State Bird Day honors scissor-tailed flycatcher
Scissor-tailed flycatcher perching on fence - PHOTO BY PAUL HELLSTERN, THE OKLAHOMAN ARCHIVES
You probably missed it. I know I did.
Saturday, May 1, was State Bird Day. So designated by House Joint Resolution 21, adopted on May 26, 1951.
This was the legislation that made the scissor-tailed flycatcher Oklahoma’s state bird.
According to A. Marguerite Baumgartner, The Oklahoman’s long-time bird columnist, a popular vote selected the quail as the state’s official bird, but that choice was never officially proclaimed.
In the late 1940′s, garden clubs across the state and the Tulsa Audubon Society began the push for the scissortail as official bird, and their efforts were successful in 1951.
An explanation of why we missed State Bird Day may be found at the end of the resolution after all the “whereas” listings of the attributes of the scissortail.
“SECTION 2. “Bird Day” — May 1st. May 1st of each year is hereby established as “Bird Day” in Oklahoma, to be commemorated in such manner as the Societies for the Preservation of Wildlife may prescribe, from time to time.”
A search of The Oklahoman’s Archives found 21 mentions of State Bird Day from April 1951 to May 1972. Most of these are articles retelling how the scissortail became the state bird and that May 1 was to be State Bird Day. A few organizations sponsored displays, but not much happened with Bird Day.
The scissor-tailed flycatcher is arriving for the summer, so even if we missed Bird Day, we can enjoy our beautiful state bird and celebrate the 60th anniversary of it’s officialdom on May 26.
A bicycle built for two
But you’ll look sweet But you’ll look sweet
Upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.
Times change and our modes of transportation change with them.
The tandem bicycle or bicycle built for two was invented in late 19th century England and there is a report in The Oklahoman that possibly three bicycles, and one of those a tandem, participated in the Land Run of 1889.
Here is an article about a theft published November 28, 1938, that brought back memories of an earlier time to the responding police officers.
“Shades of the gay nineties descended upon the police department Sunday afternoon.”
“Got a stolen bicycle at the White House cafe, 1945 Northeast Twenty-third street,” Joe Jerkins, station captain, told (Clyde) Anderson (station officer).
Anderson took off and when he returned it was with “a bicycle built for two–a tandem. And the back seat was almost a large as a rocking chair seat, so the girl friend could ride sideways.”
“Twirling his moustache and yearning for the return of the mustache cup, Jack Barnett, scout car lieutenant, took one look at the machine and remembered how he had clipped a neat corner on one of the things in the dear, dead days. He could go whizzing by the Overholser Opera house on North Robinson avenue, do a fancy left turn, and coast to South Broadway.”
Try that today with downtown’s streets under various stages of repairs and you could probably wind up in a hole or run into a backhoe.
Jack Barnett continued telling about the first car he ever saw was one he ran into on his bicycle. He recalled, “It was a doctor’s car, and when he lifted me into that strange animal I quit hurting right away.”
“Many a boy and man hopped off their tandems to enlist for the Spanish-American war,” Barnett remembered. “And the fellow who had a shiny tandem could really give the girls the eye!”
Back to the crime, it was determined a teen-age boy had left the bicycle behind the cafe and escaped on foot. There was no indication he was ever apprehended, but it sure brought a nostalgic air to the police station back in 1938.
