Still longing for news from Oklahoma as I do? I’m hearing from all ya’ll, “More, more, more!” Well, I won’t disappoint. Or should I say my pal Denveater won’t disappoint. She’s blogging from the Okie Noodling Tournament (we will let the term “Okie” ride for just now) and I’m scraping her content — well part of her content. To understand my Oklahomies is to understand noodling, local music, and most of all people because community is king. The noodling tourney epitomizes the very sort of thing that I’ve always admired about my home state, when populist ideals seep up from the iron-rich dirt.
Go to her blog to read her full posts, because Denveater tells it best:
(So did I! Oklahoma! Oklahoma! Oklahoma!)
***Over the course of the next few days I’ll spill all the half-baked beans I happily gathered at the 10th Annual Okie Noodling Tournament in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, while hanging with an array of insiders whom I’d now count among the coolest, kindest, oldest souls a person can be lucky enough to encounter all at once.***
(Handsome Hubster and I have logged many dinners at the Pig Shop.)
To have even heard of noodling is to know Lee McFarlin. To look “noodling” up on Wikipedia is to see his picture. To Google “noodling” & “Gordon Ramsay” is to catch a slide show of the respective stars of Okie Noodling & “Hell’s Kitchen” gurgling à deux amid the red swirls of an Oklahoma fishing hole. To scan article after article on noodling on the New York Times & ESPN websites is to learn of his legend.(Uhm… I enjoyed the doc and could enjoy the tourney, but I have not, nor would I attempt, noodling. Just FYI.)
Thanks Ruth for the awesome posts. I wish I could be with you to be crowned queen, enjoy the exfoliating back rub, and hang out in walk-in freezers.
Noodling is waaaay cooler than Dollywood.
True dat.
See ya this weekend! We need to go by a feed store to pick out a cattleprod, unless of course, you are bringing one from the land of skinny sheep….