Wearing of the Greene August 9, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Movies, Road trips, Television.add a comment
I’m trying to track down and post more clips of Vimeo videos. Click here to see the 26-minute Episode 1 of “Route 66 — The Marathon Tour” from Greene HD Productions.
The 14-part series is airing each Saturday on the American Life Network. You can also acquire “Route 66 — The Marathon Tour DVD Set” at video stores.
Here’s the original trailer for “Route 66 — The Marathon Tour.”
Caution: Construction zone August 9, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Religion.add a comment
Here’s the latest video from “Route 66: A Road Trip through the Bible.” This one is based on the book of Ezra. The video stars Ezra and some construction workers, who probably need to attend a safety seminar.
Oklahoma firm producing film about Cyrus Avery August 8, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Highways, History, Movies, People.2 comments
Deep into a story from Indian Country Today about an Oklahoma film company acquiring the rights to a novel about major-league baseball’s first American Indian player is this:
Mike (Marshall) has been involved in Oklahoma television for more than 20 years as a production manager and field producer. He has produced more than 200 hours of educational programming for broadcast and has co-produced a number of documentary projects. He is currently supervising production on the River Rock productions, “Soldiers of Misfortune: The Sultana Disaster” and “Driving Force: Cyrus Avery and the Creation of Route 66.”
I’d heard from longtime roadie Marian Clark that a film was being made about Cyrus “Father of Route 66″ Avery, but she had few other details. I’m glad the Avery film has been essentially confirmed.
Avery is credited with creating the basic route for U.S. Highway 66 and the federal highway system in 1926, then pushed to form the U.S. Highway 66 Association. Avery is buried in Tulsa, his longtime place of residence.
The company behind the film is River Rock Entertainment, which according to its Web site is based in Enid, Okla. The site hasn’t been updated in a while, however, and has no details about the Avery film. One of the partners of River Rock is Mark Marshall, who was a longtime production assistant for a certain Steven Spielberg.
Music box August 7, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Music.1 comment so far
You can buy your own cigar-box-style resonator guitar, with part of the body made from a Route 66 license plate.
Back Porch Mojo sells it, with prices for cigar-box guitars ranging from $175 to $250, depending on the number of strings. Back Porch specializes in cigar-box guitars, with including parts and kits.
Here’s a demonstration of the Route 66 guitar:
And if you have your own license plate or special cigar box, contact Big Daddy to have him build you one.
Getting a lift from music August 6, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Businesses, Events, Music.2 comments
Among the many people who hitched a “Lift to the Rocker” fundraiser Saturday at the Fanning 66 Outpost near Cuba, Mo., was the bluegrass musical group The Lonesome Hill Gang.
Jane Reed has the details about the group’s little performance on the World’s Largest Rocker:
The family group showed up offering to play, and owners Dan and Carolyn Sanazaro were agreeable. After setting up on the front porch of the rustic Outpost General Store, the bluegrass band entertained and sold CDs. Before the day was over they were lifted to the rocker seat, to where they played for the appreciative crowd. According to Carolyn Sanazaro, ”The crowd really seemed to enjoy them, their bluegrass music fit right in with the store atmosphere.”
A little investigation into the background of the singing family shows that their story is very much in keeping with stories of hard times and inspiration that often followed those who traveled the road.
In an e-mail from the group, mom Paula said, “We started everything on the lonesome hill we had resided on the past six years … We made a lot of memories there, but within the early part of the year we lost our home and property due to a jobless situation, and we no longer could keep our home. But that didn’t stop our singing together. We are making music despite our circumstances. … We are choosing to bloom wherever we are ‘replanted.’”
Paula went on to say, “A good variety of our songs are original compositions. Many come from our experiences and the persevering through trials and making the best of any situation. We are excited and look with great anticipation on the future to see what great things God has in store for us.”
You can find more about the Lonesome Hill Gang here. Their YouTube channel is here.
Notes from the road August 6, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Art, Attractions, Road trips.add a comment
Some stray news items …
- The Tulsa World has a recent update on Emory Duick, the senior citizen who is traveling Route 66 by foot. He’s already worn out two sneakers, and he still has 1,400 miles to go.
- The New Mexico firefighters who were traveling Route 66 by motorcycle to raise funds for families of fallen firefighters reached Santa Monica on Wednesday.
- The Red Fork Centennial Derrick that’s being built on the west side of Tulsa is progressing nicely in its construction. It’s part of a roadside park that’s being built off of Southwest Boulevard, aka Route 66.
- The 19 murals of Pontiac, Ill., helped the Route 66 town nearly dramatically increase its tourism in one year.
- A photo from the recent Walldogs festival in Pontiac made a newspaper supplement in Scotland. Here’s a photo of it, with a mural of a certain highway shield quite prominent:
Tulsa to bid for 2020 Olympics? August 5, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Sports, Towns.2 comments
I’ve been digesting this for the past day since the story was first reported by the Tulsa World. Here’s the gist, in case you missed it:
The Tulsa 2020 Committee on Tuesday presented the City Council with the idea of the city making a bid to host the 2020 summer Olympic games. [...]
Such a campaign would focus on the Tulsa area’s American Indian heritage and the fact that the state has produced numerous Olympians, from Jim Thorpe to Shannon Miller, and many more.
Understandably, many seemed to regard the proposal with disbelief. But the more it’s examined, the more it doesn’t seem so implausible. Even a notorious skeptic such as City Councilor John Eagleton seems optimistic about the idea.
I think the key part being overlooked is that like the Atlanta Games in 1996, it’s almost certain the Summer Olympics wouldn’t occur in just Tulsa. That means the Games would possibly take place also in other cities such as Norman — the latter which has the University of Oklahoma Memorial Stadium that meets the 80,000-seat requirement.
Of course, there are a lot of logistics in hosting a Summer Olympics that would be tough for Tulsa (and Oklahoma) to overcome, and those might be a deal-breaker. But …
The worst-case scenario is that Tulsa loses its bid but benefits from multiple years of campaign publicity to be the host city, he said.
But, if it won, it would realize a multibillion-dollar economic impact.
Another thought: The fact Oklahoma contains more miles of Route 66 — the most famous road in the world — than any state would be a point in an Olympic bid’s favor. In the event the Sooner State actually hosts the games, you would get people from all over the globe who would take a day or two to experience Route 66 for the first time. It’d be an economic boon to the Mother Road in Oklahoma like no other.
A final note: If Chicago — another Mother Road town — wins its bid to host the Summer Games in 2016, the 2020 bid for Tulsa would be kaput. Nations can’t host the Games that close together.
“Great American Road Trip” — Week 5 August 4, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Road trips, Television.1 comment so far
The fifth week of NBC’s reality series “The Great American Road Trip” was fairly unremarkable, except for its producers snubbing Route 66 even more than usual.
The families spent a lot of time in Sedona, Ariz., Slide Rock State Park and the Grand Canyon — all of which aren’t on the Mother Road. The only place the show shot footage where it had a genuine Route 66 connection was in the Grand Canyon Railway yard in Williams, Ariz.
The memory relay game during the End of the Road Challenge in Williams was suspenseful. But the rest of Monday’s show mostly was a snoozer. Even the moment when one of the families was sent home seemed anticlimactic. It seems like the families are tired or bored with the whole thing. I can relate.
I know I’ll catch flak from a few quarters, but the DiSalvatore family is one of the few saving graces of the show. They’re loud, they quarrel a lot, and Silvio often acts like a strutting peacock. But they’re never boring, and sometimes they’re funny. And, somehow, they keep surviving the challenges. I reckon they’re about the only reason people keep watching each week.
The good news for NBC is that “Road Trip” finished second in its time slot Monday, with 4.6 million viewers. The bad news is that the only reason it rose in the ratings is because the other networks were airing a lot of reruns. Its overall share didn’t show much improvement.
The Mill gets $10,000 grant August 4, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Preservation, Restaurants.add a comment
The Mill, a historic former restaurant on Route 66 in Lincoln, Ill., will receive a $10,000 cost-share grant from the National Park Service’s Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program, reported the Bloomington Pantagraph.
“This is really good news for us because it allows us to put a new foundation around the building, which will give it stability,” said Geoff Ladd, Route 66 Heritage Foundation chairman. [...]
Officials are estimating it will take around $100,000 to fully restore The Mill. So far, about $45,000 has been raised.
The Mill dates to 1929, and for a while was a dancing ballroom in addition to being a German-style restaurant. It closed in 1996, and the neglected structure was slated to be demolished by the city in 2006 until Ladd intervened in with a preservation plan.
That reminds me — I haven’t received a full list of Route 66 cost-share grant recipients for 2009. I’ll contact the Preservation Program and pass along that information when I get it.
Family road trip August 3, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Attractions, Road trips.add a comment
Author Malena Lott took another friend and their children on Route 66 from Edmond to Claremore in Oklahoma. Here’s a video about where they stopped:
And here’s Lott’s blog post about her adventures on the Mother Road.