I had a great time visiting my friends in Owasso, Oklahoma (that is near Tulsa). Oklahoma is a great place. They love to have fun and are just down to earth good people. Oh, they do talk a little funny too! For the few days I was there I happened to be there for a harvest festival. Boy what that fun. Good fun community festival. It was a chili cook-off where for three bucks you can basically eat all the chili you want and then press into extreme methane levels. Fortunately, they had the fire department on hand in case anyone spontaneously combusted. Another interesting thing was that everyone had either one of two t-shirts on. Blood red was Oklahoma Sooners shirts and orange was Oklahoma State shirts. Apparently, Jesus is going to return soon because the Oklahoma quarterback has reinjured his shoulder and life is not worth living anymore. Of the thousands of people there, nearly everyone had one of those two shirts. It is pretty easy to go shopping for shirts in Oklahoma.
Oklahoma SWAT
The other neat thing they had was some good ole boys from the police SWAT team! Guns and Ammo! Awesome. Why Owasso needs a SWAT team I don’t know, but it sure makes you feel like a man to have so much ammo and weapons in your hands. Anyway, they were displaying their weapons. My personal favorite was the various door rams with smiley faces on them. There were two members showing off and explaining all the weapons and ammo. Oh yes, this is what gave me the culture shock. On a little folding table they had laid out all their weapons (I think most of it was actually their deer and duck hunting guns) and live ammo! Even some of the guns had live ammo in the weapons and kids were coming up and holding the guns and stuff.
I love the police department and all, but growing up Asia I don’t like to see so many weapons out in public. Usually when we see them out, they get used on other people. . . so I would prefer to see the weapons put away when in public. (Like my guns are put away!) Anyway, I stood back and watched for a while and noticed they two policemen were heavily engaged in conversations about the ammo or walking around showing their vehicles to the people. Many times the table, including all the guns and ammo, was left unmanned. I reasoned that this was a small community and they obviously knew most of the people who were around (except me). I thought the best stuff was the bean-bag and rubber shot gun rounds and the pepper rounds were neat too. In one of the bullet proof vests I found 4 clips of 9 millimeter ammo. They even had a paint ball gun with balls of powder-ized pepper spray. Cool stuff. I wonder how much ammo and guns got ripped off that day?
It was a fun day: Free corn on the cob; methane boosting home-style cooking; and lots of guns and ammo! It was a great Oklahoma festival.
If you want to buy some cool ammo, let me know!
I think in the spring is when they do the “noodl’n” fair. No t-shirt required for that festival. Noodl’n is a indigenous Okie sport where they catch catfish by going into the mud and sticking your hand in the mount of the catfish and pulling him out as he shreds your arm. They always have so much fun in Oklahoma!
I think this is Pastor Andrew noodl’in
This is a wonderful post. My favorite line is “If you want to buy some cool ammo …” That made me laugh out loud. -bw-
Glad to hear you liked Oklahoma and the awesome city of Owasso. Next time we will have to take you to the world’s largest gun show at the tulsa expo center (an 11 acre two story building with 4100 tables of guns and accessories).
I love reading the blogs and always look forward to the next one!
Mr. Hyde,
Sir, your account of the SWAT display is inaccurate. I was one of the two SWAT officers at the Harvest Festival. My issues with your recollections are as follows: At no time were children, or adults for that matter, allowed to handle any loaded firearms. It is true we had ammunition on display. The purpose for this is to give the citizens of our great city an idea what type of ammuniton each weapons system utilizes. The weapons put on display, i.e. M4 carbine, MP5 sub-machine gun, breeching shotgun, less lethal launcher, pepper ball launcher, etc., are all department approved weapons, with which the operators must qualify to show proficiency. Yes, some of the weapons displayed are personally owned, however they are not utilized for hunting deer and/or water fowl. The reason for the presence of the SWAT members at the Harvest Festival was to educate the members of the community and answer questions. We believe it is important the public understands that SWAT is a life-saving organization with a specific mission. Surprisingly, most of our citizens were unaware Owasso had a SWAT team, much less an 18 member SWAT team. After about 15 minutes spent at the display, most everyone left with an understanding of what we do. The display may have been a cluture shock to you, due to the fact you were raised in Asia, but the message we impressed upon adults, and children alike, was that firearms are not toys and they should be respected.
Furthermore, the heavily engaged conversations you spoke of were the question/answer sessions about the gear, weapons, policing, and the community safety. You failed to mention in your blog of how our display drew the largest crowd of the festival, and how we received not a single negative comment from any individual who visited. We received resounding praise from the members of our community, and nearly everyone expressed gratitude for the job we do and how safe they feel knowing the local police department has such a high level of capabilities and training.
In closing, I would like to emphatically state that no firearms or ammunition were stolen, lost, ripped-off, or otherwise misplaced. Education and knowledge quells fear of the unknown. I must say, if you would have spent as much time asking questions directly to myself and the other officer present as you did sensationalizing the events of the day, you would have left with the same understanding as the members of our community.
I hope you didn’t get in trouble because of my blog. I thought the display was really cool. I am glad no ammo went missing, obviously the people of Owasso are great people!