The first line in the song is, "We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee." Well we hate to say that is no longer true in 2020. Because of the recent change in Oklahoma law, we have seen marijuana "dispensary" signs spring up all over this state. We drove around town for a bit, and found 5 different marijuana stores and numerous big billboards advertising that they do use marijuana in Muskogee now.
The chorus repeats, "I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee, a place where even squares can have a ball. We still wave Old Glory down at the court house." We can tell you that is still true. A large United States court house resides in downtown Muskogee and the U.S. flag is still flying proud in 2020.
We like to think that most of the second verse is still true, "We don't make a party out of lovin', we like holding hands and pitching woo, We don't let our hair grow long and shaggy, like the hippies out in San Francisco do." We didn't take any pictures, but with hair salons across the state closed because of the Covid-19 closures, there seems to be plenty of people with long and shaggy hair. In fact, Denisa was one of the shaggy people in Muskogee today.
Besides verifying song lyrics, our drive to Muskogee was actually a shopping trip. We are on a mission. We look fondly back at the picture of our last campsite with its tall pine trees and bed of pine needles.
That was taken at Cherokee Landing State Park. We have since decided that it should be renamed Mouse Landing State Park. It's here that we picked up an unwanted mouse guest in the motor home. He kept us up at night as he ran in the ceiling space over our bed and left "calling cards" in our living space as well. We found that the mice at Mouse Landing State Park were also enjoying the freedom of our basement storage, where this brand new drying cloth must have been tasty.
We hate mice! Mark immediately began the war to get rid of them. Before our shopping trip, we had only two old sticky traps that he put out around the driver's chair last night. Because they were old, he even baited them with a dab of peanut butter.
This morning we could only find one of the traps! We looked everywhere, wondering how a trap that size could just vanish. It really worried Mark. All day long he would randomly mutter things like, "How could a whole trap be gone?" and "Could a mouse eat the whole thing?" or "What could have happened?" all the way to Muskogee and back. It took one more search that evening with Mark hanging upside down into the small space beside the driver's seat and the wall to find the answer. Our mouse visitor had drug it under the driver's seat, where it was now attached to the carpeted base under the leather flap of the captain's chair.
Besides checking out the courthouse in Muskogee, our main mission there was to stock an arsenal to get rid of our mouse guest. Mark bought everything he could find that said it would rid us of rodents and keep them out.
He immediately put his arsenal to work. He baited two kinds of spring traps, put sticky traps in the basement and the living area, sprayed "repels-all" around the outside of the motor home, plugged in the ultrasonic pest repellers, and put the peppermint-scented rodent repellant in the living area. That evening we heard one of our many traps snap. We celebrated victory, and waited breathlessly for more snaps. But they never came. Either all the destruction and poop came from a single mouse, or the rest of them left in disgust when he sprayed the repellent. Either way, we aren't seeing or hearing any more signs of mice. We're once again happy campers that are proud to be an Okie from Muskogee--at least temporarily.
During our stay here, we withstood one of the worst lightning storms in the motor home since we started traveling over five years ago. We guess the last words of that famous song are still true, "White lightning's still the biggest thrill of all, in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA."
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