Oklahoma Postcard

While I rarely think about it (mostly because of the lack of storms in SF), one thing I really do miss from Oklahoma is thunderstorms. When we had one in SF the other night, it took me awhile to figure out what the hell was going on. I heard the thunder 2-3 times before I got up to look out my window and glare at whatever massive trucks kept rumbling down Hyde, only to be greeted with a crack of bright white lightning – followed by another boom of thunder. All alone, I actually gasped and said “Ooooh!” aloud – as excited as a 10-year-old-girl finding a real live pony under the Christmas tree!

Then it got even better. The flashes of lightning were SO bright, I was literally standing there slack-jawed; I probably looked about as stupid as a Kentucky voter.

Truth be told, I appreciate the “good” things about growing up mostly in Oklahoma. That slow, safe pace of life; an appreciation for “the simple things” in life; etc. And, of course, most importantly, home to the greatest college football program in the history of the game – and I’m not saying this just because I went to the University of Oklahoma. A comprehensive, objective analysis done by ESPN came to the same conclusion Sooner fans already knew: We’re Literally #1 all-time. So there! :)

But speaking of storms making an impression, I just last week read a Smithsonian Magazine special issue of travel writing. Paul Theroux wrote about his cross-country trip by car. Here’s the section of the article wherein he drives through Oklahoma:

Wide-eyed, because it was my first look at the heartland, I saw Oklahoma as a ravishing pastoral, widely spaced towns proclaiming on enormous billboards their local heroes: Erick ("Home of Roger Miller, King of the Road"); Elk City ("Home of Miss America, 1981"). And at Yukon ("Home of Garth Brooks"), I could have hung a left and driven down Garth Brooks Boulevard.

I had always associated this part of America with dramatic weather—tornados, searing heat, thunderstorms. My expectations were met as dark pinnacles of storm clouds massed in the big sky ahead, creamy and marbled at their peaks and almost black below. This was not just a singular set of clouds but an entire storm front, visible in the distance and as wide as the plains—I could not see where it began or ended. The storm was formally configured, as a great iron-dark wall, as high as the sky, bulking over the whole of western Oklahoma, it seemed: the vertical clouds like darkening watchtowers.

This was fearsome and satisfying, especially the croaky weather warnings interrupting the music on the radio. I approached the towering storm and was soon engulfed by hail, wind and dark curtains of rain slashing across the flooded road. There was nowhere to stop, so I just slowed down, with everyone else. After an hour, I had passed through this wall of weather and was entering the dry, sunlit outskirts of Oklahoma City.

This relatively young city—it dates only from 1890—a tidy, welcoming place of broad streets, has a reputation for being God-fearing and hard-working ("Work Conquers All" is the state motto). Since 1995 the city has been known for one traumatic event, the bomb outrage by the murderer Timothy McVeigh, who had drifted here from Kingman, parking a rental truck full of explosives that leveled the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people, many of them women and children. The site was walking distance from my downtown hotel. Surrounded by trees, with some of the bomb-cracked walls still standing, the memorial is the most peaceful and spiritual place in the city.

"Everyone who was in the city has a memory of it," D. Craig Story, a local attorney, told me. "I was 50 blocks away in my office that morning. I had just picked up the phone to make a call. The big window of my office bowed in—didn't break but looked like it was going to turn into a bubble, the air pushing it. The sound of the blast came a few seconds later. Then the news of it."

I said, "This seems like the last place such a thing would happen."

"That was one of the reasons. At first we had no idea why we were chosen for this. But it was because this is such a quiet place. Trust. Good people. No security. Very simple to gain access—to park a truck in a street, even at a federal building, then walk away. We were the easiest target." He shook his head. "So many children..."

Leaving Oklahoma City past the Kickapoo Casino, through Pottawatomie County and the towns of Shawnee and Tecumseh, I came to Checotah and passed a billboard, "Home of Carrie Underwood—American Idol 2005," and wondered whether billboards, like bumper stickers, suggested the inner life of a place. Farther east another billboard advised in large print: "Use the Rod on Your Child and Save Their Life."

And then there’s the State Fair. If anything besides family would ever drag me back to Oklahoma, it’d be the State Fair. I remember when I was living in Northern California for the first time, and went to the California State Fair. I naively believed just because California was bigger, is “all that,” that their state fair would be exponentially better. Well, it was exponentially, all right—exponentially worse. Small. Unbearably hot (Really? Sacramento in August? That’s the best you can do?), with a midway out on an asphalt paved parking lot with NO greenery whatsoever, etc. Very disappointing.

And while the musical/movie “State Fair” was written with the Iowa State Fair in mind, the Oklahoma State Fair is part of that same “class” of Fair. Of course, Oklahoma is the only state to have an eponymous Broadway musical. And a darned good one! :)

Now folks who’ve grown up in your San Franciscos and your New Yorks probably don’t feel like they’re missing much by not having an awesome state fair, the preeminent college football team in the country, thunderstorms, and their own Broadway musical, but then most “Okies” find it hard to appreciate the “virtues” of an urban metropolis (e.g., the diversity, the “hustle & bustle,” the varied cultural offerings, etc.), which is where I think “nature” plays a role: some folks are just “wired” to appreciate one culture/lifestyle more than the other.

But during this Thanksgiving holiday, I want to give thanks for the fact that I was able to spend a significant amount of time in both a "red" and a "blue" state - and can thus appreciate both (well, some aspects). Happy Thanksgiving!