Magic as a tornado precaution? Tiny Wakita, Ok was blown away in the 1996 Blockbuster Twister but a spell by an Old Cherokee has kept the place tornado free since 1893. withinpodcast.com A special thanks to storm chaser and Oklahoma's best DJ, Cliff Casteel! Our sponsors:&nbsp;  The Right Direction by Shane Ivers  &nbsp; Contact Us! Facebook: @withintherealm1 Twitter: @realm_within Instagram within_the_realm  Want to advertise, sponsor or otherwise support Within The Realm? Visit with us at  or

Wakita: A No Twister Zone

They say the universe is ever expanding, but the cultural center of the universe is conveniently located closer than you might think. withinpodcast.com Support our show at  &nbsp; Our sponsors:&nbsp;  Music: The Right Direction by Shane Ivers  Check out Martin Mountain Coffee's signature Within The Realm Blend "Story Teller's Roast!" Contact Us! Facebook:  Twitter:  Instagram: within_the_realm  Want to advertise, sponsor or otherwise support Within The Realm? Visit with us at  or &nbsp; The Center of the Universe &nbsp; Welcome to the 101st episode of Within The Realm, I’m your host Steve Garrett. It’s a big proposition to get started on the next 100 stories from Within The Realm. Some may wonder, how does a fella have so many tales tucked away in his mind. Folks that know me well, know that I have a million of ‘em and they wish I would hush, at least for a little bit. Well, the good news is that today is not a day I feel inclined to hush, so we’ll move forward with our story for today after we hear from the good folks that help me bring you our show. After that I have a story about the center of the universe, it’s closer than you might think. (music/Commercials/stinger) Thanks for inviting me back to your podcast listening device. Be sure to check out the show notes in the info on this episode for news about the show &amp; how to contact us. We would love to hear from you. This episode might reveal my roundabout way of dealing with a story. I can’t seem to follow a straight line from one end of a story to the next, but hopefully that makes them interesting. I tell stories that come from the place where the Great Plains, the Ozark Mountains and the Indian Territory collide. A lot of people refer to it as “Fly Over Country” and for a lot of folks they do exactly that, Fly over it on their way to more supposedly interesting places. One thing those people don’t know is the Center of the Universe lies beneath them as they jet from coast to coast. The Center of the Universe is in Tulsa, just off 1st and Boston. At this location there is a small circle of concrete in a wide spot on a walking path where a person can stand &amp; hear their conversational tone echoed back to them, but then step off of that circle no echo is produced. Folks come from near &amp; far to hear for themselves &amp; leave satisfied they have experienced something weird. There are those that try to explain away the phenomenon, saying it has something to do with the curved concrete seating on either side of the spot constructed several years ago that produces the echo. They can try to explain it with Science, but those that reside Within The Realm know it’s a mystery of the ever expanding variety. But the first to point out Oklahoma’s centralness to the Cosmos was the great Oklahoma folksinger, songwriter, actor &amp; quantum philosopher Hoyt Axton. You may remember him as the Dad in Gremlins or from his song Della &amp; the Dealer from the 70s. You DO remember him as the songwriter that gave us Never Been To Spain, The Pusher &amp; the one about the Bullfrog named Jeremiah, Joy To The World. Hoyt was often quoted as saying Oklahoma was the cultural center of the universe. Now that always got a laugh from the folks on either coast, thinking about this place as devoid of anything good. After all the bright lights are in New York and LA. On this one, I’m a disciple of the Bard from Duncan, if we push the boundaries out to incorporate all of that place I call Within The Realm, I think I can make a pretty strong argument that Fly Over Country is, in fact, the cultural center of the universe. This part of the world has been settled for some time, but really didn’t fill up til late in the game. It was very much a part of that frontier that Fredrick Jackson Turner based his thesis on, the one Professor Greg Jackson reminded us in the last episode went something like “the frontier made America or the Frontier was the most American thing...

The Center Of The Universe

Yield: The Little Sign That Could The familiar downward pointing triangle that allows traffic to keep flowing rather than stopping sprang from the mind of a Tulsa cop. No one gave his sign much respect, but he set out to prove them all wrong. withinpodcast.com Our sponsors:&nbsp;  Music: The Right Direction by Shane Ivers  Check out Martin Mountain Coffee's signature Within The Realm Blend "Story Teller's Roast!" Contact Us! Facebook:  Twitter:  Instagram: within_the_realm  Want to advertise, sponsor or otherwise support Within The Realm? Visit with us at  or &nbsp; Yield: The Little Sign That Could Welcome to Within The Realm, I’m your host Steve Garrett. Thanks for joining me here on the show where the Indian Territory, the Ozark Mountains and the Great Plains collide. Because of the great amount of diversity, culturally, geographically and in experience that’s found here, anything is Within The Realm of possibility. Some times the things in the world around us have become so common place, so much a part of how we do things, we’re not sure where they came from or even anything about their beginnings. Today’s episode is about such a thing, something that makes it a little safer for you to get from place to place. After these words about our sponsors, we’ll get into Oklahoma’s contribution to traffic control signs. (music/Commercials) It’s good to have you back for another installment of Within The Realm. It’s my goal to take the next few minutes to entertain you and maybe lay a little knowledge on you that you didn’t already know. Today’s subject is traffic signs, one in particular actually. It’s the Red and White triangle with the word Yield written across it. It the thing that makes a traffic circle work, not bringing us to a stop, necessarily, but providing drivers with the instruction to watch it in association with other cars on the road. It might be hard for a motorist in the third decade of the twenty-first century to think of a time with out the uniform traffic signs we have now, but everything has a beginning. It was 1939 and Oklahoma Highway Patrolman Clinton Riggs was participating in a fellowship at Northwestern Traffic Institute in Chicago. One topic of discussion was the problem of motorists rolling through uncontrolled intersections, causing accidents and injuries. The discussion became a class assignment on how best to address the problem. In the next several days, Patrolman Riggs presented his idea for a sign, there was already the stop sign that stopped traffic all together. No, Riggs’s idea was for signage that would allow traffic to continue to flow until one motorist needed to give the right-of-way to another vehicle. The sign he suggested was a keystone shaped sign with a solitary word on it – Yield. It was generally panned by the class as hard to understand and somewhat unnecessary as laws, laws misunderstood and ignored by motorists, were already on the books to determine fault in accidents where drivers did not yeild. The fellowship ended and Riggs rejoined the Tulsa Police Department, served in the Second World War and returned home in one piece. A lot had happened since his suggestion of the Yeild sign, but he not forgotten it. He was still very much convinced of it’s usefulness. . His Chicago detractors had convinced his to change the sign’s wording to “SLOW Yield Right Of Way.” It wasn’t only his class mates that thought little of his traffic control sign. The Tulsa City attorney dismissed it and the National Safety Council, to whom Riggs had sent a drawing of his sign, ignored it. By 1950, Riggs had worked his way up to an assistant chief position with the Tulsa Police Department. He noted that the intersection of First Street and Columbia Avenue , an unmarked intersection, was the most dangerous crossraods in Tulsa. Without any official permission, he and city engineer Paul Rice erected the first Yeild Right of Way Sign. The sign had retained it’s...

Yield: The Little Sign That Could

When I was a kid, my mother, on&nbsp; Nashville trip, picked out a guitar for me to replace a cheap, old model I had trashed. She was helped by a gentleman that, she learned later, turned out to be a guitar legend.withinpodcast.com Our sponsors:&nbsp;  Music: The Right Direction by Shane Ivers  Check out Martin Mountain Coffee's signature Within The Realm Blend "Story Teller's Roast!" Contact Us! Facebook:  Twitter:  Instagram: within_the_realm  Want to advertise, sponsor or otherwise support Within The Realm? Visit with us at  or &nbsp;

A Brush With Fame, Once Removed

You might be surprised to hear some of the details about the advent of the shopping cart, but even as casual as our relationship with the basket on wheels is, it has had a profound affect on retail shopping. As omni-present these devices are, they may have never got off the ground if not for some quick thinking by a supermarket owner in Oklahoma City! Our sponsors:&nbsp;   Music: The Right Direction by Shane Ivers  Check out Martin Mountain Coffee's signature Within The Realm Blend "Story Teller's Roast!" Contact Us! Facebook:  Twitter:  Instagram: within_the_realm  WTR intro: Sweat Shirt (S. Garrett) WTR outro: Baby Boy (S. Garrett) Incidental music: The Ghost of Shepard's Pie by Geoffrey Burch Want to advertise, sponsor or otherwise support Within The Realm? Visit with us at&nbsp; or &nbsp;

A New Way To Shop: The Shopping Cart

It was an assignment, to write a biography of my Grandfather, to help me maintain my hours at school, but it ended up giving me a great education about his life, what made him and his character and what it meant for me.&nbsp; I heard stories no one had ever thought asking about, stories that would have been lost forever if not for the off handed assignment. Are you ready for your assignment?  &nbsp; Our sponsors:&nbsp;   Music: The Right Direction by Shane Ivers  Check out Martin Mountain Coffee's signature Within The Realm Blend "Story Teller's Roast!" Contact Us! Facebook:  Twitter:  Instagram: within_the_realm  WTR intro: Sweat Shirt (S. Garrett) WTR outro: Baby Boy (S. Garrett) Want to advertise, sponsor or otherwise support Within The Realm? Visit with us at  or &nbsp;

An Assignment

Over the course of the fall and winter of 2020-21 two statues were stolen, one from a park in Kansas City and the other from the lawn of the Tulsa Historical Society. Besides being made of bronze, the other distinguishing similarity these two statues had in common was their subject matter. Both were of Osage women. The theft of the statues brings to mind the murders of Osage women one hundred years ago for oil rights, a chapter retold in Killers Of The Flower Moon, but there is more to that story. It is not from a long time ago, but current involving Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. We speak with Cherokee author Faith Phillips about the issue of MMIW and a project she is undertaking to do something about it. More on Faith Phillps here:  Our sponsors:&nbsp;   Music: The Right Direction by Shane Ivers  Check out Martin Mountain Coffee's signature Within The Realm Blend "Story Teller's Roast!" Contact Us! Facebook:  Twitter:  Instagram: within_the_realm  WTR intro: Sweat Shirt (S. Garrett) WTR outro: Baby Boy (S. Garrett) Want to advertise, sponsor or otherwise support Within The Realm? Visit with us at  or &nbsp;

More Than Missing Statues: A Talk About Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women

A talk about self made men and proper credit, something due to the people who actually made these rugged individuals and, really, all of us. withinpodcast.com Link to referenced episodes:  The photography of Dani Wilson, Reason To Smile:  Our sponsors:&nbsp;   Music: The Right Direction by Shane Ivers  Check out Martin Mountain Coffee's signature Within The Realm Blend "Story Teller's Roast!" Contact Us! Facebook:  Twitter:  Instagram: within_the_realm  WTR intro: Sweat Shirt (S. Garrett) WTR outro: Baby Boy (S. Garrett) Want to advertise, sponsor or otherwise support Within The Realm? Visit with us at  or &nbsp;

Self Made Men and Proper Credit

A soldier’s story. The box held a medal, a government form and a letter. It was the letter, a quick note home from a GI to his family, that drove Matt Carlson to find the rightful owners of the little package he had purchased at the flea market. So many things fell into place, as if it were meant to be, for Matt’s displaced items to find their way home and provide a renewed meaning for them.

Always Your Loving Son

A serious technical glitch has not only prevented me from getting epsiodes out in the past couple of weeks, but has also lost most of my work over the past few months to the digital ether-world! The first thing I thought of when I digested the news? Less than comforting words from an old Mark Twain novel. &nbsp; SUPPORT INDEPENDENT ARTIST! Check out all we have to offer at&nbsp;! Want to advertise, sponsor or otherwise support Within The Realm? Visit with us at&nbsp;&nbsp;or&nbsp;&nbsp; Our wonderful sponsors!:   Music: The Right Direction by Shane Ivers Katchakid has a 100% safety rating and have maintained that for over 50 years. That's a lot of safety and plenty of peace of mind when it comes to your pool and your family.  Check out Martin Mountain Coffee's signature Within The Realm Blend "Story Teller's Roast!" It's an artisan cup of coffee. Contact Us! Facebook:&nbsp; Instagram: within_the_realm  Within The Realm&nbsp;is a fiercly&nbsp;Independent podcast&nbsp;written and produced by Steve Garrett for the enjoyment of the curious soul. WTR intro: Sweat Shirt (S. Garrett) WTR outro: Baby Boy (S. Garrett) Available for speaking engagements! Check out the website for details. withinpodcast.com Want to advertise, sponsor or otherwise support Within The Realm? Visit with us at&nbsp;&nbsp;or&nbsp;&nbsp;

Watch That Basket!

There's a story behind everything and it's all within the realm. Check us out on Facebook @withintherealm1 Twitter @realm_within or withinpodcast.com. Find archived episodes at withinpodcast.com!

Within The Realm with Steve Garrett