So Olive Garden opens its doors at 4 p.m. Monday and, with decades of anticipation ready to burst forth, everyone is forecasting 1 1/2 to 2 hours waits the first, dinner-only week. It reminds one of the old Yogi Berra line "My favorite restaurant closed. It got so crowded nobody went there anymore." Obviously that won't be the fate of Olive Garden, but one has to wonder about Lawton's other three Italian restaurants: Giovanni's, Luigi's and Bella Mia

(I'm not counting Bianco's. As we've already established Bianco's hardly qualifies as a restaurant, much less an Italian restaurant. Regardless, Bianco's will undoubtedly survive Olive Garden and the impending 2nd Avenue wrecking ball. Some things are just too bad to go away.)

To be honest, I'm surprised Luigi's has survived as long as it has. I've never been in there when I would say it is "crowded." But it is arguably the best in the bunch. I would give Giovanni's second place and Luigi's a close third. Luigi's is good, but the food there is extremely rich.

With Olive Garden opening we will have a critical mass of Italian restaurants in the Sheridan and Cache area. Pizza Hut Bistro -- which is Pizza Hut with a couple of dollars added to the menu -- is next door. Giovanni's is across the street and Luigi's is down Sheridan. That should actually help those involved, which could ultimately hurt Bella Mia. Here's hoping they all ...

Well, mercy me, sorry it’s been so long but I had no idea that I was going to have so much company before Christmas!

In case you’ve been living in a hole (pun intended) and didn’t know, there is a lights display in Elmer Thomas Park. It’s called Holiday in the Park, and I suppose it is for some, but for those of us that live out here, it’s quite a distraction.

Now I’m all for getting into the holiday spirit, but I think this is one Hallmark card that needs to go back to the drawing board.

To begin, where do you enter this thing? The City of Lawton starts blocking off parts of Ferris Avenue and Cache Road between Second Street and Fort Sill Boulevard at four o’clock each day. In addition to regular traffic detours, and those driving around trying to figure out the entrance to Holiday in the Park, those going to evening functions at the Museum of the Great Plains and McMahon Auditorium are really screwed. I mean we’re talking about a group that is largely senior citizens driving battleships in the dark trying to find the one entrance to park at these facilities (It’s that road that runs along the East side of the Lawton High track off of Ferris, by the way.) When the event is over, they can only exit onto Cache Road and then only turn right. This requires getting onto Second Street and then deciding w ...

You'd have to be blind not to notice all the building going on in Lawton. After years of pre-BRAC indecision, the cork is finally out of the construction bottle. Starbucks is on the verge of opening on Sheridan, and while Olive Garden looks ready to open its doors any minute, word is that they will not open until the first of 08. Red River Federal Credit Union is moving in from Altus with a location by the westside Wal-Mart.

Atlanta Bread Company will be undergoing a redesign. Believe it or not, ABC will be going upscale and will relaunch as Zaria, a chain run by the management of Atlanta Bread.

News flash. Yesterday was windy. Those of you with hair in your eyes probably know that. In fact the highest wind gust caught at the airport was 50 mph.  When it's that windy the air blows up your nose like water when you dive feet first. Today, however, I could hardly walk in my yard without crushing a plump pecan. The wet weather this year gave birth to greatest bumper crop of sweet pecans I have ever seen. It is amazing what the wind turns up. On Cache Road that orange netting used to seal off a construction site was flapping across the street. Many of you have assorted grocery bags and advertising circulars in your bushes. And leaves from trees that don't grow for blocks from your house. In our state, wind is the great equalizer. There is no sense in raking because soon your leaves will be everyone else's. And just because you have no tress doesn't mean you don't own a rake.

BTW: Rumor has it that the early forecast for Thanksgiving shows a tossup between frigid rain and sleet. Get ready for winter!

But, we were kids once. We didn't have much when we were growing up and some years we couldn't afford a costume, so Mom would tell us "Don't look so cute and go as a gopher!" I did have a scary costume one year. Went as a hawk. Plumb terrified the neighbors. "Knock, knock, squuuuaaak!" You should have seen them squeak and run.

But if your cubs do go shake down the neighbors (according to iVillage, www.ivillage.com, 44% of parents surveyed will allow their kids to trick-or-treat their neighborhoods), here are a few tips to keep it fun and safe.

• Remember that cute muffin Mayor Purcell has decreed that the official hours
  to grab it and bag it are 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Halloween Night. 
• Another tunnel to take is to throw a Halloween party at home. 
• Instead of just cavity-making candy, you may want to have the
  kids scavenge for other prizes, say ...

Raise your hand if you've had your house or car burgled. That's what I thought. Most of us. And that fact is why the shooting death of teen burglar Freddie Stuever resonates so deeply among Lawtonians. At first glance the shooting seemed like it might tread the boundary of an actionable offense. That was only at first glance.

When Jeff Dorrell confronted a burglar carrying out a gun case from Dorrell's parent's home on NW 70th, what happened next was the culmination of too many burglaries, often fueled by the burglar's obsession with meth. Stuever forced his way past Dorrell out of the house but was ultimately forced to the ground by Dorrell's .45. There he waited somewhat patiently before making his move. Dorrell said Stuever rushed him. Dorrell, perhaps fearing Stuever was trying to take Dorrell's gun, an attempt that could stir memories of Ricky Ray Malone's murder of Trooper Nik Green. Stuever was shot five times, then made a final fatal charge and was shot once in the chest. In the aftermath Dorrell can be heard almost hyperventilating on the 911 tape. According to DA Robert Schulte, Dorrell's story checks out. The gun blast to the chest is proof the Stuever was running toward Dorrell and not away. Oklahoma's "Stand Your Ground" law merely codifies what every Oklahoman knows. If you break into a house, you take your chances, and though most feel some ambiguous emotions (The death of a teen is sad -- But he had it coming) in ...

When you were watching the report about the Christmas House in our fair Elmer Thomas Park being torched, you also heard the confession. We were clearly barking out our manifesto in the background. Don't tread on me, or drive on me while you meander through the park looking at Christmas lights. Prairie dogs unite. All you do-gooders say you will rebuild the Christmas House and then post cameras to keep us from doing to again. Catch us if you can! Does the Oklahoma Criminal Code apply to prairie dogs?

If football is a sport of quick hits and flashy uniforms, baseball is the sport of slow shifts and tradition. What other sport features so many teams who still wear uniforms from the early 20th century, and they're not throwbacks? Part of the tradition is also in the voices that call the games. For most Oklahomans, that meant Jack Buck and the Cardinals on KMOX at night and to a lesser degree Eric Nadel and the Texas Rangers. For me, though, it's been Skip Caray and the Braves on TBS. Sunday afternoon, all that comes to an end. TBS, once the network of brash boat captain and soon-to-be-Jane-Fonda-ex-husband Ted Turner, is now the property of Time-Warner-AOL-whatever with no room for tradition or Skip. It is fitting that the last broadcast will be a meaningless game with the Braves out of contention, even as they were for most of my youth in the '80s. Then it was Dale Murphy, now it is Chipper Jones. Then it was Claudell Washington, now it is Andruw Jones. Then it was Skip and Pete, now it is, well, Skip and Chip. So much for tradition. The baseball gods must be weeping.

We've been hearing and reading a lot about merit pay for teachers in Oklahoma. Sounds like a good idea, but isn't it a little ironic that in a self-determination, bootstraps state like Oklahoma, we want to blame teachers instead of parents for poor school performance? Who wants to bet that teachers in schools from hardscrabble areas will be feeling the wrath of performance evaluations, while teachers in high-income districts will be pulling down handsome merit-paychecks? I have an idea. What about merit pay for parents? A thousand dollars for each 'A' at the end of the year and an extra grand for scoring above average on standardized tests? What do you want to bet we'd see a bunch of crackhead (and methhead) parents making their kids crack the books instead of their gangsta breathren's heads?