TUSooner
4/9/2010, 12:45 PM
Hit the road north on Easter Sunday after enthusiatically howling my way through the Hallelujah Chorus and other good Easter choir music in 2 services at Rayne UMC. Drove to Memphis with Mrs. TU, daughter #2, and friend "M," the latter 2 being the college shoppers.
Visited Rhodes College, a rather expensive and boutique-ish little college, but nice looking. Unexpected highlight of the trip was meeting the Dean of Admissions, Dave Wottle. Older folks will recall Dave won the 800-meter gold medal in Munich in 1972 while wearing his trademark baseball/golf cap. Go see the youtube video, with the late great Jim McKay.
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LHid-nC45k ) Dave hung around the back of the pack and then nipped the favored Russkie at the wire. He was probably the most nonchalant gold-medalist you'll ever see. The soccer coach was allright, too. Daughter wouldn't mind going there just to play D-III, methinks.
Had to visit Graceland, of course. I'd heard it was tacky, but it was actually fairly well done, provided you have a high tolerance for all things Elvis x 10.
Next stop was an overnighter in Beautiful Fort Smith, AR. The lassies were not too impressed with my account of Indian Territory outlaws and Hanging Judge Isaac Parker, but Homey would have been reasonably proud of my effort. Drove into OKC from the east, which I hadn't done since about 1978. Nice drive, really. In OKC we went to the Memorial again and to the museum for the first time. Excellent museum although one can hardly say that something so sobering was "enjoyable." Bricktown was sleepy on a Tuesday afternoon, to be kind. Dined with the family at San Marcos on N Rockwell. I ate there often during my Katrina exile and loved it again. Spent the night at Sooner Legends in Norman, courtesy of OU. It's decent-to-good as hotels go, but the Sooner stuff on all the walls was uber-awesome. I could have walked all the halls, but might have aroused suspicion from law enforcement types.
The best part of all was the official visit to OU. We walked from end to end of the campus, twice, which is a hike as most of y'all know. The National Merit & Honors College hosts (Ms. A. Beck in particular) were superb in the finest Oklahoma way. Lunch at the Couch Restaurants was well above the typical college chow hall experience. It was actually very good. Daughter enjoyed a great visit with civil engineering folks, and M was very impressed by the English dept. Both were totally wowed by the Gaylord journalism set-up. The Honors College recruiter Dr. Schaeffer was excellent. I wish I could bottle 10 minutes of her talk and give it to every high school senior, and every college student as well. M and I even visted the green house where Cal Lemke showed us around and made us feel right at home. He even gave M some plants to bring back to La Nouvelle-Orleans. Dang, I was ready to enroll! (I would have liked to holler at TopDawg & pg, but time was crunchy and I figured they were busy anyway, especially novelist pg.) On the whole, the lassies were well impressed, and I think OU moved to the top of their lists, so far. Pray for the right decision in that regard, please.
Last stop was an overniter in Frisco, TX and a visit to IKEA. I think Mrs TU went on the trip only for that! No major dollars were spent, fortunately. Pulled into the driveway at chez TU at about 20:00 and have been unwinding since then. I'll tell you again, OU never looked better, even to me. It's got all you could want, I think, and the people acted like they really wanted daughter and M to be there. Well done, Sooners!!!
I'll make corrections later, gotta get some groceries!
Visited Rhodes College, a rather expensive and boutique-ish little college, but nice looking. Unexpected highlight of the trip was meeting the Dean of Admissions, Dave Wottle. Older folks will recall Dave won the 800-meter gold medal in Munich in 1972 while wearing his trademark baseball/golf cap. Go see the youtube video, with the late great Jim McKay.
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LHid-nC45k ) Dave hung around the back of the pack and then nipped the favored Russkie at the wire. He was probably the most nonchalant gold-medalist you'll ever see. The soccer coach was allright, too. Daughter wouldn't mind going there just to play D-III, methinks.
Had to visit Graceland, of course. I'd heard it was tacky, but it was actually fairly well done, provided you have a high tolerance for all things Elvis x 10.
Next stop was an overnighter in Beautiful Fort Smith, AR. The lassies were not too impressed with my account of Indian Territory outlaws and Hanging Judge Isaac Parker, but Homey would have been reasonably proud of my effort. Drove into OKC from the east, which I hadn't done since about 1978. Nice drive, really. In OKC we went to the Memorial again and to the museum for the first time. Excellent museum although one can hardly say that something so sobering was "enjoyable." Bricktown was sleepy on a Tuesday afternoon, to be kind. Dined with the family at San Marcos on N Rockwell. I ate there often during my Katrina exile and loved it again. Spent the night at Sooner Legends in Norman, courtesy of OU. It's decent-to-good as hotels go, but the Sooner stuff on all the walls was uber-awesome. I could have walked all the halls, but might have aroused suspicion from law enforcement types.
The best part of all was the official visit to OU. We walked from end to end of the campus, twice, which is a hike as most of y'all know. The National Merit & Honors College hosts (Ms. A. Beck in particular) were superb in the finest Oklahoma way. Lunch at the Couch Restaurants was well above the typical college chow hall experience. It was actually very good. Daughter enjoyed a great visit with civil engineering folks, and M was very impressed by the English dept. Both were totally wowed by the Gaylord journalism set-up. The Honors College recruiter Dr. Schaeffer was excellent. I wish I could bottle 10 minutes of her talk and give it to every high school senior, and every college student as well. M and I even visted the green house where Cal Lemke showed us around and made us feel right at home. He even gave M some plants to bring back to La Nouvelle-Orleans. Dang, I was ready to enroll! (I would have liked to holler at TopDawg & pg, but time was crunchy and I figured they were busy anyway, especially novelist pg.) On the whole, the lassies were well impressed, and I think OU moved to the top of their lists, so far. Pray for the right decision in that regard, please.
Last stop was an overniter in Frisco, TX and a visit to IKEA. I think Mrs TU went on the trip only for that! No major dollars were spent, fortunately. Pulled into the driveway at chez TU at about 20:00 and have been unwinding since then. I'll tell you again, OU never looked better, even to me. It's got all you could want, I think, and the people acted like they really wanted daughter and M to be there. Well done, Sooners!!!
I'll make corrections later, gotta get some groceries!