is in a room where you can shut the door.)

GirlMyth #5 – A happy meal and a diet Coke = 0 calories. (This is one of my personal favorites.)

GirlMyth #6 – Those once infamous, hard to miss tabloid-screaming headlines regarding spontaneous combustion are actually very easily to explain cases of midlife hot flashes combined with extended pantyhose use. (See #3)

GirlMyth #7 – Any illness can be cured with Benadryl. At the very least, you or they will sleep well and thereby miss the constant sniffing and hacking.

Maybe next season the MythBusters guys will take on one of my seven wonders of the girl world. That is if they think they can handle it.

What's up?

I'm a frustrated writer. I would actually love to have a career writing or be a back up singer for James Taylor.

I can't sing.

I do have a column though in the Neosho Daily News, my hometown newspaper. Family members and friends have sometimes remarked that they heard they were mentioned in my column but failed to see the paper that day. This is an effort to get my columns out there to others.