Just What Is An "Oskee Wow-Wow"?

The question of the day: Just what is an Oskee Wow-Wow?

When I first got my job in De Leon, TX I was told that the high school there had the worst school song in the state of Texas. Later, I found this was on the Internet also. It seems that I found it in some article in Texas Monthly around that time period. But alas, I can no longer find any reference to this statement. At the time I moved to De Leon I was told that a local resident wrote the words to the song a long time ago. I didn't know at the time that there was another version of the song.

Yesterday I was doing a Google search. I forget what I was searching for now because I saw something that made me think of Oskee Wow-Wow" and I started searching for that. This search yielded some interesting information. For instance, I learned that "Oskee Wow-Wow" was written in 1911 by 2 Illinois students. I also learned that "Oskee Wow-Wow" is the fight song the University of Illinois. And to think, all this time I thought someone from De Leon wrote it some 80-90 years ago. Well, you learn something new every day.

I also found, like many other things, there can be a variation upon a theme. For instance, at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine there has been a fund raiser called "Oskee Bow-Wow". It was billed as a "Party for people who love pets." It also seems that the mascot at the University of California-Berkley Golden Bears is named Oski. The mascot was so named for the popularity of the "Oski Wow-Wow" yell at the Cal games some 60+ years ago. The Hamilton Tiger Cats have a chant called "Oskee Wee-Wee."For more information on the "Oski" yell please visit Wikipedia.I still don't know what an "Oskee Wow-Wow" is?

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Meet Some of My Old Friends

I am trying a new image hosting service so this particular blog is intended to test this service. That being said, I was wading through some pictures last night. I came across some old friends that I dearly miss. The pictures were taken in 2003 and 2004. I hope you enjoy them. i know they brought back many pleasant memories for me.

These are the Easter ducks we got in 2003 when we lived in De Leon. We went to the Tractor Supply in Stephenville and picked them out. Then we went to Wal-Mart and bought a pool for them. The yellow duckling was Ferdy, the brown duckling was Ducky. I can't remember the black ducklings name.

This another shot from a low angle that shows the world from their vantage point.

This is Molly, the Black Lab. She loved the water, anywhere and anytime she was in it. As you can see she chased the ducks out so she could be in. That is Ferdy and Ducky in the corner. As Ferdy grew up her yellow down gave way to beautiful white feathers.

Molly and Ferdy came to be great friends. Molly would follow Ferdy around the yard. Ferdy was always vocal whenever Molly got in the way.

In the late winter or early spring of 2004 it snowed. By this time Ferdy was the only duck left. I remember that I had to go out and break the ice in Ferdy's pool so she could get in and sit in the water awhile. She was quite hard to keep up with whenever it snowed. She tended to blend in and hide with ease.

It seemed that creatures from the back pasture dispatched the other ducks. Ferdy was a die hard though, she weathered many scrapes. Unfortunately, Molly was up in years and both passed away within a year and a half of moving back to Waco.

I miss them both and still ponder the possibility of getting a new Black Lab and more ducks in the future. But that will have to wait until we get a fence. After all, we don't want a repeat of what happened to the others.

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More Texas Flag Fun

I was going through some old pictures the other day. I came across some pictures I took in De Leon, TX in 2003. At that time we lived in De Leon and I worked for the school district. The district served as the fiscal agent for the Special Services Co-op that oversaw all special education functions for Deleon, Comanche, Gustine, and Rising Star ISD's. The main office for the co-op was in a storefront in downtown De Leon.

De Leon is a small town and the downtown merchants were always decorating their store front windows for various holidays and other local happenings. I was driving through town around the 4th of July and I noticed something a little off (no offense meant) at the Special Services Co-op.

Now, for those of you who do not know what "Special Services" are in the education world, we are talking about the services for students that meet Federal guidelines for additional educational services due to physical or educational needs.

So any way, I'm driving through town and this is what I see:

How about a closeup.

That's right. The Texas flag was painted upside down, on the Special Services office window. these are the people that we entrusted our children to. Notice though that the star is painted correctly. Only the red and white colors are switched.

In all fairness to the co-op, they did not do the painting. They hired the job out. But it was amazing that no one noticed it and got it corrected.

© 2008 Barry T Horst This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Please visit the Giveaway of the Day at the bottom of the page for free software downloads daily.