12/25/00

Maybe you saw the TV news story out of Oklahoma City, a couple days before Christmas, about the older woman who lost her home to an explosion. Her family had all chipped in to buy Momma a new gas stove, and her son tried to install it without turning off the gas supply to the house. Which might have been okay, until he tried to find a resulting gas leak with a Bic lighter.

The news clip showed this Einstein, a fifty-ish guy for whom the name Bubba could only be a step up in the world, saying, “I thought I lost Momma” (Ah thot ah loss Momma), “but then I seen her layin’ under some sheetrock.” But the best part followed. His final thought (if you can call it that) was to look blankly toward the camera and, “It all just—it just buh-lew up!”

Some Oklahomans maintain that the state can’t attract new industry without a “right to work” law, but that’s not where the problem lies. Imagine a company rep, an advance man, coming here to check things out. Imagine him in a room at the Ramada Inn, watching TV and seeing that guy with his “It just buh-lew up!” After which someone calls from the home office and asks, “Well Don, what do you think about the available work-force?” How could he answer anything other than:

“Arkansas and Mississippi are beginning to look real good.”