I’ve been a happy boy lately. The reason?  Vidalia onions are here.  Vidalia onions are a sweet variety grown only in 13 Georgia counties and portions of 7 others and they are that state’s official state vegetable.  We didn’t get as many this year as last because they had too much rain in Georgia and growers had some problems.  A friend ask me the other day, how do you welcome Vidalias to Oklahoma?  Easy answer you bonehead,…you eat em!   The season is short so you savor every bite.  After they are gone, we then look forward to the home grown tomato season. Home grown tomatoes are guaranteed to cure what ails you, unlike those red lumps raised on some giant farm in another country  picked early and ripened in the hold of a container ship just in time to add color to your salad.  They are way too bland.  Home grown tomatoes make you want to sit under a shade tree with a glass of ice tea and enjoy each bite slowly,… while you remember days gone by.  And just like Vidalia onions, the best way to welcome home grown tomatoes is to eat em.  Some folks know the lost art of canning so they are able to put them on the shelf and enjoy a real taste of summer, long after the garden has been plowed under and the winter wind is banging on your door.  Then begins the wait for next year’s crop.

Speaking of crop, I heard the other day that Oklahoma City will see a fresh crop, of sort, this month.  And some folks over there are just giddy with excitement.  It seems a number of Republican presidential hopefuls will visit that town for the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.  Not really sure why they’re coming since Oklahoma is, after all, a very red state and they will just be preaching to the choir.  But I’m told they’ll all be talking about the big three,… military power, religious liberty and energy independence.  Their support is a given.  Because the shrinking number of voters here support  the Republican agenda, there won’t be any Democrats on hand.  They’ll be doing their dance in the blue states so they’ll just fly right over.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how Oklahoma should welcome the crowd that is coming and what should be done to make them feel welcome.  Maybe we could ask them to make a few remarks about guns and immigrants.  That should make them feel right at home.  How about we offer them grits and chicken fried steak for breakfast?   Maybe Bar-B-Q for lunch,… ribs or brisket.  No bologna.  It might be insulting if you give them what they give you.  Or here’s an idea,… maybe when the Governor takes the stage, she does the same thing that Sara Ophelia Colley Cannon did for over 50 years.  First Sarah would walk out wearing a hat with a price tag on it that said $1.98.  She always wore styleless ‘down home’ dresses on stage and claimed to be from Grinder’s Switch, Tennessee.  She always opened with a holler,… “How – Dee.  I’m just so proud to be here.”  Her routine always ended with, “I love you so much it hurts.”

Of course we knew her as Cousin Minnie Pearl and folks who really knew her also knew that she was a college grad, an author and a major supporter of women’s rights.  But the Gov could just use the image and the ‘holler’.  That would make the candidates feel right at home and they could practice their speeches then head for ‘Grits and Gravy’.  Welcome to your home away from home.  Wouldn’t have to talk about anything like the economy, jobs, vaccinations for children, health care, the homeless, the hungry, veterans, bad roads, dangerous bridges, terrorism or the growing gap between the haves and the have nots.  No sir!  and when they leave, the Governor could give them all Oklahoma baseball caps.  Now if that’s not a clear sign of welcome, I don’t know what is.

The only thing they would have to change at their next choir preaching event would be their baseball caps, which some would decide to wear stylishly backward in an effort to court the youth vote.  Yes sir, its gonna be interesting to see which of the latest crop, Republican or Democrat ends up in the oval office after this long season of harvesting your vote.  Either way, there’s a better than average chance when the season finally ends and that person is crowned, we’ll hear, “I love you so much it hurts.”  The only thing left to worry about is how we’re going to pay for the next Presidential Museum,… in Grinder’s Switch.

I’m Sam Jones and that’s my perspective.