Oklahoma will probably always be my home

So I find myself sitting in my hotel room at the Biltmore hotel on my last night in Oklahoma City. The Biltmore would be slumming it to some people but I like it and I don't see the need to pay more for a room when the rooms that they have do us just fine. The room I am in is nicer than some rooms I have paid twice for and they are HUGE. My mom has long since passed out in bed and is snoring so loud I think she may inhale the drapes off their rods. I mean this is some serious snoring folks. So tonight's blog post is not about my mom's snoring but about a touch of melancholy feel I have this time for Oklahoma City. I saw very good friends while in town and had wonderful times with them. My mom saw one of her good friends. I purchased more stuff than I can bring back in my one checked bag so will be making a stop at the post office before getting on the plane on Thursday. There are just stores that we have in OKC, that they don't have in the NJ or NYC area - and yes the stuff is that different. If I ever drive here I may load up the car. Things in OKC are cheap!!!

 Oklahoma Is My Home

I was driving around tonight listening to a CD on random play that I made before leaving Missouri. A song called "Oklahoma Is My Home" came on. This is a song few people know about. It was written for the Oklahoma Olympic Festival in 1989 as the end credit music for the video souvenir sold after the festival. This was six years before the Alfred P. Murrah building was bombed and well before anyone really thought that much about domestic or home grown terrorism. I was just driving around a downtown that has changed so much, but still can bring back so many memories. I passed the hotel my dad, brother, and I ate at on some Saturday mornings when I was growing up. I never remember my mom joining us. The downtown building where my high school had its prom, the convention center where I graduated not only from HS but from College. The entrance street to Bricktown where I had so many meals with my family or my friends when Bricktown was still referred to as the MAPPS project and no one ever thought it would get off the ground - but it did. The civic center where I saw my first Broadway tour of Cats in 1988 that made me choose the career I hold today - all of these memories sorta came flooding back. Even more so than before. One of the lyrics in this song is "Oklahoma is my home, where I was born and where I'll die" I don't know where I will die. It may be Oklahoma or it may be somewhere else but the lyrics in this song did hit home with me tonight. I made a little video with the song and some photos if you want to scroll down and play

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I have made it a point to stop by the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial every time I am home. I didn't know anyone that was killed, I didn't know anyone that lost family in the blast. I was asleep 20 miles away on April 19th, 1995 but was awakened by the bomb noise itself. I have always been inspired at how peaceful and calm this memorial was. Every time I go I feel this extreme sense of calmness and peace. The memorial was so wonderfully done and is an amazing tribute to all the loss that day. I can only hope the NYC memorial will be the same. So I walked through at night this time. There were two people playing a violin, and only a handful of people around the memorial itself so it was a nice relaxing place to visit. The violin music added something that i had never experienced there and was very moving.

Getting back in the car I drove out to Mustang and Yukon. The two towns where I was really raised as a child. I had been out to Mustang before to put flowers on my grandmother and dad's stones. In Mustang my dad's old business is still there but looks awful. The white bricks and the paint are peeling, the sign that used to say Mustang Medical Center that was changed years ago is sad looking. I can tell the person who took it over has a job, not a life. That office was my dad's life. He took pride in it. He took care of it. He would be saddened by how it looked this trip. On my bookshelf in my bedroom is a photo of the day my dad opened that office. It was taken in 1965 and you can tell just how proud he was. I wish the new owners felt that, but it is clear they don't. Even worse was the house I grew up in. The gate is rusting and off the hinges, the grass looks like it has not been mowed in two years, and I would say there were no less than 14 cars all over the property in various state of rust. It really looked bad and I am not sure I want to drive by again. Our house always looked so nice when we had it. I know it doesn't belong to us anymore but it is sorta heartbreaking to see it now. That was the house I lived in for almost 21 years. It WAS a great house. My grandmother's next door didn't look much better.

At any rate this blog is long - but I have decided this blog is for me. If someone reads all of this so much the better, but I can read back on this whenever I want.

Driving around Yukon tonight I saw so many places that are still there that I spent so much time in. Harry's grill which was the Yukon mining company was still there. The Wal-Mart where me and my dad did endless grocery shopping I stopped in and bought a card and thought of all the times I was there as a kid. The KFC and Long John Silvers that we ate at. The gas station that I was filling up my first car's gas tank when I heard on the radio that Princess Di had been killed in a car accident. The movie theatre I saw countless movies in. Driving on through town was the Yukon Performing Arts Center that I worked at a few shows. The catholic school we drove by all the time. Downtown Yukon was a lot the same. Little mom and pop shops that I remember going to with my Grandmother in her big blue car. The old Yukon Flour mill with its sign that was on - in bad shape but it was on. I remember standing on the street with my dad in the late 80's watching them turn on the sign. It had been years since it was on and it seemed that the whole town had turned out to watch it being turned back on. The old grocery store where my mom and dad and I shopped has been closed. Snyder's IGA was our store. I remember every time we went to get groceries that I got a free cookie from the bakery. This was just the store's policy and it was any cookie you wanted. (That was the 80's kids)

I drove back through the central part of Yukon. The car wash that my dad used to take our cars to is still there. The hair cutting place I got my haircut as a kid is now a liquor store with bars over the windows. That isn't the same,but it is the same building. The spot where the barber chair sat at is the cash register. 

As I drove back to the hotel, I made one side trip out to the Charcoal Oven in NW Oklahoma City. This place looks the same as it did when it opened in 1958. My dad and mom used to eat here all the time when they were first married. After we sold our house and moved to an apartment in NW Oklahoma City, I used to eat here sometimes after college. It is the best burger you will ever have. It also is a classic 1950's drive in. Lot's of neon and places to park and eat. I love their sign If I had been even the slightest bit hungry I would have gotten a burger and shake for old time sake. However, it has been there since 1958, surely it will be around at Christmas when I come back.


So I am leaving Oklahoma tomorrow having been here many times in the last few years. It stopped feeling like home a long time ago. When my dad sold the house and moved us to the apartment, when my dad's friend destroyed my room in the apartment and I felt like the kid that comes home from college and finds his parents have made his room a study, and when my dad finally sold his practice and moved to Dallas before he passed away in 2007. All of those things made OKC not feel like home. However, this trip I seemed to remember more or see more of the old in the new. Thinking of all the things we did here when I thought there was never anything to do. One of these days I may even live here again. I doubt it, but you just never know what life may bring and when Oklahoma may be my home once again. My first attempt at a movie is below and I hope you enjoy it.

Lesson Learned Tonight - 8/22/10 - 70 years gets tired faster than 34 years.