Aww…some Monday’s Music Moves Me

Aww…some Monday

I’ve been photographing some of my collection of University of Oklahoma caps for possible blog header image. The one currently on the blog is more of a practice run than a real contender for a place on the blog. Here are a few of the finalists.

First up, I was born and raised in Oklahoma and graduated from OU. There is a company called The OKIE Company that markets caps, t-shirts and hoodies with the OKIE logo. “Okie” comes from the dust bowl days. Much of the 1930’s saw Oklahoma experience drought conditions. Poor crop management turned the soil into dust and it was unbelievable. Couple the dust bowl with the depression and many residents moved to other states with California being among the most popular destinations. All of these new people moving into California did not set well with many locals and they began calling the displaced Sooners, “Okies”. It was not originally an endearing term but more like a racial slur. Today, many Oklahomans proudly refer to themselves as Okies because they believe themselves to be an independent, hardy breed of Americans that settled a portion of the wild, wild west. All that to say, I have several of these OKIE hats.

The University of Oklahoma is simply known as OU by everyone in the state. The logo on the cup above is the current version of OU found on most merchandise. However, the logo on the cap below comes from the early days of the university and I still think it’s a very good look.

Combine the University of Oklahoma with OKIE and you get OKIE University

The theme this week at 4M is…Learn something about this first month of the new year and build your playlist around that for your music inspiration.

If birds begin to whistle in January, frosts to come.

Birds are usually around and active in the northern states during the heart of winter only when temperatures are unusually mild, which means that the steering winds high aloft have a large north–south component. The southerly component is what brought the warm weather, but, as those steering winds move, they will become northerly, bringing along very cold air.

So what do I do with this bit of trivia. We have birds around the house in January. There are a few cardinal, sparrows, and starlings. The occasional hawk will perch on the back fence, looking for anything moving in the easement behind our back fence and there are a couple of species that are always trying to winter in the wreaths that my wife makes and adorns our front door. There’s even the straggler robin that never quite makes it all the way south into Texas and Louisana. So, here’s to the birds that whistle…or not.

Originally recorded by Bobby Day in 1958 here is the Jackson 5 with Rockin’ Robin!