Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
I admire creative people. I love the arts, be it painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, music, jewelry design or any other form that creates something cool. I have met and befriended many creative people including lots of car guys since I moved to Oklahoma, and Sapulpa has their fair share of people I consider to be cool. I enjoy writing stories and felt a loss when I moved from California and had to give up writing weekly stories for the Dixon newspaper. I sought out the opportunity to continue that activity in my new hometown and was blessed to meet Micah, a cool guy who runs the Sapulpa Times. And the best part was finding out he is a close neighbor. He is now a great friend as well. Micah gave me the opportunity to write a couple of feature stories about some fascinating creative people that live in or visit Sapulpa.
Being known as the self-proclaimed Studebaker Dude, when Joe Krout brought home a 42 Studebaker, I was notified. It was around about the time his “mortuary” made news with that whole Google fiasco. Micah introduced me to Joe, and I got the opportunity to meet him and write a little feature story. Micah gave me a professional reporter’s notebook that is now one of my favorite items, right up there with the Press Pass I got for writing for the Studebaker club. It makes me feel like Clark Kent. Joe is now a friend, and I like being friends with cool people.
I later heard about an interesting-looking spaceship car, with a Studebaker bullet nose, that was parked downtown. I hopped in my Stude truck and found it on Dewey. I met Chris Wollard, and he told me the whole story about how, when, and why it was created. Another great story for the Sapulpa Times and another creative friend on Facebook. My favorite part of that story was when he told me that he has driven it to Roswell NM. It doesn’t get any cooler than that in my book.
Last week, we took our grown-up grandchildren to Hominy to shop for souvenirs at Cha’ Tullis Gallery. I talked to Cha’ a bit and he let me know business has been good since they started running commercials for his Gallery on TV. That made sense to me, as that’s why I was there. I’ve been wanting to check it out since I first saw his commercial. We figured it would be a great place for the grandkids to get some cool Oklahoma souvenirs; and it was. I figured it would not be hard to find as we had driven through Hominy before and knew it to be a small town. That is, unless you trust google maps to give you directions. They sent us the wrong way down Main Street and we ended up on a road that is only suitable for 4-wheel-drive. We were in our Subaru, and it handled fine, but I figured it was leading us astray. So, I turned around and drove straight to the gallery using my own common sense.
The gallery is chock full of cool Native American artwork, some of it created by him, and others created by artists from other tribes. We got what we were looking for and more, as talking to Cha’ was itself a fun experience. After he rang us up and bagged our treasures, he asked me if we were considering having lunch in Hominy. He told me about two good eateries, one being a short walk down the block. He said the food was good, but he took it a step further, telling me their onion rings were “to die for.” He warned me not to get more than one order as the plate was most likely plenty for the 4 of us. He added a comment ”that if I had any left over, I could bring it to him.” We took his advice and had a delicious lunch, as he proclaimed.
We had some extra onion rings and I had them placed in a to-go box. I walked it back to his gallery and handed it to him. He laughed and said he was just kidding. But I knew that and wanted to take them to him anyway. He laughed and happily accepted the leftovers. As I exited his establishment, he called out to me, that “I was his new best friend, and we should go get matching tattoos!” Not only is he a gifted artist, but he’s a funny guy too. My new best friend indeed. You should check it out for yourself. Tell him “His new best friend sent you.”
