Thank you so much to all the people that have commented on my pictures of the Oklahoma album, they are all very much appreciated! A few months ago I received an email from a gentleman that said he had been trying to find that album for a long time. The following is his Oklahoma story. I found it really touching, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did... I grew up in Germany (split between two cities - West Berlin and Frankfurt) as a military/civilian brat from 55 to 79. Graduated Frankfurt American HS in 74, joined the army in 75 and got stationed right back in the city where I graduated - Frankfurt. During those days - the late 60s, the 70s and some of the 80s there were terroristic groups there (Baader-Meinhof gang, later the Red Army Faction) who took pride in kidnapping/killing prominent Germans and bombing US military installations/planting car bombs. It was to the point where a bunch of us HS brats were playing football between a couple of American housing areas and all of a sudden we heard a loud noise in the distance. We kind of looked at each other and said wonder what they bombed this time..., we didnt even bother with the question What was that noise? That was pre-75. In Dec of 75, after basic combat training (BCT) and advanced individual training (AIT) at Fort Ord, CA, I got stationed right back in Frankfurt in a personnel unit. Then one day, 1 Jun 1976 (dang, almost 1 Jun again), it was around noon time - a buddy and I had the day off and we were going to go downtown Frankfurt to go shopping for things. First though, we had to stop off in what was called the Abrahms Building, the 5th Corps Headquarters building in Frankfurt. We needed to hit the Shoppette (a military convenience store) to buy some supplies. On our way to the Shoppette, we realized we could only write a check for $20 over the amount and that wouldnt be enough for the additional supplies we wanted to buy downtown. So we both did an about face in the hallway and took about 3 or 4 steps when all of a sudden there were sparks flying past us, glass was shattering and we, with the help of our training and the bomb blast, hit the floor. I ended up with singed eyebrows and eyelashes, a cut in my left arm from shrapnel going through my denim jacket, 2nd degree burns on the back of my neck and a hole in my left eardrum. As it turned out, we ended up being about 11 yards away and facing away from the bomb blast instead of walking towards it (in the direction of the Shoppette) and being only 3 or 4 yards away and facing it. As we walked out the back door of the HQ building, there was another explosion in front of us, it was the officers club which was about 200 yards from the HQ bldg. My ears were still ringing from time to time weeks later and to this day, I still am a little jumpy when it comes to sudden loud noises. Ok, enough of the preamble, lol. Anywhooo, after Jun 76 I found a new favorite bar, Old Smugglers, that opened at 8pm and stayed open until around 4am. Im bilingual (English-German) and became friends with the folks there, including the dj (Joachim, who went by Joe). He played some awesome tunes, to include your record, in particular the song One More Round - my buddies and I found that song very appropriate considering our locale at the time :) Today I know for sure that is the name of the song and the name of the band is Oklahoma. I told Joe I really liked that song and one morning (after the bar closed) he invited me to come over to his apartment and he said he would make me a potpourri cassette tape and I said sure. Joe had 4 footlockers of albums at his apartment and 2 footlockers at the bar. So we ended up drinking some beers and going through some supplies. Joe worked the turntables and I did the writing that morning. When the time came to leave Germany to get out of the Army here in the States, I lost the paper with the listing of the songs on that cassette. I thought I remembered One More Round and Oklahoma but I could never get it confirmed. I searched online, I posted online, I searched record shops in West Berlin and Frankfurt on some return visits, I searched shops in the States, nothing... I was able to take the cassette and record it to my computer at a very low quality to ask folks about the song. OKLAHOMA and One More Round has gotten me through life back then and still continues to do so now. My wife is a disabled army veteran, rated 100% by the VA - she got sick about 2 weeks after we got married back in 88 and Ive been her caregiver ever since. She had a brain infection leaving her with severe long & short term memory loss and pretty much daily seizures, luckily only small ones, the big ones are mostly controlled with meds. We can get in the car to go shopping and somewhere along the way she might ask me I forgot, where are we going again? Like I said, your song has had a big part in getting me through life. I listen to it just about every day. I even have it loaded on my Garmin (gps unit) which can play mp3s The only other mp3 on my Garmin is Abbott & Costellos Whos on first? That way, whenever Im sitting somewhere, e.g. waiting on doc to appear in our room, I can listen to it :) So there you are Ben, while this might not be your normal Oklahoma story, this is my Oklahoma story. Please feel free to share it with your band to let them know that yall had a HUGE positive and uplifting influence on my life.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 19:11:59 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015