Oklahoma Wildflowers in Bloom

May 14, 2016 //

The first wildflowers I noticed along the highway were Indian Paintbrush, which started smalland then grew taller and fuller until they blanketed hills along the way.As the weeks have gone by, other wildflowers have appeared. There are patches or whole fields of one color and then there are the mixed fields. Driving along, you spot the colors sometimes paired with native grasses as you whiz by.This week, I stopped on a beautiful bright breezy day because the flowers are so different up close. First there were large vistas of purples that appeared over the last week. Look how pretty these flowers are up close. Nothing like you would think from the road.Then there were white flowers, some standing tall above the other plants, waving in the wind.Up close, they are little bouquets.Or these other small flowers for a doll size bouquet.The yellows are in bloom, swaying in the background.These are probably something that irritates those with allergies, but they are so pretty.And smaller yellow babies are bright along the ground.More tiny flowers for the doll tea party…Or flowers as bright as the sun that day.A random flower to accent the field.And more fields of orangey red blazed beside the road.And more and more orangeIndian paintbrush…mixed with Indian Blanket, Oklahoma’s state wildflower.As I was getting in my car on one of the gravel or dirt roads where I pulled off to wade in the flowers, a pickup stopped and a scruffy resident smiled a somewhat toothless grin and asked if I was stuck. I laughed and said I had stopped to see the wildflowers. He laughed back, waved and drove away. I can’t imagine that people who live in the middle of all this color don’t love it as much as I do, but maybe some take it for granted.

If you don’t stop to smell the flowers, you miss so much. If I hadn’t stopped, I’d have missed this fellow fan of the flowers. And that would have been my great loss that day.

Tags Indian Blanket, Indian Paintbrush, Oklahoma, stop to smell the flowers, travel, wildflowers

Categories Nature, Photography, Places, Reflections, Seasons, Travel

My Highway 51 Markers

May 1, 2016 //

Anyone who travels a certain route begins to recognize certain things along the way, things that mark where you are in your drive, how far you have to go. It’s kind of a subtle thing where you suddenly notice something and are kind of amazed that you’ve missed it before and then it becomes something you look for. And you add to your collection of travel markers the more you drive that way.

For me, it’s been driving Highway 51 between Tulsa and Stillwater for the past couple of years. People are amazed that I prefer the old road to the turnpike – and the turnpike is fine – but I really like this old road, the same one I drove when I was in college with massive road improvements in the last 50 years, thank goodness. It was longer and more dangerous back then, more curves and curves and curves. Now it’s pretty much a straight shot from here to there and back again.

I call it my zen drive where I think and watch and look for new things along the way. Since I travel with my camera, I’ll stop and take a picture of something I want to remember (because that’s what I do). Here’s kind of a travelogue of the trip. There are some things I love that I can’t get photos of because there’s no place to stop or I haven’t stopped yet. But, you’ll get the picture.

When I leave Tulsa, I drive through beautiful historic neighborhoods before crossing the Arkansas River heading west. I’m now crossing over the railroad yards and into an industrial area. When I return, I get a wonderful view through oil refineries with trains running through and the skyline of Tulsa in the backdrop. It makes me realize how our city grew from its early days.Here’s the view when I pull up the hill into Chandler Park and look back.I’m mixing pictures coming and going, so there are views from east and west. Bear with me.

Then, I turn onto Avery Road, which winds around under Chandler Park with the Arkansas River to the north of me. This is one of the most nostalgic pieces of the trip to me, although it’s curvy and narrow. No pictures of the drive because there are few places to stop, but you have views of the river in the winter and lush greenery in the summer. There are bluffs to admire as you drive under them and colors of fall and spring to enjoy. This is entering Avery Drive from the west side as I come home. There are more hairpin turns to come.As soon as I turn off of Avery Drive, I see one of my favorite landmarks, a memory of all the years I’ve driven this road. It’s the Monarch Cement…what is it? Pretty cool anyway. In the summer, it’s covered in greenery.Coming from the west, you see it in full frontal, although I still can’t figure out all the words on it. Monarch Cement Co. ???? Dept. From the west, I can see it from miles away.On the straight road past that, there is usually a train either parked or passing. Who doesn’t love seeing trains? I even love all the tags left by rogue artists decorating the train cars.Next, around the corner, is the little town of Lotsee. I’ve looked it up and it’s named after the owner’s daughter. The whole place is hardly more than a few lots long along the highway as you pass the Lotsee city limit signs on each side in about 15 seconds at 65 mph. From the west, you spot the big cow sign.I’ve actually stopped in to buy pecans and they have lots of varieties in the fall. It’s a 2,000 acre cattle and pecan ranch with horseback riding added called the Flying G Ranch. I don’t think Lotsee was there, but I met her husband, the only two official inhabitants of Lotsee, OK. They are Oklahoma State University people, so we had that in common.

Over the hills, past the Keystone dam, headed for Mannford, you cross over a small part of Lake Keystone and a quick view of the lake. That’s fun as you watch the weather on the water with either peaceful calm or windy whitecaps. Heading into Mannford, I’ve started looking over for this funny sign that I noticed when I stopped there once.Awesome!

Leaving Mannford, you head into areas where your cell phone service can go in and out as you drive through hills with breaks for views across the way. As you cross Cottonwood Creek, you can see an area that links to Keystone and is sometimes dry and sometimes swampy with rainfall. Somewhere along the way, you see this row of mailboxes for inhabitants you can’t see from the road.I also met these guys last week around that area. A couple of weeks before, some of them had escaped somewhere and I found myself passing three black cows as they ambled along the shoulder of the road.Then I cross the Cimarron River, which has the most beautiful view of bluffs, shadowed in the morning and glowing in afternoon light. I look both ways as I cross over. Cimarron reminds of the land run and the book and movie Cimarron and Oklahoma in general. Miles past this, the road rises and I can look to the south when I’m heading east and see where the river turns into the countryside.One of the great surprises of the drive came this winter when I noticed a herd by the side of the road and turned back to check it out. Sure enough, it was a herd of bison near the crossroads where you can turn towards Oilton. Now I check for it all the time, coming or going. Once I pulled over to watch them and a highway patrolman stopped to see if everything was ok. That was a nice feeling because he was thoughtfully checking on me and I told him I was just watching the bison. He may have thought that was a bit much, but I always find them interesting.This stretch of highway I drive is only about 65 miles and I see all kinds of animals. There are lots of cows, horses, sheep, goats, and even a llama. As I head towards Yale, OK, home of the great athlete Jim Thorpe,

This building as you come to Yale from the east is intriguing. The basketball goal with the old building is a story of some kind out here along the road.Coming into Yale, I always enjoy this place, whatever the weather. Peacefully falling down in its own time.I slow down as I come into Yale because I know there is a watchful policeman there and I’ve been to their traffic court once (enough). Going slow, I noticed this patriotic painting.Leaving Yale, I cross Salt Creek and am always happy to see the herd of donkeys in a field. There have been adorable babies, but I haven’t caught a picture yet. How many animal herds have I mentioned in this relatively short drive? Not to mention chickens. Past the Salt Creek Arena, I drive through woods where I once saw a deer step out in the early morning until I reach the intersection where my Sky Barn is seen best as you drive from west to east. I did a whole post on it.Past that are the archaeologically interesting Twin Mounds, where remnants of Civil War camps have been found. You only catch a glimpse of both of them coming from west to east. I learned about them when I stopped at the best little museum and antique shop ever, which is a couple of miles off of Highway 51 near Stillwater. I’ll have to write a whole post on this treasure of Oklahoma regional history.Next is one of the goat farms I pass. A new landmark for me is this field that I’ve passed so many times. Recently, I was driving on a clear day and the sky became hazy, smoky for no apparent reason. As I approached this place, the field had been burned in the few hours since I drove by in the morning. I’m hoping it was a controlled burn but it didn’t do much damage. Here is it is right after the burning.Within three days, I could barely tell it had burned for all the green. Amazing. About three weeks later, this same spot looks like this. Gotta love nature.When I pulled off to take this picture, I spotted a Scissortail Flycatcher, Oklahoma’s state bird, on the fence.I now look for this house as I pass. I saw it once and couldn’t find it again for awhile. Now I know the landmarks to look for so I can nod as I pass. In the country, you don’t have to worry about taking down old houses and barns. Charming really.

On the final stretch into Stillwater, I pass a farm with several pumpjacks on Clay Road (my son’s name was Clay). I always look for this one to read the sign and smile. This week, the Indian Paintbrush is in bloom. Gorgeous.

Sometime, I’ll do a post on the different pumpjacks, but this time I’ll just show you more Indian Paintbrush.Next is the road to historic Ingalls, location of one of the great western gunfights. I wrote a post about that awhile back.

And so my drive goes, never knowing who I will meet along the way……driving into Stillwater where I pass this new exciting Transformer by the road…and see these familiar structures ahead. My final destination is Oklahoma State University with its beautiful campus, but this is the story of the road I take. I travel with beautiful sunrises… and sunsets…This trip reminds me to slow down and see all that is around me and notice something new every time. I travel from the city to the country to college town and back again. I drive through the Creek and Pawnee nations. I go from oil refineries and railroads to granaries and see the history of our state unfold before me. There are hills, woods, plains, fields and crops, farms, ranches, small towns, lakes and rivers, all changing with the season and the weather, different on cloudy days or different times of day when the slant of the light accents different objects and views. The skies are wide open and everything is there to remind me I’m alive and so glad to be here!

Tags Indian Paintbrush, Keystone Lake, Mannford OK, Oklahoma, pumpjacks, Scissortail Flycatcher, Stillwater OK, Tulsa OK, Washington Irving Trail Museum, Yale OK

Categories History, Nature, Photography, Places, Reflections, Seasons, Travel

10 Tips for College, which is NOT the real world

April 26, 2016 //

I wrote this for a friend’s daughter several years ago & ran across it today. With grandkids leaving for college, I’m going to share it!

10 Tips for College, which is NOT the real world

Right now you think your parents are pretty smart. In a couple of years, you’ll think they’re REALLY dumb. In about 4-5 years, they’ll get smart again.

Take care of your stuff. You’ll meet people who like to “borrow” or who just like to steal. Don’t loan your clothes, jewelry, deodorant, toothpaste, CDs – well, just about anything. LOCK YOUR DOOR WHEN YOU’RE GONE.

When you’re home, don’t act like visiting royalty. You’re NOT a guest. Get over yourself!

Use your head when meeting people. This goes for students, professors, bosses, everyone you meet. There are people who are up to no good at all levels. Don’t do anything in exchange for a grade or to move up that you wouldn’t do otherwise.

Make it to class. I don’t care what the teacher says – be there. They notice & sometimes it’s worth a lot come grade time.

There’s a lot of activity after midnight. While “nightcrawling,” take extra care.

Choose roommates carefully. Just because they’re fun to be with doesn’t mean they’re fun to live with. This advice will come in handy when you want to marry, too.

If you meet someone you’re attracted to and he/she is possessive, angers quickly, is abusive, alternating with being charming, RUN. Don’t think you can change this person. If you get involved before you realize these traits, get help. Tell someone you know and trust and get help immediately. This is a dangerous situation.

Make your bed everyday. It makes your room look neat & clean, even if it isn’t.

NEVER AGAIN WILL YOU HAVE THIS MUCH FUN. NEVER AGAIN WILL YOU BE ABLE TO TAKE NAPS THIS LONG OR THIS OFTEN. NEVER AGAIN WILL YOU BE THIS YOUNG! ENJOY YOURSELF!

Tags college, Graduation, Real World

Categories Events, Family, Memories, Reflections

The Kicking Fields

April 12, 2016 //

Last week, I watched my youngest grandchild play in her first soccer game. They had two practices and were ready to take on the game as only a bunch of kindergarteners can, not knowing what they didn’t know. The parents and grandparents had little expectation and it was all fun. When I later asked mine what her favorite part was, she said scoring the points. They didn’t score any, so that’s that. Here she is getting close to the action. She also played goalie for a quarter, which I think was maybe 5 minutes. As I was turning out of the park, I had a sudden memory flash. Wow! This was my, counting in my head, 12th child to watch play soccer, including my four children and my eight grandchildren. Wow. This was the first organized sport for all of them and the only organized sport they all played. Wow. I spent time processing this as I remembered so much.

My oldest daughters started playing way back in the last century, back in 1976. Ancient times compared to the students I work with who were born in the late 199os. Soccer had been introduced to Tulsa the year before so none of us remembered or knew too much. Soccer was a game we played in gym class back in the 1950’s, or mid-century as it now referred to.

Anyway, my two oldest daughters were in 2nd grade and kindergarten that first year and played on the same team, the Crickets. There were no places to buy uniforms so our clever coach either made little weskits for them to wear over a shirt with shorts or found them somewhere. I’m not even sure they had soccer shoes, but I remember shin guards. I guess someone lined the fields. We didn’t have fancy game chairs and the kids played on full size fields, so there was a whole lot of running involved. And clover picking. Not much yelling since nobody understood the rules yet. That was later…My oldest daughter went on to play soccer and tennis and swim competitively. She liked it, but sports weren’t her all-consuming love. She had fun teams, mostly with girly names.

My second daughter took to soccer with a passion. Although she swam competitively and learned other sports, she played soccer as a goalie all the way through college, getting a partial scholarship at a time when schools were just starting to offer them. She played after college and played with injuries until she had to stop. Then she had kids and became their coach and coached others and became a soccer mom. She was definitely our soccer kid!Our third daughter started playing in 1978, when she was 5. Her first team was the Lollipops. She was later a Tiger and on other teams, and also swam competitively, but eventually took up softball and track in high school. She’s now a runner and has been in a couple of marathons. Our son started playing about 1980 when he was five. I don’t remember if this was his first team, but I love that my skinny boy was once an Incredible Hulk. He swam, although I wouldn’t say he was competitive, and played t-ball, basketball, football, and ran cross country. To be honest, he was better at art and comedy. When he died at the age of 35, one of his friends remembered him as the worst player on the soccer team, but the most fun. That was pretty much his story all along. He did win class elections, so there was a bit of competition in him!By the time we had grandkids, soccer was so established and was definitely still the place most kids started team sports. Now they could sometimes find teams when they were 3 or 4 years old playing on little fields. I think all of ours were at least 5 or in kindergarten, but they all started young. Our oldest, who is now a freshman in college, was a big kid and ready for sports. He played soccer for several years as well as baseball, basketball and football. Baseball was his favorite and he played through high school.Our first three grandsons were all born within 8 months of each other. The next two are graduating from high school next month. The second one is the son of my soccer playing second daughter, so he was on the field with Coach Mom. Guess what?! He’s almost 19 and still playing, although I think his years on the field are drawing to an end. Now 6’5″ he played basketball too, although he ended up in soccer, playing on a competitive team and the school varsity team. Note Coach Mom on the sideline here.The third grandson started with soccer and t-ball and played soccer and baseball for many years. He found his calling in football by high school, ending his career last fall as the Center on the high school team. He’s into filmmaking and off to other things now. He’s about to kick the ball in this picture.You can’t imagine what a rush of blurred soccer memories this has brought back to me. Putting all these sports into the perspective of my life has been a trip of sorts. Now we’re to my fourth grandson, another son of my Soccer Mom, who played soccer, baseball and basketball until he settled on soccer, playing on competitive teams and the high school team with his brother. He’s grown almost as tall as his brother in the last year and will still be kicking for as long as he can! I’ll throw in this picture of him with Coach Mom, although I have to show one of him running. He still flies through the air at times.

My fifth grandson is about 9 months younger than the fourth and they are in the same class. This guy is our biggest kid since birth, still growing at 16 and 6″5 1/2″. He started in soccer and played soccer, basketball and baseball for many years. He only wants to play baseball now as a sophomore in high school. In fact, that’s all he wants to do and plays on a competitive team and on the school team. Anyone need a tall pitcher/first baseman to play for them when he finishes school? He started like the rest of them…with soccer.

Whew! Are you keeping up with all of this? How many patches have I sewn on uniforms? How many soccer fields have I driven to? How many half-time bottles of water, orange slices, and after game snacks have I provided? When my kids were little, I had three or four playing at once and my husband had to work on Saturdays, so I drove a lot. Games on every side of town at the same time. The only time I wanted to scream was when I heard one of my daughters say I didn’t go to her games (she said this as an adult). Dang! I didn’t miss many! Really now.

The next two grandkids are now in 8th grade, in the same class, at the same school as the rest. It’s a combo middle/high school where three of my children and three of my kids’ spouses graduated. The girl, the third child of my soccer mom daughter, is now playing soccer, basketball, volleyball, and, are you ready?, shot put on the track team. She’s the envy of her youngest cousin who now has trophies and medals in her eyes after seeing a picture of her idol with a medal around her neck and the team trophy awarded to her for her work as goal keeper. She was into it from the start.

She’s only about 3 weeks older than her cousin, who is in the same class. He started with soccer and has played baseball, basketball and football. He’s now playing baseball most of the time on a competitive team. I guess he’ll go out for varsity baseball and play with his cousin next year. When these youngest two (not counting the kindergartner) began, they were on the same team with Coach Mom coaching. She became Coach Aunt Robin at that time. Here they both are, jumping for joy at the same age my youngest is now.

All these memories rushing in. So many trophies and medals. So many games and tournaments.

The meaning I get from this is that I am the luckiest person in the world. I am still alive and healthy and have seen all of them play their games and enjoy all their activities from sports to singing to art and dance. Does it get any better than this? I don’t make it to every game because that would be impossible with all the sports in all the places with all these kids, but I see enough to bask in their enthusiasm and take pride in their abilities.

I’ve watched my children and grandchildren lose, pout, stomp their feet, cry, laugh and enjoy the wins. I’ve watched the kids do the “good game” hand slap walk across the fields with the other team and walk back to their parents with either the joy of victory or the sting of defeat. The best is the beginners who haven’t figured it out yet and run off the field happy either way the game ended.

It’s been fun to be on the sidelines all these years. You know, it’s not too long until there may be another generation for me to follow to the kicking fields. I hope I can make it because won’t that be the best ever?

Tags grandkids, soccer, Sports

Categories Entertainment, Family, Memories, Reflections, Sports

The world in my pocket

April 7, 2016 //

My phone was dead. Dead, dead, dead.

A dead phone caused a real sense of loss, if not panic. Not a big panic, but a realization of being isolated.

As I spent hours without a phone, I reached for it over and over. I needed to check the weather, my calendar, look for a phone number, text someone that I was going to be late, check for a work email. Gad. I couldn’t take a picture or call someone or check Facebook or Instagram. I couldn’t find a place on a map or play a game to kill time or check the hours a museum was open. If my tire was flat, I couldn’t call AAA. I couldn’t call for help if I was in trouble. I couldn’t see how many steps I’d walked or how many calories I’d consumed or make a note of a place to visit or add to my grocery list.

I’m 70 years old and have lived many decades without a cell phone. Last week, a friend and I were trying to remember how we found anyone when we were in college. Our dorm had a phone on each hall for incoming calls only. There was a bank of pay phones on the first floor to call home. Many a stack of nickels, dimes and quarters were used to call my boyfriend far away. You could pick it up and dial (yes, dial) the operator to have her call your parents collect. There was no direct dial in those days, although I’m sure young people today have no idea that direct dial was a big deal when it appeared. I guess we walked across campus to talk to our professors or our friends or to ask for a date or to get a ride home (not many students had cars). How did we manage?

Omigosh – the waiting for phone calls. You couldn’t leave home if you were expecting someone to call for a date or a job interview or if a doctor was going to call. My boyfriend (later husband) had to let me know when he was going to call while he was in the Navy and I would sit there waiting for the phone to ring so that we didn’t miss each other. The waiting…waiting…waiting… waiting for the phone to ring! So much time spent waiting, waiting, waiting.

We had scant weather reporting, paper calendars, and cameras with film and flash bulbs. Very archaic, hunh?

How did we manage all those years in an emergency? Not so well, I’m sorry to say. I can remember taking my daughter and two or three of her friends to a high school student council convention on the other end of the turnpike. About 2/3 of the way there, my car’s engine died. It was summer in Oklahoma so it was hot. I had to send my future son-in-law walking down the turnpike a mile or two or three to find a phone to call my husband to come get us and call for a tow truck. We sat in the car for a couple of hours, minimum. Another time, I was driving on the expressway on the outside of town and had a flat tire. Two of my children were with me and I had to stay with the younger one while the one in high school ran across 6 lanes of busy freeway to walk a mile to a phone to call my husband for help. Bless that man’s heart. We always said the world was a better place with AAA and cell phones.

On the down side of cell phones, I’ve been caught in situations where there was no service. On a sunset jeep trip along the rim of the Grand Canyon, our tour jeep engine died, leaving a dozen of us in the forest on our guide’s off road route as it was getting dark. Not only did the jeep have no tools and no radio, but none of us could get cell service. The image of our driver climbing a tree, hoping to get service, is forever embedded in my memory in a funny way. He was desperate. Eventually, one of the passengers was able to text his son in Louisiana, who called the jeep company in Arizona to send someone looking for us. We never did see the sunset and our money was refunded and we all learned to never go on a tour without making sure they have supplied the guide with radios and tools. We also learned that sometimes texts go through when calls can’t.

But, we are all dependent on our phones these days, no matter whether we wish we were or not. If you think your world was better without it, you’re probably sitting in your house doing not much these days. In my no phone situation, I learned that I am suffering from digital amnesia, a new term which describes the fact that we don’t even try to learn phone numbers or information that we can easily access on the internet. I couldn’t even think of my children’s phone numbers to call them and there are no cell phone books to look them up. And where would I find a pay phone (do they take coins or debit/credit cards these days?) to call them? Asking to borrow someone’s cell phone is kind of personal, isn’t it?

All my critical information was also stored on my iPad and my computer, so I went home and got my iPad so I could text or FaceTime or email in an emergency. And it had all my addresses and phone numbers. I got a new phone to replace my dead one easily, went home and synced it to get all my information back and was back to slightly normal in a hour or so. I did have to keep authorizing apps as I went along. Nothing was too difficult to get me back up and running.

What I learned from this is that I need to keep a few phone numbers on a piece of paper in my purse, even though I love the fact that my phone takes so little room compared to the address book I used to carry with me. Either that or I need to memorize a lot of numbers and my brain my be digitally changed to make that more difficult if the studies are correct. That’s ok. There is plenty, too much, stuff in my old brain and it already takes me longer than it used to as I sort through my mental files. By the way, that’s legitimate. They are now proving that old people aren’t necessarily forgetful but are slower to remember because there is so much in there! I believe that and it’s sure better than the alternative theories about we elderlies (as a friend calls us).

My land line is virtually useless these days, kept only because I have had that phone number for almost 50 years and in case of loss of power or cell coverage. You have to keep a phone with a cord to plug in for emergencies as loss of power makes the new cordless phones useless too.

Would I go back to the simpler days of being away from my phone? Are you kidding? If I want to be away from it, I can turn it off for a while. Otherwise, being in touch with my family and friends, having a world of information in my pocket, knowing I can at least hopefully text in an emergency and get help, having a camera and pictures always with me, and all the other basic important and not so important things I carry is terrific. We can remember but we can’t go back. We can escape to quieter pastures for reflection and restoration, but our worlds are a little busier and we have ways to make our lives a little easier. Thank goodness!

Tags cell phone, pay phone, telephone

Categories History, Memories, Photography, Reflections

The Sky Barn

April 3, 2016 //

On my weekly travels from Tulsa to Stillwater and back, I have certain landmarks I always use to mark my way. There’s something comforting about seeing a familiar place in every season, always there to show me how far I’ve gone. Much more fun than mile markers, don’t you think?

One of my favorites I’ve named The Sky Barn. I can barely spot the roof coming from Tulsa on Highway 51 and have to look back to see it even a little from that direction. It’s at the crossroads of Highway 51 and Highway 18 (also known as Twin Mounds Road at this spot, but that’s another story). When I return from Stillwater, I can see it peeking over the hill as I pull up to the 4-way Stop.See why I call it The Sky Barn? There’s just something about it that intrigues me.Months go by and I always look over at it with a feeling of affection.

A few weeks ago, I decided to explore it more closely.The closer you get, the more you can see why the sky shows through. I ventured onto the property and towards the barn. Nobody came out of the nearby house to ask what I was doing, so I drove in and turned around. Here’s the first side view.Now it’s looking like a piece of folk art. When I got past it and turned around, I got the close up front view, complete with the cool cars rusting in front of it.What can you say? I love it! Next, I drove to the road behind the property……to get the back view.Now you know my Sky Barn, so full of character. In the city, it would be urban blight. In the country, it’s part of the landscape that fuels my imagination and feeds my heart.

Tags Highway 51, Oklahoma, Sky Barn

Categories Places, Reflections, Travel

Facing my prejudices…

March 15, 2016 //

Trying to make sense of the hatred in the world, all parts of the world, I have to take some responsibility and look inside myself to see my own prejudices and figure out where they come from. I don’t consider myself prejudiced, but I am. I’m prejudiced now in different ways than I was when I was a a child, a teenager, a student, a wife and mother, an adult.

As a child of the 1940s and 50s, I don’t remember hearing anyone in my family say anything hateful about people of another race. We learned the song, “Jesus love the little children,” with it message of loving all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white. That is ingrained in me too. Of course, we didn’t see many people of other races or cultures here in Oklahoma. The only African American people I knew were called Negroes and they worked for us at home or in clubs or other places. We loved them, my parents valued their help and worked with them, and I only knew they didn’t have as much as we did and lived across town in poor areas. I wasn’t exposed to many religions other than protestants and a few Catholics until I was in junior high. I wasn’t protected – it’s just the way it was.

My parents grew up in the depression. My father was from Kentucky originally and his father’s family had owned slaves in earlier times. I don’t say that with pride, but it’s a fact that I have to acknowledge, cringing as I write the words. From what I can tell, and I hope I’m not making this up, my family were kind people in spite of this. My father’s mother’s family and my mother’s family were farmers and lived a very rough life. They may have been tough or beaten down, but I don’t think there were too many mean people in there. Maybe a mean drunk or two.

Another song that comes to mind is from “South Pacific,” a beautiful play and film about prejudice that I saw as a young girl. I also read Michener’s “Tales of the South Pacific,” upon which it was based. The song is “You’ve got to be carefully taught.”

You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year,
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

I’m lucky my family wasn’t crawling with hatred that they passed on to me.

Growing up, I was a pretty quiet little girl, reading a lot and hearing many things. I was also the kind of girl who would never hurt anyone’s feelings on purpose. If my parents taught me that, I thank them. To this day, at 70, there is nothing that hurts me more than to think I have hurt someone else by something I said or did.

There’s no way I can pretend that I don’t know all the racial and ethnic stereotypes out there. I’ve heard all the jokes and laughed at them stupidly, although never in the presence of someone who would be hurt by them. Like that isn’t just as bad, playing to the prejudices of others. I cannot honestly say that I don’t have those horrible stereotypes or feelings ingrained enough in me and that they don’t come to the surface when I meet someone new or see someone on the street. They range from being uncomfortable with the handicapped to thinking through all the implications of someone’s color or nationality to dumb blondes and stupid rednecks. I’m pretty universally prejudiced, I guess.

I hate that I’m writing this, hate that I’m putting this all out there, but it’s true. Maybe I’m justifying it, but I have to give myself a little credit, too. My parents traveled with us and introduced us to many types of people. There were always lots of magazines around and I read them all, locking away all kinds of information that challenged the other things I’ve read. My mind is a mishmash of the bad and good things about people.

I’ve learned that the best way to overcome the things you fear is to meet them head on. This includes meeting people, putting a face with the prejudice that lets you put it all in perspective. I’m not perfect, but I can honestly say that I have friends from almost all races, if I’ve had the pleasure of being introduced to them. I have friends of every religion and belief, whether I agree with it or not. And, yes, some of them fit the stupid stereotype and remind me of why it exists in the first place. The good thing is that I have friends that I can talk to about these things. I can only imagine what their presupposed image of me was and it probably was as stupid as mine was of them.

Several years ago, my job entailed teaching a series of programs to 2nd and 3rd graders on diversity. The classes were developed by Mr. Rogers’ group and called “Different and the Same.” The different sessions focused on stereotypes, bullying, hate crimes, celebrating your heritage, and general kindness towards others. The classes ranged from all white students to a diversity of white, Hispanic, Native American, African American and all blends. They were vocal about the things they had been taught at home, but they soaked up the lessons and understood everything we were trying make them think about. This may have been the most important work I did in my life and certainly something I’m very proud of.

The answer to my self analysis is that we have to keep working on these issues throughout our lives. We can’t give in to our fears, rational or irrational, about other people. We have to keep reaching out, meeting people, learning, and making the effort to see the world through the eyes of others. We have to understand that most of us want the same thing for our children and those we love, a safe home, education, love. We’re not really that different under the skin, are we?

I don’t know how we teach compassion and empathy. I don’t know how we teach people to love. All I know is that we have to keep trying. If not, what are we?

Tags Different and the Same, Jesus loves the little Children, prejudice, stereotypes, You have to be carefully taught

Categories Family, Reflections

Election Nightmares

March 12, 2016 //

I find myself paralyzed these days as I watch the horror of the current elections with both amazement and genuine terror. When you get to my age, you hope you’ve seen everything stupid that can happen and then this…

Trying to figure it all out, I think back to the elections of my younger days when we didn’t have 24/7 news coverage, the internet or social media. We got a little news from television, more from newspapers and magazines. I’m not advocating we go back, because we can’t, but it has definitely made an impact on how we live through the news ad nauseum as it unfolds minute by minute.

To be fair, and because I tend to want to see all sides of an issue, I try to watch and read as much as I can from every viewpoint. I had a conversation with a university student who was turning 21 and voting for the first time in a national election. His genuine confusion was interesting as he tried to make sense of anything, even with so much information all around him. The problem is that we’re pounded with it, over and over.

When I’ve worked on projects where I need to get a message to an audience, I’ve learned that you need to send it in as many ways as possible since most of us get so much information every day that we may miss it or put it aside. Some of my friends rarely read an email and have no idea how to tweet or text. Snail mail may work best with them. Maybe. Most of us need it all to make something stand out. Repetitive jabbing at the consciousness. Obviously, politicians embrace this technique to the extreme. No publicity is bad publicity, as they say.

So, the end result of all of this constant repetition of the confusing messages is a sense of alarm, a gnawing fear that this year’s elections are leading us to a place most of us don’t want to go. Every day is some new trigger from our state legislatures, the election rallies and debates, local craziness. Always something.

It doesn’t help that I’ve just finished two books that revolve around Germany in the 1930s, “In the Garden of Beasts,” by Erik Larson and “The Boys in the Boat,” by Daniel James Brown. Read them both. You’ll learn from the first one and feel better about being human from the second. My brain is full of images of Hitler’s speeches inciting the crowds to follow him blindly into the evil chaos that was to come. Do we never learn from history?

I understand being fed up with the powers that be. When did we become a country that only worked for our political parties and not for the people? What is this stalemate that has been created in state and national legislatures where you can’t vote for your conscience or for what you know, only for what your party leaders tell you to vote for – if you want to be reelected. And who doesn’t want to be reelected, especially to a national office where you get perks for life even if you’re an idiot and only serve one term. Wow!

In the past months, I’ve had nightmares, real nightmares, about Donald Trump. That’s the result of the constant pummeling at my brain that is coming out in my sleep. I need my sleep.

I have no solution for the madness that is going on around us other than to be careful with your votes. I’m not even sure I want you all to vote if you’re going to continue voting the way you have been. “The people speak” isn’t as reassuring as it used to be.

Last year, one of my favorite movies was Disney’s “Cinderella” with its message: Have Courage and Be Kind. My new mantra.

Right now, I’m going to look away from all the nuttiness and say goodbye to Winter with it’s slanted light and lovely images through the bare skeletons of trees…

…and say hello to Spring with its burst of Hope we need today and every day. Maybe the Spring rains will wash away some of the nastiness that is creeping into our souls.

Tags Cinderella, Daniel James Brown, elections, Erik Larson, In the Garden of Beasts, spring, The Boys in the Boat, winter

Categories Books, Nature, Reflections, Seasons

O’er the land of the free…

February 25, 2016 //

When you drive on the same road a bunch like I do, you look for different things all the time. Right now, I drive about 70 miles a couple of times a week between Tulsa and Stillwater, Oklahoma, on Highway 51, which takes me from a city, through an industrial area, 2 small towns and rural areas to a university town. I like this road, where I can travel at a reasonable speed and think, better than the turnpike with trucks buzzing by as I zoom from place to place. It’s kind of my zen time.

Among the common things I see are American flags and I vowed to count them some day. Last week, on a very blustery day when the flags were flapping in the wind, I counted 53 flags on my drive, ones that I could see from the highway or the streets I was on. That’s a lot of flags, I think, considering there were a lot of miles of open area along the way.

There were flags in front of government buildings and schools, of course, along with flags in small towns.I had to turn off the road to get the full effect of this one with its little State of Liberty.In a university town, you get a lot of flags on one pole…I’ve lived through a lot of decades to see the flying of flags come and go in popularity. There were flags flown after World War II, flags burned during Viet Nam, flags everywhere after 9/11, times when it was fashionable to fly your flag and times when it was not so popular.

It seems right now that flags are in a middle period. We’re not wearing them as patterns on our clothes or jewelry or flying them at home so much unless it’s a holiday. Last week, I saw flags in front of industrial areas or businesses, which I guess proclaims they are proud to be doing business in this country. The winner, if there was a contest, was a cigarette shop in Stillwater with four flags flying in front. There were flags in front of fraternity houses at the university, sometimes two. Good for the boys!

The flags that touched me were the ones flying in front of modest to small homes along the way, especially the ones out in the country. I spotted one tucked back off along a rural road where it couldn’t possibly be to impress anyone. To me, these are the special flags. I pictured these families sending their sons and daughters off to the military or proclaiming that their family had always been proud of this country. I pictured them raising and lowering the flags each morning and evening (assuming that people still follow the flag rules) out in the country for their own special reasons. Pretty neat.

In an election year, you will see a lot of flags flown for sometimes self-serving reasons. I’m going to remember the flags I saw flying just because they wanted to fly them that day.

It reminds me of so much about our country that makes me proud.

Tags American flag, Oklahoma

Categories Photography, Reflections

Happy Contrails to you…

February 17, 2016 //

I suspect it was supposed to be one of those clear cloudless blue sky winter days. Just guessing.

Early in the morning, I noticed out my window the tracks of contrails, those condensation trails left behind jets flying across the sky. One plane, a tiny image far away, was climbing straight up, crossing another trail to make a cross in the sky. Hours later, I was driving out of town, when I reached a place where I could see a wide open expanse with huge designs that made me pull over. Why didn’t I bring my camera? But thanks to my ever handy phone I kept stopping to capture the show. As I drove further, I saw designs all around me, every direction. The fact is that there really didn’t seem to be any real clouds in the sky, only the fluffy condensation from the contrails. There were more and more. When I thought the sky was saturated, I noticed tiny lines forming new trails, which puffed out into the mass I was seeing.It never stopped for the hour I was driving.There would be an X in the sky in front of me…Or another burst of sky drawing. Why was the one line so wiggly?Several hours later, I returned, thinking the patterns were slowing down, but saw one after another, with a final curve before I returned home.I never did see anything that looked like a natural cloud, only the contrail masses. I have no idea why there were so many on that day. There are those paranoid theories of the government plot to mess up our universe with chemtrails, but these seemed very innocent. There was something so joyous about the designs, like the pilots were children playing with a blank canvas of sky. It was amazingly fun to watch, incredibly beautiful, and made for a very happy drive.