Sunday spottings (stir crazy)

It was a nice day to stay inside and take a nap, but having been here and done that, I decided I'd just as soon venture out, and it's not like it was a particularly arduous task to do so.

Near NW 5th and Walker, an ancient motel, once a TraveLodge (which I, for some reason, have always read as "TREYV lodge," as though it might not be kosher or something), has been gutted and is being restored. It's about time; there ought to be some lodging around downtown that doesn't cost a hundred bucks a night.

A church on Meridian mentions SQ 711 on its marquee and trots out that well-worn business about Adam and Steve; while Googling about for an original quotation, I turned up an actual gay dating service called Adam and Steve. This particular A&S is located in Los Angeles, a place where off-center business names have long flourished; I remember a specialized sports shop there called The Merchant of Tennis. But we don't do so badly here in Soonerland: one of my current favorites, nomenclaturally speaking, is local florist Floral and Hardy.

The little westside Mexican restaurant called Zacatecas has been replaced by a little westside Mexican restaurant called Red Onion, whose owners are very likely unaware of a highly-dissimilar establishment with the same name that existed here in the 90s. The 1890s, that is; the Red Onion of the Oklahoma Territory days was a notorious "disorderly house," if you will, that was a primary target for the admininstration of Mayor Charles G. "Gristmill" Jones, who took office in 1896 pledging to clean up this wild and woolly town. (Among other things, Jones, who really did own a mill, was the president of the Oklahoma Territorial Fair Association, predecessor to the present-day Oklahoma State Fair; the city of Jones, northeast of town, is named for him.)

About a mile south of the Red Onion — the new one — is a night-spot called the Dirty Hoe. It sports a, um, gardening motif.

Posted at 6:04 PM to City Scene