Neatsfoot Oil

OK, why is it so hard to find Neatsfoot Oil in Norman, Oklahoma ? I guess you should believe that if Walmart and Target do not have it, you don't need it. Why, it must be un-American to want to actually spend hard-earned (fiat) currency on something other than the 14,743 items in Walmart...

Michael's doesn't have it either - no surprise there - I bet Tandy Leather does, but I didn't want to drive up to the city. I thought, surely Athletic Village would have some. I walked into their brand new store and saw fifty different baseball gloves, but no oil to be had. The twenty-something guy behind the counter looked at me funny and said, "duh, what's that?". At least his early fifties manager knew what it was, if he didn't bother to stock it.

I did finally find some, $8 for all of 4 oz., from the shoe repair place on Main. That business is not long for this world, so I bought everything he had. Who knows how long it is going to be before I can get restocked.

And in case you (and apparently everyone else in Norman) do not know what it is, Neatsfoot oil is an animal-derived oil - no petroleum products - that is ideal for conditioning leather - hence the baseball gloves - and essential in the final steps of tanning a hide, which happens to be the reason I was needing some.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neatsfoot_oil

Cormac McCarthy

Just finished 'The Road', which won him the Pulitzer a few years ago. Reminds me much of Hemingway's 'The Old Man and the Sea', with a little Faulkner thrown in. Read 'Blood Meridian' earlier, very dark - and 'The Cities of the Plain', just strange - but I liked the cameo that G*d has in the final chapter as a homeless wanderer the main character meets under a highway bridge. That's where I'll be looking for G*d.

Can't wait to find a few more by him.