On a clear Sunday morning, our Every Point OK team took a right turn somewhere off Main Street in Lexington. Two blocks later we cruised by a small, white home and spied Ray Newton on his porch drinking coffee. Bright sunlight washed over his serene repose. Continue reading “Better to Say He Ran Away Than to Say There He Lay’” ~ EPOTM: Lexington, OK
We pulled into the Fay school parking lot just as some of the last cars were leaving; a few people lingered, “to go” meals in their hands, in order to finish their conversations before saying goodbye. Lunch was over, and as we entered the double doors we could hear Senior Citizens Center volunteers in the kitchen cleaning up.
There are at least five and possibly six separate stories we could write over our stop in the southeast corner of Dewey County. Legend, verified by some facts and newspaper articles, tells of a young bank robber who killed at least two people in the town grocery store while trying to escape; he was eventually captured because those in pursuit followed his trail of blood drops across the snow. Continue reading EPOTM: Fay, OK – “Unincorporated Community Pulls Off Annual Christmas Miracle”
‘Lil Mama’s Cafe was warm.
With red walls and trim, a printed Christmas scene curtain hanging on a rod, and a decorated spruce surrounded with Angel Tree gifts donated by community members…the setting was a stark contrast to the wild, open drive across the Wichita National Park we had just completed. Rachel and I talked quietly, eating oatmeal and planning our day.
However, fate had taken care of the planning for us.
Already full of Christmas Spirit from our previous evening in Medicine Park, we discovered that Santa was drinking coffee at the table next to ours! And, after a brief bout of cajoling from our waitress and the Cafe’s owner who was also his daughter, we sat with Mike Carrick and learned three things: 1) Santa is real; 2) Santa serves many functions for children, depending upon their situation or needs; and, 3) being Santa is a higher calling that I had imagined.
Merry Oklahoma Christmas to you and yours…
Kelly Roberts and Rachel Apple ~Every Point on the Map project
The Oklahoma City weather forecast is calling for a beautiful 74 degrees at 9:00 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 25th…perfectly suited for a magical family and pet-friendly H&8th Event.
Dinner and street art, music and other festivities will offer a relaxing start to your evening. And, our Every Point on the Map (EPOTM) “Ten Percent Show” held at Elemental Coffee will be ready to greet you at 9:00 p.m. to tie a bow on your whole day.
This month, EPOTM fine art large format portraits have been hanging in Elemental taken by Rachel J. Apple, project photographer. We’ll take a few moments at 9:00 to feed you if you’re not already full, and feed your soul with the following schedule if you are:
9:00 p.m. Hors d’overes and beverages served; view the show if you’ve not already seen our portraits, take a second look if you have.
9:30 p.m. The EPOTM team will take a moment to thank Elemental, share a few stories from their 18 months of travels thus far, and prepare you for our…
10:00 p.m. Screening of new and selected footage from our stops by April J Kirby, our videographer.
Come celebrate with us as we take a moment to be grateful for completing ten percent of the 594 stops to document a meaningful conversation with Oklahomans in every town. And, thank you in advance for being part of our special night…90% to go!
~ Gratefull, the Every Point team,
Kelly, Rachel and April
Two years ago a man who was approximately mid-life-aged married a mid-life aged woman whose self-described “second litter” of children were still in middle school. Not only did they form a new family, but they began a quest to enrich their lives.
After searching in Crescent, Luther, and a few other places within a reasonable distance of their home, they received a call from a realtor who was driving to Pink, Oklahoma the next day. She needed to put her signs up at a newly listed 40-acre section of land and thought it might be just the place they were looking for. Continue reading Charlie Finds a Family ~ EPOTM: Pink, OK
Note to readers: This post contains moderately detailed descriptions of two graphic themes. We suggest the appropriate reading age is for those over 12 years of age.
***
I spied Donald on our first pass down the main drag in Tecumseh on an early Sunday morning. Leaning against the west wall outside Terry’s laundromat, something made me double-take his silouette.
Perhaps it was the care he took with his smoke, the brightly printed bandana tightly securing his blond hair, or maybe the miniscule glimpse of his soulful eyes as we cruised by. All I know was that the end of main street came quickly, followed by our thousandth U-turn, and we were soon making our way into the overly beige space. Continue reading “When in Doubt, Hit the Gas” ~ EPOTM Hwy 9 Run: Tecumseh
There’s just something about a Little League ballpark filled with players in their earliest years. Innocence, mixed with invested family members, mixed with the sounds of 200 voices having at least 100 different conversations…carried by the wind on a warm day across the grass, sand and past the concession stands. Being there made my muscles relax. I began craving Sour Punch Straws.
Tee ball is the epitome of cool. And so was the family we met at the Bethel Acres ball park on our “Highway 9” Every Point run.
We met Cody Laughlin, his wife and their two boys on the bleachers waiting for their turn to take the field and warm up. They were watching a cousin, “right there – number five…,” finish her softball game as they spoke with us.
The Laughlin family’s life revolves around baseball.
We play baseball…started last weekend, our whole summer is baseball. That’s all they want to do – they just want to play catch and hit balls…
Cody served as the spokesperson for the family and as the coach for the team on which his two sons played. His wife also served as coach, and several times throughout our conversation he relegated his own role and validated her.
She helps…she makes sure who’s up, make sure they have their bats, gloves, it’s the biggest part. If they get out of order, they’re out…and I can’t coach.
Is she an assistant coach? No, she’s more than that – She’s probably the most important coach – I can tell them to run all day, but if I didn’t have her in there, I – we couldn’t play baseball.
And if they “couldn’t play baseball,” there might be a fairly large space in their lives. Cody played for Dale High School, his team garnering several championships. His father also played for Dale High school, also bringing home State.
And his two sons? He coaches because he wants them to learn to play the right way. To learn the life lessons that come along with the game. He described his high school coach as tough, scary, a stickler for excellence. But he wants his children to enjoy the game, perhaps with a better balance.
I played too much – I’d play a baseball tournament, come home, get a horse, and go to a rodeo. I did too much as a kid – I don’t want them to have that. I just want them to be a kid.
When talking with Laughlin you can tell this “let a child be a child” philosophy is deeply ingrained. We asked him what he wished people understood about children and baseball.
Different kids have different abilities. You shouldn’t PUSH a kid to play a sport – if they’re not good at it, let them try something else. It’s like the parents try to live through the kid. Let them be a kid; live their own life.
[Parents] don’t understand athletic abilities are different in different kids…there are kids out there that are unhappy, they don’t want to be there.
Cody didn’t mince words. It might have been the first conversation I talked more than our participant. I asked him if he could share a “funny tee ball” story. He said,
I have a kid that’s four on my team, and he will go out there in the outfield, sit down and pick flowers.
Who’s he give them to?
He throws them in the air…
Do you have a favorite ump?
I don’t like any of them.
While we were still laughing at his umpire stories and all the tee ball rules issues, their field cleared and they began to pack their things.
As we took a different position to watch his team play catch I noticed Cody’s wife quietly set up the dugout. Under the bench she placed a plastic container with each player’s name. Inside was their equipment, perhaps a snack, and other items. By the time we headed to the car the dugout was more organized than my kitchen and ready for the game to begin.
I’m not sure if Cody’s two boys will continue the legacy of another State Championship run at their own school, but I am sure of one thing: their parents will support them, regardless if they like baseball or choose another path.
****
Field notes – We’re picking up Rachel’s first set of 4×5 large format processed negatives and scans from a shop in Norman next week. Can’t wait to see them. April is living and breathing wedding season videos right now. And Kelly is celebrating the formation of a non-profit corporation…she has hopes of eventually spreading the expenses of this project around to a few other places than just her own checking account.
Just before Independence Day, our Every Point on the Map team headed to Midwest City for a visit with Jason Baffrey on The OKC Show. The Oklahoma Talking Co. studio was stocked with bottled water and creative people, doing their part to build interesting content for those interested in learning more about Oklahoma-based projects.
Thanks, Jason and Nathan, for being such gracious hosts. And best wishes to your company as you follow your own creative passions!
Lowell Caneday is a Regents Professor for Leisure Studies at Oklahoma State University. But during our conversation, he was a prophet. He delivered his personal oracle of The Great Outdoors Education, People and Their Connection to Places over a “Wake Up Breakfast” at Granny’s Kitchen in Stillwater.
The only difference between Caneday (pronounced: can-uh-day) and his wife’s order was the meat: he ordered sausage, she preferred bacon. The atmosphere was so over-the-top American Diner we had trouble with our audio that day. Just when our discussants got to a point they were making, the waitress kindly asked to fill our coffee cups, dishes clanked, or the clatter of flatware against stoneware covered their response.
But the breakfast noise pollution didn’t dampen our conversation. Caneday and his wife Diane were in their element. Granny’s Kitchen was a comfort zone, so much so that when friends or former students come to town, this was where they are taken to catch up.
The Canedays were so kind, it felt like WE were catching up…and we had just met them. Discussion flowed freely. And one of Caneday’s most comfortable topics was the science of recreation, parks and how people learn in natural environments.
We didn’t know it at the time because Stillwater was the first stop on our route, but the subject of “how people learn in their natural environments” set the stage for every subsequent location on our “Dam Run” in one way or another.
In Pryor Creek, we learned that Google “came to town” because of the abundant water supply and their local school system has received a windfall because of that change. Larry in Adair reminisced about the disappearing wildlife while our Strang family set the stage for their own “sense of place” by watching the sunsets from a local bridge. The Grand River Dam Authority has a full staff helping assist families in their trek to enjoy the lake, while Russell in Disney rails against the establishment for the right of Oklahoma taxpayers to have access to their State Park lands. And of course, the view from Sonny’s back porch in Spavinaw looking across the lakes and streams completed our education.
At one point, Caneday mentioned something else we later witnessed: the Great Outdoors levels the playing field for people of all cultures and races.
He told a story of how he and his wife met, sharing the intersection of outdoor leisure education and the need for integration “back in the day”:
I had moved from Minnesota to Texas to go to school; I knew all of her friends, she knew my friends. I didn’t like her friends, she didn’t like my friends. I didn’t know her. She didn’t know me.
My senior project from college was development planning in the Department of Recreation for the city (of Longview). Their idea of recreation was – boys played sports. Girls were cheerleaders. So I had proposed a very different kind of recreation program for the city – an interracial program. This was two years after the civil rights act was passed. [My proposal] was interracial and inter-gender [focused], boys, girls, it didn’t matter. The city bought the idea. And, I needed to hire a staff.
I was rooming with one of the guys [Diane] knew – because her best friend was dating him. He suggested getting together, so I said ‘Bring her over, I’ll cook dinner.’ We spent that evening together, but that morning I discovered she had applied for one of these staff positions.
I ended up doing exactly what I’m not supposed to do. I ended up dating an employee – – that’s probably as good as indication…how joy happens little by litte. I end up telling my students, ‘I violated most federal laws, because you end up dating your own employee – is that harassment? Is it a power play?’ But, in fact, it worked out very very well. She supervised one of the parks in that program – – they still have that program.
The summer that we were dating they had a bus bombing, because they were going to be busing the kids.
The city of Longview had a swimming pool – – but it was Whites only. When an African American could swim in that pool, the whites quit coming. So they built a pool north of highway 80 that became the whites pool – [and then African Americans needed a pool] so they built another one by Martin Luther King street – so the “mixed pool” was never used.
I was a kid from Minnesota – – I was like “what’s the deal?”
There was a great deal of information wrapped up in that small illustration. Preconceived notions of race, gender and class were broken down by offering opportunities through outdoor, recreational settings by working and playing together. It’s funny, but because the work was so valuable and enriching, Caneday justified dating an employee he hired – because of love…and love of the outdoors. And it makes perfect sense to me.
Trees don’t discriminate. People can hike, swim, fish, our play outdoors because the birds and grass have their own beautiful diversity. And in his lifetime, Caneday has mentored approximately 60 doctoral students through their PhD process, each of them studying some element of outdoor and recreational life. It’s clear he loves his students. Breakfast was filled with illustrations of students stopping at their home when visiting Stillwater.
It’s also clear he loves his wife.
Caneday married someone he met while doing his work. Someone who has struggled with Multiple Sclerosis, who survived an auto accident involving a semi-truck. And who fills in on the phone when Caneday isn’t around to give advice to former students:
Jeff Ziger – Chicago, Jewish, semi-religious – married a German Lutheran. When he was about to make a major decision he would call [me] and say, “Okay, you’re closer to God than I am…help me with this decision.”
“So, one day I wasn’t there, and Diane answered the phone, and Jeff said, well Lowell wouldn’t have married somebody who didn’t have a conduit to God…” so they talked it out.
And at the end of breakfast, it was also clear that – although Lowell Caneday wasn’t born in Oklahoma – he had found his own sense of place here in our state.
Every place has its unique characteristics. Ecologists say, “Oklahoma is the most diverse state in the nation – from a geologic and ecosystems perspective.” “We say – this land is your land – we know we belong to the land, and the land we belong to is grand.”
There’s something about being comfortable in the land. Yeah – you learn. You learn about what’s out there in these parks…the tremendous diversity – from a Beavers Bend to a Black Mesa …but it IS a place to learn.
He gave an example when I asked, “If all the parks could be the professors, what would they teach us?”
I’ll give you one example that was in the news – – Foss Lake Oklahoma. Right about this time last year, a gentleman was out walking and came upon some exposed bones. Turns out it’s a mammoth. So, inside the park OU began a dig.
Sometime in February, park staff was doing something using sonar – getting a sense of the lake depths. They found two objects…they were cars that had been lost in the 1960s.
At that point, Caneday paused and got a far away look in his eyes.
I had my answer, but he was still working on his.
***
Field notes:
When we began this project, we created a Kickstarter project to fund a small start up. One of the levels we offered was that if a person donated a fairly substantial amount, they could choose a person in one town in Oklahoma with whom we would document our discussion. Michael Bradley from Eastern Kentucky University saw our note on Twitter, donated to our project, and identified Lowell Caneday as the person he wanted us to speak with. Caneday was his major professor at OSU…he was giving back, in a sense, from some of what he had received in his education.
Bradley also asked that if we would consider him suggesting a second person, to speak with Terry Aylward in Pryor Creek. He had attended Boy Scouts with Aylward’s son.
It’s clear from this information that Michael Bradley learned enough during outdoors recreation that he wanted to pass those lessons along with us, our readers, and the students he teaches now that he’s the professor. Take care, Michael…we enjoyed exploring your turf during our Dam Run series. ~ The EPOTM Team
I’ve purchased three maps of Oklahoma since we started our project last year.
The first was my inspiration map. Resting on a rack in a 39th Expressway 7-11 minding its own business, I picked it up, counted the towns, and officially committed to the premise of what we now call “Every Point on the Map.” I was going to have a meaningful conversation with at least one person in each of Oklahoma’s 594 town or city.
594 was the total count on my 7-11 map. Continue reading What is “A Point?” One of Many EPOTM Quandaries
If you dropped a leaf in the Neosho River, it would likely bob and twirl southward, eventually making its way into Lake Hudson. Depending upon the wind, it might hook a left at some point and float along the south border of Spavinaw and on into Spavinaw Lake, a beautiful body of water that serves as the focal point for Spavinaw State Park.
In late January, fishermen stand shoulder to shoulder, casting off the lookout point, each of them hoping to pull up a nice sized crappe, grateful the weather is pretty enough to be outdoors once again.
I know about the fishermen because we observed them cast, wait, and occasionally nod to each other as if they were using words sparingly, in a friendly fashion, as they went about their business.
We observed them from our own lookout point on Sonny Hopkins’ porch high above the small town of Spavinaw. High enough to see smoke from wildfires miles away. High enough to feel closer to the eagles when they circle over the lake seeking their own fish. High enough to watch the incoming mediflight helicopters should one of the weekend bikers take the curves up the hill too quickly. High enough to see the moon, during certain times of the year, touch the lake and make a shimmering light pattern resembling a staircase leading straight to the sky.
And high enough to offer a perfect setting for fiddling jams several times a year.
Spavivaw lies nestled in a valley at lake level, and as our Every Point team scouted the main street area, our eyes lifted to homes above the town built on the edge of a rock cliff, their back porches overlooking the entire valley area. When we found the neighborhood road leading to that area, Sonny’s door was the first one we approached. Not only did he welcome us in, but he called his nephew Casey Hardison who lived across the street to join the conversation.
Sonny’s wife, Lisa, is an associate professor at Tulsa Community College. Casey still keeps his connections with the Army and is a bartender in the high limit room at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in north Tulsa. And Sonny and Lisa’s son is Zirl “Bubba” Hopkins, a fiddle champion who now lives in Texas. And occasionally, after a long week at the concrete factory, Sonny drives up the hill to his home and helps Lisa prepare for a night full of fiddling.
Evidently after the American Heritage Music Festival or other area fiddle event, the musicians and their entourage head toward the Hopkins’ home to keep music going through the night. Lisa is known to keep some pretty incredible food around to feed all those jamming on the the porch, in the house, and wherever they can find a spot to play. Our team smiled as we heard stories of these fiddling parties. One tale included an RV loaded with people, headed down to the local American Legion for a beer run, because there isn’t a quick stop or grocery store for several miles.
As we sat on Sonny’s back porch looking over the beautiful lake, Casey shared a story with us that brought our team full circle to the bigger themes of our trip: land and water. As is usually the case with any big project, local interests and large business occasionally come to an impasse. Such was the case when the Spavinaw Dam and water system project was beginning to take shape in the 1920s in order to expand the supply of water to the growing Tulsa area.
The local cemetery was slated to be moved for this project, and that wasn’t okay with the Thompson’s, a local Cherokee family and grandparents of Sonny’s wife. Relatives guarded their family graves, standing, or sitting on horseback, until the project managers gave up and agreed to leave those three graves alone. Casey guided us from the house down to the gravesite and sure enough, there they were, resting in their original location close to a pavilion for visitors to convene in the park.
It was peaceful there. The sky was blue, the air cool, the water clear and still. A good place for a gravesite and a family picnic.
Casey frequently kayaks in the area, and his routes are more purposeful than a leaf bobbing on the current. The Hopkins home is more than just a porch on a hill. And the town of Spavinaw is more than just a couple of stories our team collected while there.
Spavinaw is a complex concentration of Oklahoma history populated by interesting people, high quality water, and beautiful land deeply entrenched by the lives of those who surround the area. And we’re grateful, once again, to spend a bit of time with those who are tethered to this place.
***
Field notes: Kelly liked Spavinaw so much she’s fantasy shopped for a small cabin in the area weekly since their trip.
April is helping her best friend move from one great distance in the U.S. to another right now.
Rachel has several photographs featured in the newest edition of Territory magazine that just dropped.
And, our team is heading out next week to Dewey county…a large piece of land with only 8 towns within the borders.
Can’t wait. ~ KMR
The stature of a man is not measured in the heights of his frame but by how tall he stands in the eyes of his community.
The worth of a man is not measured in purchasing power but by how much of himself he’s given to others.
The legacy of a man is not measured by the number of buildings bearing his name, but by the number of years others fondly repeat it once he’s gone.
And the capacity of a man is not measured by the depths of his philosophical reservoirs, but by the breadth of his emotional strength to remain resolutely passionate for the people – and ideas -that pulse within the boundaries of his identity.
The stature of a man
Russell Hogan began his time with us in Disney at PJs over a cup of coffee. Leaning forward with the energy of a lifetime story teller, Hogan chronicled the history of his rise, fall, and second life as a business man in the Pensacola Dam area of Oklahoma.
The son of a carpenter, he began his business life as a young man with a shop in Langley building docks on the lake. His business grew with time and effort until he was running an 800 boat marina during Grand Lake’s heydays. For 28 years his work was filled with boat races, cranes, rigging, and sail craft until one day he received a phone call.
“Russell, you need to sell that marina.”
“What’s wrong, Paul?” he asked of the person on the line.
“T. Boone Pickens bought Phillips Petroleum and they’re moving the oil industry to Texas,” the caller responded.
“And they did. I couldn’t sell the marina, it was too large. And as people left and went to different locations I hauled boats across the country for ten more years. At one time early on I had the marina sold for three million dollars and the deal went sour. I ended up selling it for $350,000.”
As Hogan talked of lake life, his growing interest in off roading and perceived social classes of populations who enjoy off roading versus hunters or other outdoors groups, his language was entertaining. He used words like “regime” to describe rotations of gubernatorial administrations in Oklahoma, and anecdotes to describe his interactions with legal representatives of the GRDA as he fought for rights to access and use the shore areas for off roading activities. Eventually, his personal hobby interests in off roading turned into actions to open a local business and park for such purposes. His goal: to bring industry back to Disney, a town gasping for economic air.
But there were obstacles related to clashing ideals about the use of public lands for recreational sport.
“The GRDA came after me for trespassin’ so I told the old boy, ‘Do you want your education here in the middle of this dirt road, or do you want to get your suit out of the cleaners? I took him to court, and I sued him.'”
“Did you win?”
“Yes. A couple of regimes later, we had another guy come down and try the same durn thing. And I sued him. And the lawyer said, ‘Russell, you know more about this than I do, I’m gonna put you on the stand.’ I said, ‘Alright.’ The courthouse was packed. I got on the stand, he asked me the questions and I answered ’em, and when we got done, the COURTroom stood up and applauded me…because what I was contending with was our right to ride. Our RIGHT to use our lands, as under the 1932 Enabling Act. Under the constitution, the lands and waters for this project are to be used for the most and best good. You don’t have to quote me, you can go look it up.”
As he worked through these legal trappings, he purchased “the most lucrative piece of off roading land” in Disney from an “old, retired cowboy,” paying him commercial value to help seal the deal.
Hogan then painted a fairly animated picture of asking Diana to stock up on food at PJs, and of convincing a closing convenience store business to “fill up the gas tanks and bring in one more load of beer” for the off roaders he was going to bring to town. He recalled bulldozing campsites and trails as people were coming in, asking for bathrooms and power outlets. In other words, he was building a business and the off roaders were right behind him, demanding what they needed for their fun while he was supplying the goods as the requests came in.
Since that time, Hogan’s Offroad Park has been open for business approximately 15 years. The city of Disney has attempted to levy various fees upon the four-wheeler community, rules have been drafted related to camping and off roading in State Parks, and according to his Facebook business page, community leaders and Hogan have gone back and forth for years.
It seems the tension between championing a cause and managing a growing business could be a quandary for him.
“In the meantime – my park has expanded to the point…I was looking for something to coast in my retirement because it beats settin’ on the front porch. [But] it’s seven days a week; I had wrecker trucks pulling guys out of mud holes this morning.”
He pauses, takes a drink of coffee, and says, “You probably need to see it. I’m gonna take you out in the ambulance and show you all over the place.”
The worth of a man
Ambulance? The team and I eyed each other, not quite sure what to think and extending our trust to a man we had just met. The air of adventure was too strong to resist and we followed Hogan to his business. The next thing I remember was crawling into the back of a military style vehicle designed to transport wounded soldiers to M*A*S*H units. That vehicle was so sturdy, it was designed to travel along the bottom of a body of water submerged in 20 feet of water. Rachel and I climbed into the back, April sat up front with Hogan, and I’m quite certain his 75 year-old frame beat all three of us in his nimble ascension to the driving seat.
He had the vehicle started and moving before we had settled in and readied our equipment.
The next 1.5 hours were spent in what can only be described as a detailed tour of the beautiful landscape backing up to the Pensacola dam. We climbed extreme degrees of rock sheers, crossed running water at fairly impressive depths, and got slightly stuck at one point, all the while listening to Hogan’s narrative about those who access this territory, and how it enhances their quality of life.
At some point, we stopped, descended from our seats to the rock-solid footing below and Hogan pointed to the dam. His narrative switched to stories that men who worked on the project told him as a boy. He differed with the GRDA account; he asserts people did lose their lives in the project. Their days were hard, their times difficult, and occasionally there was heartache, mystery or death. At one point he paused, looked down and said, “Theys somethin’ bad-awful that went on down there at those work campsites.”
In the history of man, whenever there are large projects build upon the backs of men, there is almost always “somethin’ bad-awful” that takes place.
Hogan’s perspective of the GRDA, how they use their funds, and how he would like for them to enhance the lake shore lands exemplified the eternal conflict between the common man and government – between the intrinsic need for freedom and validation, and the extrinsic compilation of structure and red tape designed to keep the common man safe.
By the time we returned to the campsite, our team was quiet. Humbled. Overwhelmed with the information we had taken in.
But Hogan wasn’t quite finished.
As we sat back in lawn chairs, debriefing with questions, we got to the heart of his heart. During our discussion, April asked him, “Why do you care so much about THIS…this place, this town.”
The capacity and legacy of a man
For a moment, Hogan offered a rare pause then responded.
“Well, I’m a native of here. I’ve been here – my people – since before statehood. We’ve went through hard times: depressions, droughts, small farmers…but eventually people bought up large tracks of land around the lake. But when I first walked these rocks around THIS part, barefooted with my fishing pole – Huckleberry Finn – [the off roading recreational business] was unheard of. Very few people appreciated the wilderness. I did, but it was a matter of economics. You couldn’t make a living here. There were no jobs and no industry.”
But he then said “far-sighted men” put in business and recreational opportunities north of the dam. Times changed; money changed. People now, he said, have money to purchase these types of recreational vehicles and can make it to this particular area of the dam.
“These vehicles were unheard of. I dreamed of having a jeep, and finally got one – my first jeep is still sitting in the garage over there. That was back in the 60s. Now the Baby Boomers have their own recreational vehicles and they want to enjoy the outdoors.”
Then Rachel asked about his Native American heritage, and if that were a part of his connection to the land. Hogan agreed that his heritage was Irish, and Cherokee, with roots in the Civil War prior to coming to this part of the country.
“But I am Cherokee Indian, my wife is Cherokee, and when they moved those people out here – burnt their homes and stole their cattle, they moved them at gunpoint out here in the middle of the winter. But my great-grandfather was quite a builder. He built a mill that cut wood into shingles and ground corn out there by Russellville. I know where that land was, I know where the foundation of the house is that my grandmother was born in…”
At this point, Hogan’s voice cracked with emotion and he paused again.
“They were wonderful people and they survived a lot. A lot of things our American History books don’t write about. My grandfather lost the biggest cotton farm in the bottom land over there during The Depression when cotton was ten cents a pound, and the bank took all that land. But that didn’t work for the government – socialism is a pendulum that moves back and forth, and it’s time now for people to realize the recreational value of our land. This land is owned by the public, but we have no access. When I go to visit the graves of my ancestors, the game warden runs me out. That area was CLOSED, yet under the law you can visit those areas and I go in there, but that area should be available to the general public!”
“Americans want to go out in the woods and take their families. They want to go hunting and they want to go fishing and take their families and take pictures and listen to the birds. We are not Russians, happy to sit in a park, listen to a fiddle song, drink a beer and eat an onion. Americans want to explore the land.”
Our Russian comrades would probably not take too kindly to being characterized in the way Hogan recounted. But thanks to Hogan and possibly others, for right now Americans can still explore their land.
He has a visitor that walks around his land and finds flint points and artifacts of the Indians who were here years ago. He personally turns dirt over with his equipment and finds campfires of natives who tread Oklahoma hundreds of years before anyone’s name was registered in a courthouse as the owner. And if there is a legacy he wishes for us all, it’s to realize our freedoms to enjoy the land we pay for with our taxes to the government.
And I would imagine, he’ll be telling that story for as long as he possibly can.
***
Field notes: April’s birthday was yesterday. Rachel is now shooting for yet another magazine, and Kelly is struggling with how to honor all the stories from all the people we’re collecting with this project.
Hopefully our video to accompany this post will be done very soon.
We had a scare three weeks ago when we thought our video files were lost from the Dam Run, but they are now recovered and our production is back on track. Look for the wrap up of this particular run with Spavinaw and an outlier stop in Stillwater fitting this recreational theme. See you soon ~ Red Dirt Kelly
Four key events set the stage for a perfect visit with Donna Kuek at the Grand River Dam Authority (GRDA) Ecosystems and Education Center in Langley. They were, in no specific order: Continue reading EPOTM Dam Run, Stop 4: Langley – Mayes County Field Notes
Larry Eby must have been a bus driver because he definitely took us to school. From the moment we walked into his jam packed “Corner Store” emporium, until we exited an hour later, class was in session and Mr. Eby taught us well.
Leaning casually against the glass cased counter, coffee in hand and
his dog Prince at his feet, our “social studies teacher” covered subjects deeply important to an Oklahoman reflecting on 73 years of change in Adair.
He opened with family history. When his eldest son was born (“a fifth generation”), “that child had 13 living grandparents.” 21 years later when his son’s eldest daughter was born, “she was again the fifth generation on both sides of the family.” Then 22 years later when her children were born, they were again the fifth generation on Larry’s side of the family. His eyes twinkled as he told us of his nine great-grandchildren.
It was evident while listening that family was important to Larry. His grandmother was Cherokee, and he and his wife still live on her Indian allotment land on an area known as Rock Creek.
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) had built a dam on that creek “around 1935, and it backed up a little lake for three-quarters of a mile, and below that dam was the best fishing hole in the country, because when the creek would get up, the fish would come up from the river but they couldn’t get over that dam and they’d pile up…and that’s where I grew up…fishin’…so that’s why that property is important to me.”
His outline moved to the theme of business. Larry lectured about the importance of hard work, details about local commerce and how downtowns look and feel completely different than times prior to the installation of toll roads. And, about the day when he realized he had worked hard enough and it was time to “close the store”:
“I had a convenience store right across the road there, where that car lot is…for 27 years and 8 months, which is almost 28 years (he chuckles). I had got to the point where I had run off most of the help, and it was just me and a woman who run this store. And I went down one morning to open the store, and the first 3 or 4 people that came in were – to say the least – not very nice.
And I stood there after that second or third one, whichever one was left, and I thought, ‘You know, I don’t need this anymore.’ And I just closed the door, I was completely stocked and everything, and never opened it again…practically gave the inventory away. That morning they all had a real bad attitude, and at that point in my life I didn’t want to listen to it….and I’ve got worse as I’ve got older about ‘not wantin’ to listen to it.'”
Another smile.
The topic of business was important to Larry. He had a grandfather who owned “a laundry there” in Adair. His life’s work was spent growing his business holdings, and he and his wife patiently paid for everything they owned in cash while they watched some of their friends suffer from the worries of owing money. “They’d get a new boat, or car…but I’ve slept like a baby every night of my life.”
Larry wrapped up his lecture by discussing the changes in the landscape and land ownership from his perspective:
“When I was young, the older folks lived on their homestead places, 160 acres, and there were 2-4 homes per section. Now their kids have sold off those homesteads into 5,10 and 20 acre plots, and there are trailer houses all over ’em, and there’s not any amount of land that people farm around here any more.
One thing I really love is to quail hunt. There used to be quail all over this country. But people have chopped up the land, and they pull up those old fence lines where the briars and brush served as protection for the quail, then they bulldoze the land, tearing up the native grasses,and plant their Bermuda or fescue in the dirt, and birds can’t make it on that. So the few that DO manage to survive, the hawk gets. I haven’t seen a covey of quail in years.”
I felt like we had been on a field trip without ever leaving the store. Pounds of Depression Glass reflected rainbow colors in Rachel’s eyes as she spent her “recess” walking down the aisles of Larry’s emporium. I looked for April and found her stroking the luxurious sheep hides, her brain calculating how much one would set her back if she spontaneously decided to take one home. Larry shared a story about purchasing a hurricane lamp for $15 and selling it for $200 the following day while our photographer and videographer wrestled with the urge to load the car up with his “inventory.”
School was out and we drove down the road with Larry’s stories in our heads. I had an inclination to go fishing and take steps to rebuild the quail population in Mayes County. Rachel was sharing a story about Larry’s wife happening upon a mother lode of Depression glass and how they brought it back to Oklahoma. Finishing her second official stop, April was beginning to grasp what our project was all about.
And on we traveled…to the next little town whose buildings were shorter, and businesses were almost non-existent, and we wondered what the area might have been like had toll roads never been built.
***
Notes: We skipped our publishing date last week because of a family death, and dedicate this particular post to Emma Lee Bennett who we covered a few years ago in a series called “One Voice on the Oklahoma Prairie.”
Here’s a link on cool Adair history. And, here’s an even better one. The Oklahoma Historical Society always wins against Wikipedia.
April apologizes for the “Strang” slide in the Adair movie above, and will change it as soon as she returns from Haiti.
Rachel really wants this lens if any philanthropic readers happen along and feel generous.
And, we’ll be rolling out a non-profit soon in order to help underwrite our expenses for this project. Otherwise, we’re all safe and doing just fine. ~ Peace, RDK
This is my favorite picture of Larry Eby, “social studies teacher” and owner of the Corner Store (wonder emporium) in Adair, OK.
***
Every Point on the Map has never been as much about the towns in which people live, as it is about the people who live in the towns.
Our time with the Fleming family of Strang wholly exemplifies this philosophy. Their living room environment was intimate, warm, and thoughtful; bursts of occasional laughter were a delight.
The cloudy overcast day, however, seemed to temper the municipality’s mood as we traversed the diminishing town proper four or five times. I struggled while absorbing what remains of a formerly vibrant area through our car window vantage point. Strang seems as if “the town” somehow vanished mysteriously, while a random sampling of people remained – still connected to each other, but without a sustaining economy to support their lives. Continue reading EPOTM Dam Run, Stop 2: Strang – View from the Bridge
[Editor’s Note to Readers: Dear reader, we are currently in correspondence with Merlin Music. We received express permission to use the music in our Pryor Creek video from the manager of the artist. However, an outside agency may have purchased the rights to this music and they did not heed our letters for consideration to relinquish their copyright claim. This process has been ongoing for about two months. We hope to restore the video soon. Until then, we are choosing not to replace the video with other music but to go through this process of asserting the rights of artists and entities such as ourselves to collaborate. Thank you, Kelly Roberts, Editor, Red Dirt Chronicles 7/15/2016]
In about four weeks, Paul Lewis, photographer and ad builder at “The Paper” of Mayes County, won’t be in his downtown Pryor Creek office. Rather, he’ll be as close as his pass will allow to the Rocklahoma 2015 festival main stage, cheering on vocal bombast Lzzy Hale, lead singer of the power band Halestorm.
No doubt he’ll have more than her powerful vocals on his mind. Paul will most likely be decision-making about the best way to add a signed poster to his burgeoning memorabilia collection covering every square inch of his walls. And couch. And shelves.
Paul’s museum-like space was the first stop on our guided tour of The Paper’s historical workspace. The office walls sectioned off just enough square feet for the entire staff of three: Paul, who clearly loves rock n’ roll (as well as a variety of other music); Andrea “Andie” Finney who sells their ads and manages the billing; and, Terry Aylward. Aylward “write[s] the stories and [does] all the book work.”
And Aylward was the person we were there to see. Raised in the Kansas City area, he graduated from the University of Missouri school of journalism in 1977 and took the first job he was offered at an entry-level salary of $150 per week. That job was working for “The Daily Times” in Pryor Creek.
For twenty years he worked steadily, many times foregoing his vacation on behalf of the news business. He met his wife in Pryor, raised a family, became a part of the community. Things changed radically, however, as a large outside company bought the Daily (now known as simply The Times) and 50 other newspapers across Oklahoma in 1997.
Overnight, the business environment in which Aylward thrived turned from chasing the news and managing a paper, to meetings…and more meetings. The process became heavy, burdensome.
“Everything [in Pryor] was the same, but in this town of 9,000 people we were always meeting about what we were going to do…instead of just doing it.”
By 1999, Aylward and Lewis left “The Times” and set out on their own with a competitive set of ideas to help launch “The Paper” of Mayes County. They offered free classifieds, free obituaries, and free engagement or wedding announcements. They re-focused on their community stories and resisted filler text of outside or national news.
In other words, they were “sticking it to The Man.” And it’s been working for 16 years.
“So we don’t have any meetings. We don’t have any policies. You know, if I need Paul I just holler, and Andie may answer me because she thinks I’m talking to her, or whatever. That’s the way we…you know, we just…take care of business.”
This business model is all-encompassing. The three of them only take one week of vacation each year, generally during a five-week month in the summer so they can bill for four weeks and keep the cash flow consistent.
Those two pivotal moments, accepting the job in Pryor Creek and starting his own paper, are defining in Aylward’s life. The decisions were both leaps of faith, and commitments to his craft. And through a newspaper man’s lens, he’s witnessed his community processes for almost forty years.
“There’s really no REAL news in a small town,” he said with a chuckle. More seriously, he followed, “The tornado of ’42 was huge, and then there was the Girl Scout murders, [that] happened in Locust Grove which is about 20 miles away. Now the campground’s closed, and I think it’s farmland. But that’s really the only two that would be considered…that ‘the New York Times is coming to cover it.'”
Those two stories were big. Huge, actually. The 1942 tornado took a booming Pryor Creek metropolis down to ruins. Moving directly down main street, the twister took off the second and third levels of many of their buildings, and killed 70 people.
Discussing that tragedy, Aylward later told me through e-mail correspondence that “a tornado has not revisited Pryor since 1942 because an Indian medicine man went west and drove a stake into the ground to split future threats to the north and south. Believe it or not, as you watch the TV news reports of storms heading our way, they always seem to split and strike to the north and south if they strike at all.”
And of course, the Girl Scout murders were so big their mention still solemnifies the faces of Oklahomans today.
Conversations in the offices of The Paper echo slightly. The building itself has many stories. Children used to run to the stoop, then up through the halls as an after school play activity. At one point in history, their building was known as “Robber’s Roost.” Even walking through the halls now feels as if it would be imperative to locate an office there if you moved to Pryor, but at the same time you might expect turn of the century ghosts to treat you with occasional visits.
Settling into our discussion, a few topics were mentioned that help define both Aylward and his job.
Requests to “not print that” – any pressure from the locals?
“You know, we’re always asked to ‘not print that,’ and you can’t. You just have to print it. Especially people who don’t want their name in the paper for when they get a DUI or something…they’re going to lose their job. You just have to say, ‘Look, if you do it, your name’s going to be in the paper.’ I tell ’em , ‘My kids have been in the paper. So, I’m not holding you out.’ And, they know my kids…[then they respond], ‘oh, yeah, I remember…’
And government-wise, sometimes they’ll say, ‘Oh, they don’t need to know all that..’ But it’s a lot better now, that we’ve been on our own. They just accept what we say because they know, ‘these guys…they’re crazy, they don’t have to answer to anybody.’ Down there (at The Times), they can call people, and go over their heads…but here, it’s beautiful, because it’s just us. And Paul and Andi don’t really care about the news part (he chuckles), so it’s just me. And the community has given up trying to get me not to print things.”
Caricatures and/or Characters in Pryor Creek?
Caricatures – “Oh, there’s tons of ’em. The first one that pops into my mind is the mayor. When you see today’s paper…he’s running for re-election. However, he goes down to the park, squirms himself into this little bitty kid’s toy, for a picture just to promote his election…with the ‘new toy.’ He’s unbelievable. He’s in a race for the first time this year with a retired fire chief. [The current mayor’s] philosophy has always been, ‘If the library employee gets a 5% raise, the fireman gets a 5% raise. There’s no difference. And [the fire department] thinks they should get more because they pay union dues…”
Characters – “Carl Curry, another former mayor here…the thing that stands out to me about Carl was, he’s born and raised in Pryor, and he’s the mayor, and the city’s thinking about having ‘Martin Luther King’ as a holiday. Now, he’s a WWII guy…and he breaks the tie of the city council vote to allow our Martin Luther King holiday.
Well, that did not go over very well with his generation. And he said, still today, life-long friends of his don’t speak to him because of that. But he told me the reason he did that was when he was a little kid, he remembers a Troop Train stopping, that railroad’s gone through here forever, stopping and getting out was a total Black platoon. And they double-timed down to ma-whatevers cafe, and they had to go in the back.
And as a little kid, Carl thought, ‘These are OUR soldiers. Why did they have to do that?’ So he said, that’s the picture he had when he voted to break the tie. He kind of righted that wrong of something he saw as a kid he knew wasn’t right. And we still celebrate Martin Luther King holiday today in Pryor Creek.
I think there was a survey in the Tulsa World stating that 90% of Oklahomans believe their community is prejudice one way or another. And then 80% believe that it doesn’t keep everybody from achieving the American Dream. Which is…kind of the comical part of that deal.”
I personally appreciated our discussion with Aylward a great deal. We waxed philosophical about whether or not removing adults with developmental or intellectual disabilities from the community helps or hurts everyone involved. We discussed various areas our EPOTM team was preparing to visit and received pointers on where to investigate. We learned about how Google has poured dollars into their community the way Pryor Creek’s water is pouring over the servers to keep things running smoothly for the internet giant.
I think I wanted his NPR baseball cap. I know I wanted his office space.
“What’s one of the things that makes your team laugh?” I asked.
“Every city council meeting,” he responded with a chuckle.
***
And we laughed too. Thanks, Terry, for the 50 copies of the The Paper, for your graciousness and tour of your building, and for helping us understand a little better our Pryor Creek point on the map.
***
All photo credits: Rachel J Apple (except the photo below this line)
Video credit: April Kirby
April 10, 2015 marked the day of my last “Every Point on the Map” feature compiled by our original two-person team. Reaching this small milestone felt good. To celebrate, I sent a text message to Rachel and April with several exclamation marks.
We have changed since our pilot run, as much by the lives we have encountered as by the information gathering and relationship building process.
Reflecting on my own personal change, I’ve noticed something different about myself compared to last year: I’m not afraid to ask people for conversations any longer. I used to feel sheepish. I even wrote once, “I don’t want to step on their daisies.” Continue reading Every Point, Part Two, Team of Three
We must have crossed into a funk zone. That’s the only way I can explain our Owasso point on the map.
Somewhere between our visit with the Roundtable Breakfast Club in Sperry and a middle class neighborhood in Owasso, Rachel and I must have entered an unmarked Oklahoma worm hole. It certainly felt “alien.” We literally knocked on ten doors with not one “yes” for our conversation.
Prior to turning south into this particular area with newer homes and nicely paved streets, we had just said to each other, “We really need to sit down with a few middle class folks. Someone we find at home, not necessarily just outside hanging around wherever we happen to be.”
As we agreed on this plan, I felt it was exactly the right thing to do. Go to a middle-class neighborhood in the middle of American. After all, I’m a middle class individual and live in somewhat of a middle-class neighborhood. My people, right?
“Piece of cake,” I said to myself as I walked up to the first door of ten.
Derrick Jackson held a small pit bull puppy close to his chest as he pointed south, north, “over there,” “by the school,” and “down the road.” As I listened to him patiently laying out the dividing lines between Lima and New Lima, the thought of him spending 15 years in a maximum security prison for second degree murder didn’t make sense. Continue reading EPOTM: Lima, OK ~ (The Biggest Stone Up There)
The Cashion PD interior was screaming for an HGTV renovation. Informational messages spewed over the radio system, violently punching an otherwise quiet rural setting. And Joshua Farrety, Assistant Chief of Police, was preparing for our conversation by finding just the right angle on his chair: far enough back to provide relief from the bullet proof vest he sported, and forward enough to balance his frame.
Five minutes earlier, Farrety had been on the phone with his Chief who had encouraged him to speak with us.
“She said the experience would do me good,” he retorted.
His put-off tone was counterbalanced with a subtle grin that gave away his enjoyment about the opportunity to represent the agency. Assistant Chief Farrety was asked to speak on behalf of the department, and he wasn’t going to let them down.
The City of Cashion was the fifth stop on a six-town, one-day run, so by late in the afternoon Rachel and I were more than a little jocular (read: adolescent). Try as we may, however, Farrety stayed mostly on message. Even when we chided him about his “lady friend” buying the groceries he remained fairly regulated.
I’m not sure if speaking with a rural Oklahoma policeman was the impetus for “the adolescent” in us, but when I watched our video this past week, my respect for Farrety strengthened. He was the job.
He was the job…whether it was to:
When I think about the shoestring budgetary funding of local fire and police operations, I’m at the same time impressed in how they made ends meet, and infuriated at the salary levels provided to those who risk their lives every day.
I left our discussion that evening with a few thoughts running through my head. In no particular order, they are:
Thanks, Farrety and company, for pulling over the man high on pot so he didn’t kill someone while driving. Thanks, specifically to Josh, for putting up with our interrogatory nature. And thanks, Chief Veronica Thomas, for letting him handle the discussion.
He was the job, and he did just fine.
***
Video clips from our conversation with Josh below. For more on our project, visit the “About” page on this website. The video ending was extended without visuals to highlight our featured artist, Sherree Chamberlain’s song: San Fran, from her album New Skin.
Cashion, Oklahoma is a small town on the boarder of Kingfisher and Logan counties.
