Number 4 August, 1996 - Oklahoma State University - Library

Fmn daily commutes on the i@orrnatio. highway to weekendjoy rides
on the World Wide Web, nothing drives today's technology like OG&E electricity
electric services
Welcome to When it came to choosing a location for a major new customer service center, America Online
recently chose Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Because AOL-like many of America's leading businesses-has discovered Oklahoma offers a whole
host of attractive reasons for business location. Everything firom one of America's most productive work
forces and cost-efficient transportation networks to a money-back guarantee that gives qualified
companies quarterly cash payments equal to as much as 5% of their Oklahoma payroll.
Which is why not only America Online, but Southwest Airlines, Staples Direct, Whirlpool and a
rapidly growing number of other companies are locating new facilities in Oklahoma.
Want to see what Oklahoma offers your company?
Contact John Reid at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce at 1-800-588-5959 or by E-mail at:
[email protected]. Or stop by for a visit on our homepage at: http://www.odoc.state.ok.us.
And log on to a very profitable future.
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-Oklahoma
The State Of American Business
C o m e to a pjace where Indians powwow,
and balerinas pirouette.
Where the old west meets the new
in our music, art and cufhrte.
A
as uptown
as it is down home. Where you can rope a rodeo hoedown, or catch a concert on the river. A Place of art and architecture.
Where Broadwa@stars,
and symphonies shme.
And Indian artists stillmold our natioe pm'dd
It's an here.
In a place as diverse and beautijd
as the heritage it embraces.
For more information,contact: Tulsa Conwntion & Visitors Bureau, Metropolitan Tulsa Chamber of Commerce
616 S. Boston, Suite 100
. Tulsa, Oklahoma 24119-1298 . 918-585-1201 . Far: 918-592-6244
OKLAHOMA
TODM Official Magazine of the State of Oklahoma
Frank Keating, Govmtor
sit our historic downtown with its unique shops and antique malls, our Simmons Center comple~-' meetings, conventions or physical fipi
u lakes anrjrparks for great family o u ~ art galleries and museum entertainment at its be& w--
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JEANNE M. DEVLIN
Editor-in-Chief
JOAN HENDERSON
General Manager
STEVEN WALKER, WALKER CREATIVE, INC.
A n Direction
NANCY WOODARD, Associate Editw LISA BREcKEmDGE, %hfanager BRIAN C. BROWN, Advertising Manager BECKY ISAAC, h t Ofie Manager JANE LEONARD, Ancillary Products MELANIE MAYBERRY, CirculationManager TRINA MILLER, O j k e Assistant PAM POSTON, Subsmiption Services Commerce
Contributing Editors
BURKHARD BILGER, J.P. CARTER, M. SCOTT CARTER, DAVID CRENSHAW, STEFFIE CORCORAN, DAVID FITZGERALD, THOM HUNTER,MAURA MCDERMOlT, RALPH MARSH,W.K. STRATTON, and MICHAEL WALLIS Interns
SHANA BAGGERLY SCOTT BEEN LISA NNARD Contributing Staff PAM FOX, ESTHER WARD, Accounting Tourism a d Remeation EDWARD H. COOK, E*ecutive Director Tourismand Recreation Commission LT. GOV.MARY FALLIN, Chairman PATIT ROLOFF, Secretary STAN CLARK MEREDITH FRAILEY JONATHAN D. HELMERICH JOE MARTIN KENNETH R SCHRUPP JOHN WEST ROBERT E. YOUNG *
*C
C
*
It's not like any museum I've ever seen! We can
touch & play and imagine life in a child-size town!
Come and experience it for yourself!
C
C
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1714 HIGHWAY 9 W
SEMINOLE OK
(405)382-0950
HOURS OPEN:
-TUES-SAT 1 0-5,
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............................ Oklahoma
Today
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Oklahoma City Advertising Sales Office,P.O. Box 53384,
Oklahoma City, OK 73152,(405)521-2496or (800)777-1793.
Oklahoma Todav (ISSN 0030-1892)is oublishedbimonthlv in
February, ~pril:~Ae,August octbb;, and ~ccemberby&
State of Oklahoma, Oklphoma Tourism and Recnation Department, 15N. R o b i n , Suite 100,P.O. Box53384, Oklahoma City, OK 73152, (405) 521-2496or (800)777-1793. Subscriptionprices: $13.50 per year in U.S.;
$20.50 per year outside U.S.
U.S. copyright 0 1996by Oklahoma Today magazine.
Reproductionin whole or in part without permission is
prohibited. The magazine is not responsible for unsolicited
material for editorialconsideration.
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Second-dassperiodical postage paid at Oklahoma City, OK,
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City,OK 73152.
additional entry offices. Postmaster: send address changes
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Today Circulation,P.O. Box 53384,Oklahoma
OKLAHOMAII
I
1997 NATIVE
AMERICAN ART
CALENDAR
Featuring -"Doc" Tate
Nwaquaya, Hmey Pratt,
MerlincLittle Thunder,
Dana Tiger, Vanessa
Jennings, and many more
Native American Artists.
14"x 11" $12.95
OKLAHOMA ll
PhotographerDavid Fitzgerald has produced a sequel to his
stunning OKLAHOMA book Includes 144pages of
unsurpassed scenicviews of our state and its landmarks.
Coffee table size. $40.00
OKLAHOMA 1997 CALENDAR
David Fitzgerald's new calendar for 1997 features wen more
wonderful photographyfrom around the state.
13"x 11" $10.95
Order both and save! $47.00
I
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WILD AND SCENIC
OKLAHOMA
CALENDAR
byMichael Hardeman
A frequent contributor to
Oklahoma Today. Photos
of Red Rock Canyon, the
Kiamichi and Winding
Stair mountains, and
many other beautiful
locations across the state.
I
THE OFFICIAL 1997
TWISTERmCALENDAR
Dramatic photographs,
scenes from the hit movie,
and fascinating historical
details about tornadoes.
Explanations of storms,
tornadoes, hail and
lightening-great for
teachers and weather
enthusiasts. P r o d u d by
the Oklahoma
ClimatologicalSurvey.
12"x 11" $11.95
OKLAHOMA TODAY
1-800-777-1793
DREAMCATCHER
As legend has it, when placed at the head of one's bed, bad dreams are caught and held in the webbing while good dreams spiral back to the dreamer. Handmade with all natural materials by Oklahoma Native American artists. 6" tall. $19.95 J ROUTE 66 LANDMARK
SERIES T-SHIRTS
100% heavyweight cotton with twocolor print on the back and Rt. 66 logo
on the front.
-Round Bam in Arcadla.
-Blue Whale in Catoosa.
S-XL $12; XXL $13.50
I
ROUTE 66:
THE MOTHER ROAD
This definitive anthology by Tulsan
Michael Wallisis loaded with
photographs and lore.
HB $35.00; PB $19.95
A VERY SMALL FARM
by WilliamPaul Winchester
An eloquent cloth-bound
journal spanningtwo years of
daily life on the author's
Collinsvillefarm.
$17.95
AUNT BILL'S
BROWN CANDY
OKLAHOMA
VIDEO
This wonderful video
was produced by the
Oklahoma Heritage
Association in
cooperationwith the
Oklahoma Tourism
and Recreation
Depment. The film
traces the history of the
state and contains
fascinating historical
information about the
people, places, and
events that have helped
to define our state.
60 minutes, $14.95
OKLAHOMA TODAY
1-800-777-1793
a divinity, s&
with
Oklahoma pecans. Also
available: the 1992
Oklahoma Today issuewith
the recipe and a story about
the candy.
1302 candy $14.00,
With issue $16.00
ROUTE 66 POSTCARDS
byMichael 6 Suzanne Fikgerald
Wallis.30 Classic postcards from the
golden era of America's past.
PB $8.95
Delicious
Scents
Lost Treasure
I
T WAS THE KIND OF FIND EDITORS DREAM ABOUT: A LONG LOST,
unpublished manuscript by a greatAmerican author. In this case, Oklahoma's
own John Joseph Mathews, the Oxford-educated scientist and poet who grew
up in Osage County and who over the course of his life wrote historic novels about
the Osage Nation that rival Michener's for detail and breadth.
And it was all in a box.
Debbie Miles' box, to be exact.
A familyfriend of Mathews' sister Lillian, Miles was introduced to John Joseph's
writing in 1973 on her wedding day, when she received an autographed copy of
The Osages from the man himself. "I'm interested in Indian history," explainsMiles,
so she immediately appreciated the unexpected wedding gift.
In the years that followed, Miles came to regard Lillian as an adopted grandma
and to gain an even greater appreciation for the talent of Lillian's brother. When
the possessions of the late author were put up for sale after his wife's death, Miles
attended both the garage sale and auction in Pawhuska. Her best purchase? An
old footlockerwith the name of her husband's uncle on it. Miles bought the footlocker for the name (seems the uncle once rented one of Mathews' old houses and
left it behind), but she treasuresmore what she
found inside: two typewritten short storiesby
Mathews, personal letters, and a stack of old
magazines with articlesby Mathews. "It had a
littlebit of everythingin it," saysMiles. "I gave
the trunk back to my husband's uncle, but I
kept all that was inside."
The existenceof the manuscripts might have
remained known onlyto Miles and her family,
however, had fate not stepped in. This past
year, Miles took a job at Osage Hills StatePark
just north of Pawhuska, where OKT contributing writer Michael Vaught is also employed.
The two got to talking one day and learned
1 about their mutual admiration of Mathews;
Vaught casually mentioned that he was writJohn losepi
ing an article about the famous author for
Oklahoma Today. "I told him," recalls-~iles," 'I have something I'll let you see.' "
She brought her box of memorabilia to work. Vaught's response when he saw
the old manuscripts? "He took one look and said he needed to callsomeone," says
Miles with a chuckle.
That someonewas Oklahoma Today, and the shrieksof joy that greetedhis news
probably reverberated all the way from our Oklahoma City offices to the wilds of
Osage County. It took some cajoling,but Miles agreed to let the manuscripts and
memorabiliabrieflyleave her possession (underOKT escort) so that we could share
them with you, our readers.
Thanks to Miles' generosity(andvaught's alertness),JohnJosephMathews' short
story "Singers to the Moon" is showcased in The OKT Summer Reader. We also
like to think that somewhereMathewsis havinga good chuckle over the whole episode.
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S e p t e m b e r
1996
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.. From our Harvest Collection
of delighlful, mouthwatering.
extra-scented candles
.
: Keepsakc Candles
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Mon-Fri 9 a m 4 3 0 pm
: Sat 10am-5
pni Sun 1 pm-5 pm
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Two Miles West Of Bartlesville
On US Hwy 60 (918)336-0351
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-Jeanne M.Devlin .
A u g u s t
h
Wed.-Sat. 10-3
and by appointment
113 E. Broadway
Drumright, Okla.
(918) 352-3313
OM Greer
GREER HOMBRES
This photograph (April, 1996) was
taken about 1915 at the natural bridge
near Vinson. The foreman at left is John
Henry "Jack" Francis. My great-grandfather Jack always said he'd lived in two
states, two territories, two counties, and
two houses-yet never moved.
Kay Adams
Vinson
Indian Summer
Bartha
CornmuniqCenter
Barth&,
N.
IndianP i Art JuriedExhibition
LPaosseTournament Powwow
Indiur Games St0ryteUi.q
Goepel Sing and Fashon Show
Demonstrationof Indian F C r a f b
Traders and Vendors I n h Food
Many Other Intereating and Fun
Ad~vitieathroughoutthe Area
TAKING EXCEPTION
I must take exception to the letter attributing taunting to Thomas and
McDonald. I don't ever recall seeing any
taunting by any O.U. player of that era. I
did see scores run up, in spite of heavy
substitutions, by the third, fourth, and
fifth strings, i.e. Sherrod, DePue, et al.
There were somemagnificentscoresby
theseguys, and there was magmficenthelp
by many, manyunsung football heroes. I
have always felt that I was indeedluckyto
be at O.U. during this era and to have the
opportunity to know many of the players
over several class years.
Besides, the writer of the letter must
have been a child when McDonald and
bunch were playing unlesshis graduation
datewas wrong (orhe took even longer to
graduate than I did).
David Byers
OklahomaCity
T.U., OSU, O.U.
When the November issue of your
magazine arrived at my home, I was delighted, of course, to read about the history and developmentof the footballprogram at O.U. Afterwards,I readyour editorial, "Equal Time," and contemplated
what a subduedexperienceit must be for
graduatesof OSU,likeyourself, to participate in such a focus on the cross-staterival. I really take my hat off to you and
your colleaguesfrom OSU in maintaining
your balance and objectivity.
Alittle historyabout the impactof O.U.
footballon my family After the arrival of
Bud Wilkinson and the emergingsuccess
of his teams, which included consistent
victories over not only the University of
Texas but also Oklahoma A&M, my dad
(aTulsa native and T.U. graduate) found
his loyaltyto the Aggies began to diminish. And so did mine. I began to look
forward with more interest to attending
school in Norman.
I retain an affinityfor OSU. First of all,
I do care about OSU's dominancein AllSports titles over O.U. It did not go un-
FROMTHE MOMENTYou ARRIVE f
Adam's Mark Hotel b
&I&& abut every
detail.Whether coordhating
a national convention or a
romtic getaway, we are dedicated to providing the bighest
level of hospitality &le.
We are tbe krgcst convention botel in
0kkbom.a.W s Mark is
the perfect choicefor any
meeting with over 38,000
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two elegant baurooms
accommodating up to 1,400guests.
I
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f i n Enjoyspacious
guest rooms, indoor/outdoor pool, fitness center
and superb dining in our elegant Bravo! Ristorante
or T i Rose lounge.
For InfonnrtirmCalk (800)616-2787
Or write To:
Indian Summer Fcrtlvd '96
Box 1027
Butlcsville, OK 74005
O k l a h o m a
T o d a y
I
I
adarn& md
t
the hotel of tu~sa
noticed to me that if one tookawaythe O.U.
football team, there were plenty of basketball, wrestling, track and field, baseball, and
tennis events where O.U. simplywas out of
its class when competing with OSU.
And I have really felt sorry for OSU's efforts to upend O.U. in football over the last
thirty-five years. So many times the Cowboys would get so close--but come away
empty. As I picked up the Sunday edition
of the New York Times one morning last
fall, I looked with interest to see what had
happened to O.U. on game day. I must tell
you, I didn't know they were playing OSU.
As I scanned the sports pages, buried
deep in the column "Around the Nation"
at the bottom of the page under the heading "In Other Games" was this announcement: "Oklahoma State (3-7, 2-4 Big
Eight) beat Oklahoma (5-4-1,2-4) for the
first time since 1976, using a strong defensive performance and one big play on offense to win 12-0 in Norman."
So much for the halcyon days of Sooner
football, insofar as the New York Times is
concerned. And I thought about you,
Jeanne. And I wondered if you might
have been at Owen Field yesterday for the
second time in your life. What a thrill for
all your long-suffering Cowboy fans!
Robert P. Bowles
New York City
I did not experience it firsthand, but
being a loyal OSU fan, I, of course, believe
the win is a harbinger of thefuture.
O.U. vs OU
I was just looking through a stack of
old magazines when I ran across the November 1995issue. I then readyour column, "Equal Time." This touched on
such an important theme that I had to sit
at my computer and write you this instant.
The way so many OSU fans refuse to
support O.U. in its out-of-state games
has always rankled. My youngest son
once attended a game at Lewis Field only
to hear all the OSU fans cheer when it was
announced over the PA system that O.U.
The Oklahoma City Memorial Issue
had just been defeated. He said he immediately lost all respect for OSU. Considering your professed loyalty to OSU, I
hesitate to describe it as meanness of
spirit, but there is definitely something
lacking at OSU for this to have occurred.
My father was from Kentucky. When
he came to Oklahoma, he came under the
wonderful spell of O.U. football. He died
in 1953 just a week after O.U. defeated
Texas. That victory over Texas brightened
his last few days-he died a more happy
man. There is no magic on earth like the
magic of O.U. football. My father and I
felt that magic before the term "O.U.
magic" was coined.
One last point. Why do you use periods in writing O.U. and not OSU?
JohnR. Landrum, D.D.S.
Shawnee
According to The Chicago Manual of
Style, which OKT follows, an acronym of
less than three letters includesperiods. (We
must confess that rule never bothers us except when applied to 0.U.)
DENTAL CARE
Years Dental n
" Twelve
Implant Experience
5
2z
w
Ei
3* Ten
Years Teachiig: ,
Crown, Bridge, and *
3 Restorative Dentistry 5. .
This critically acclaimed 1Ibpage
edition summarizesthe events of
April 19, 1995, and paystribute to
the victims of the explosion.
Sensitive photo and story
selections make it an appropriate
teaching tool for all ages.
In addition to famous and
previously unseen photographs,
the issue contains 168 victim
memorials with photographs,
transcriptsfrom the prayer
service, eulogies by President
Clinton and Governor Keating,
speeches, proclamations, and
resolutionsfrom the days and
months f d m i n g the disaster.
-Avery limited number of hardcover issueswill be available
on November 15th. Order now to resenre your copy.
50 S&H per copy
1
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Hardcover -$25.00+ $2.50 S&H per copy
Use the order form in the back of the issue, or call us with your credit card order.
(405) 521-2496 or (800) 777-1793
A portion of the proceeds from each issue sold goes to the Governor's Victim and Familv Relief Fund
August
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September
1996
N
State
JeffreyT. McCorrnick DDS $
d
charter c o m o n s office park
304 NW 13th St.
Suite 100
OKC, OK 73103
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The sweet smells.
: COIO~S.
and shapes of :
the garden inspire
a crop of Oklahoma
candles.
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ORNAMENTAL GRAPES
. Candles are Alice and Katherine Ririe's specialty,
. but the mother-daughter team couldn't resist
fashioning wax into this duster of grapes suitable
for the neck of a good bottle of wine. Keepsake
Candles, $3.50.
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(SMELLING)
STRAWBERRIES
Alice Ririe made her
first candles for a
church bazaar in 1969,
never dreaming they
would form the roots
of a company that now
sells 130,000-plus
handmade candles a
year. (She started in
her kitchen, moved to
the garage, and now
operates in an old
&.) Strawberries,
$12-$16.
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A
L{
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..............
phy by FRagwald Assacha
THE GREAT
PUMPKIN
The idea for a line of
garden variety candles
came from a pumpkin
the Riries made for
Halloween and
Thanksgiving. The
pumpkin patch led to a
full garden, and the rest,
as they say, is history.
Pumpkins,
$6-$16.
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WALL FRUIT
Though the Riries
(mother Alice and
daughter Katherine)
concentrate on
candles (their shop is
a candle lover's
paradise with candle
*kings,supplies, and
creations from around
the world), occasion-
:
. Keepsake Candles,
. located in the Osage
hillswest of
Bartlede, gives free
tours weekdays at 11
a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m.
Red pepper, apple, and
pear candles, $12-$16.
LEND ME YOUR EAR
No one can dispute how
sweet a corn patch smells in the early morning, but
- corn as a scent? Well, yes.
One ear, 5"x 3 1/2",
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$16. (918) 336-0351. ,' *
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August
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September
1996
ONE HOT TOMATO
For gardenerswho each summer lose
tomatoes to hornworms, a tomato that
will never disappoint. (A thick shell is
iilled with softer wax that can be
replaced as it burns.) Keepsake Candles,
Rt. 3, Box 8970, Bartlesville, OK 74003.
$6-$16.
FLYING
THE
FRIENDLY
ACR
LOOK, UP IN THE SKYIT'S A BUTTERFLY!
SKIES
Oklahoma? butterfly
population can be divided into
two groups: residents and
visitors. Those that call the state
home are most commonly seen in
gardens-particularly gardens
like the OKC Zoo's that are
designed to attract butterflies.
The visiting butterfliesare
usuallyjust on their way
somewhere else-most often
Mexico in thefall or parts north
in the spring.
Among the most likely to be
spotted in our skies:
Monarch butterflies, which
migrate through Oklahoma in
thefall on their way to Mexico.
(It isn't unusual on afall
afternoon to look up at the sky
and see hundreds of monarchs
flying overhead.)
Cabbage white butterfly, so
named for its tendency to light
in vegetablegardens and
cabbagefields throughout
North America, the Hawaiian
Islands, Eurasia, and, yes,
Oklahoma.
Viceroybutterfly, which can
look like a monarch and act
like a monarch, but which
usuallygives itselfaway by its
prefeence for marshes,
meadows, and riverbeds.
Painted lady butterfly, which
in mostparts of the United
States is a migratory species,
but which actually resides
year-round in Oklahoma. It
too likesflowery meadows and
parks.
Giant swallowtail butterfly,
which with a wing-span o f f i e
inches qualijk as one of the
largestspecies of butterfliesin
Oklahoma--and North
America. (The name comes
from the long tail on the
buttnflvs legs.)
Coral hairstreak, common
white, and silvery blue
butterflies, all three species of
which are native to Oklahoma
and can be seen hovering
wherever lavishly colored
fragrant blooms abound.
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THE OKLAHOMA CITY ZOO OPENS A BUTTERFLY GARDEN.
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T IS THE MOST ELUSIVE OF GARDEN CROPS. JUST IMAGINE
tilling a 20,000-square-footplot knowing fullwell the harvest will eventually just blow away on the Oklahoma wind. Hmmm. Maybe growing
butterflies isn't so different from other native crops after all.
What is known is that after this summer,the Oklahoma City Zoo's horticulturists will probablybe expertson the dos and don'ts ofbutterflygardens.
The zoo opened a 20,000-square-footbutterfly garden July 19 at the site of
the old gorillabuilding; the zoo expectsthe carefullydesignedarea to housepermanentlyor temporarily-some 19,000butterfly species that either call
Oklahoma home or pass through each year. "I can't think of anythingmore
delightfulthan watchingbutterflies flutter from flower to flower," said Pearl
Pearson, horticulture curator for the zoo.
The zoo's mission for the garden, however, is about more than pleasing
the eye. Butterflies, like songbirdsand other species, are decreasing in numbers as the habitat necessary for their survival decreases. "It's real important," acknowledged, Pearson, "to have a place for them to go."
To accommodatebutterflies at the zoo,horticulturistsbuilt a puddlingpool
to serve as a water source for butterflies and planted a mixtureof more than
15,000 perennials and annuals (80 percent of which zoo staff grew themselves). Among the plants are host plants on which larva feed such as rue,
fennel, and parsley as well as verbena and hollyhocks, coreopsisand asters,
phlox and lantana that produce the
nectar which sustainsadultbutterTHE 2 0 0 . S GARDEN
flies. Because most butterflies
GROWS RIGHT UP TO
don't migrate south in the winter,
A SIDEWALK SO
the "
earden has ~ u s s w
v illow. honVlSlTORS
CAN HAVE A
eysuckle, rose of Sharon, and
viburnum to provide protection
FRONT ROW SEAT
from the harsh chill of Oklahoma
FROM WHICH TO
winds and the nectar that might
WATCH THE
otherwisebe in short supply.
BUTTERFLIES IN THEIR
Roughlyone-third of the butterNATURAL HABITAT=
flygarden is a carefulreproduction
of the Tallgrass Prairie in northeastern Oklahoma, which provides the brilliantly colored prairie coneflowers, Indianblanket, switch grass, and big blue stemgrassbutterfliesnaturally
flock to. "There is definitely a conservation message here," said Pearson.
"The destruction of native habitatsleads to the demise of native butterflies.
It's a reminder that we need to protect what we alreadyhave-our own natural habitats."
The zoo's garden grows right up to a sidewalk so visitors can have a front
row seat from which to watch the butterflies in their natural habitat. "That's
part of the adventure," said Tara Henson, public relations coordinator for
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The monarch (Danaus plexippus) butterfly can be seen over Oklahoma in thefall.
O k l a h o m a
T o d a y
Tulsa Creek Indian Community
TRADING
Ibw
SMOKE & GIFT SHOP
Beautiful HandcraftedJewelry
PendletonBlankets
Indian Print T-shirts
'% American Indian Calendars
Music and Language Cassettes
A Variety of Bingo Supplies
Competitive Prices on All Major
and Generic Brand Cigarettes
81st and R i v d Dr., Tulsa
(918)298-8912/(918)2984226
Wak in hours: M-S 8am+
Drive Thru: M-S 8am-7pn
sun:%-5pn
L
A
I
~ea~~hnb
Artjh~m
50" x 70"
Available in Cranbeny, Hunter
and Nrmy. To o e r send $40plus $4
S&H to SunnylaneUnited Methodist
Church, 2020 Sunnybne, Del Oty, OK
731 15, orfeelfreetocallorstopbyfrom
9 to 4, Mondaythrough Friday.
(405) 677-3347
Proceeds to benefit church ministries.
Touring
Attire
ACROSS THE RANGE
ian
I
These stylish 100%cotton
T-shirts, designed exclusively
for Oklahoma Today,are
available in adult sizes S-XXZ,
(terra cotta L-XXL only).
I
C o l o ~ l ~ l o o m s make a garden
a visual delight, but they'll also attract
butterflies. The best way to ensure a
bountiful butterfly garden?
Choose a site with plenty of
sunlightfor theflowers to bloom
and grow.
Testyour
every three to four
years (Oklahoma State extension
service provides soil testsfor a small
fee).
I
Sage Oklahoma .............$10
Terra Cotta Oklahoma .. $14
Wildflower ................... $15
Save the Whale ..............$12
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,-
spider mites; usepesticides
# reluctantly. (Always remove
THE MAGAZINEOF OKLAHOMA
I
".
the zoo. Elaborate mavhics and vlant identificationlabelsshowvisitors how they can create butterfly gardens at home and lead folks
through the stepsof metamorphosinginsects.
"What makes this sounique," saidPearson,"is
them-butterflies aren't attracted
] that it is a good combinationof plant and anito dull hues.
ma1exhibits."
Keep in mind the many phases of a
The primary function of adult butterflies is
butterfly's life. Incorporate both
to find a mate and reproduce. Average life
hostplants (milkweed, Queen
Anne's lace, hyacinth bean) for
span of a butterfly? Just two to four weeks.
caterpillarsand nectarplants
Given this, the best time to see butterflies at
1
(coneflowers,dianthus, daisies)for
work and play, accordingto Pearson, is early
adult butterflies.
spring to late fall. At this time, butterflies
Avoid excessive walking and
emerge from the cocoon as adult butterflies,
working in thegarden whenfoliage
and monarchs make their long migration to
and soil are wet.
Don't ignore the winter when it is
Mexico for the winter. "This will be a great
importantfor butterflies to have
place," Henson said, "for them to stop and
shelterfrom the cold and wind
refuel,
so to speak."
(especiallyon the north and west
Thezoois located at2101 N.E. 50thjust south
sides of thegarden).
of Remington Park. It is open daily 9 a.m. to 6
Use ladybugs to cwfrol aphids and
a hard blast of water to slow down
p.m. throughSeptember, 9 a.m. to5p.m. Octo-
Please add $1.50 for IML
Use the enclosed order form
or call us with credit card
orders at 1-800-777- 1793.
I
infected plants from your garden.)
Install feeding stations containing
overripeh i t as a secondaryfood
source for butterflies.
ber throughMarch (closed Christmasand New
Year'sDay). Admission is$4for ages twelveand
older, $2 for children eleven and younger and
seniors, andfreefor childrenunderage three. For
more information,call (405)424-3344.
-L.N.
Q%Z7
. ... **&&&&&&
#b%i@,&
T o d a y
THE SPORT OF KINGS
NORMAN HOSTS POLO'S SILVER CUP TOURNEY.
OR THE LAST TWO YEARS, THE BROAD ACRES POLO CLUB OF NORMAN
has quietly hosted one of the most prestigious tournaments in the sport of polo:
The Silver Cup Tournament. Founded in 1900,it is the oldest polo tournament being
played in the United States today. "I equate this to having a pro golf tournament
stop at your country club," said Broad Acres Polo Club manager Daren Livingston.
"For polo players, it's equivalent to a PGA Tour."
Norman won the right to host the tournament by outbidding other member clubs
of the United States Polo Association. But it doesn't hurt that the Broad Acres fieldbuilt on soft sand deposited through the centuries by the nearby Canadian Riveris considered one of the finest in the country, according to player and club member
Gary Nix.
The tournament will feature competitive 20-goal play, the third-highest level of
polo in the world. Thus far, it has tempted some of Hollywood's polo enthusiasts
to Sooner country-William Devane of "Knot's Landing" will emcee the gamesas well as some of the best polo athletes in the world. Among them: Andy and Billy
Busch of St. Louis (considered by many to be the best players in the world) as well as
Joe Wayne Barry, son of future USPA Hall of Famer Joe Barry. Local talent will include twenty-seven-year-oldSunny Hale, currently the top 4-goal woman player in
the world, the 1995 Woman Player of the Year, and the first woman to win the U.S.
Open, a primarily male-dominated tournament.
Hale will join her Bob Moore Cadillac teammates Ted Moore of Oklahoma, Luis
Lalor of Argentina, and Peter Orthwine of Greenwich, Connecticut, in battling the
heavy favorites-the Buschs' Grant's FarmIBud Light team. "It's a big tournament,"
said Livingston. "People make teams for this tournament to try to win it."
The Broad Acres fields, which include five enclosed horse barns, an exercise track,
a stick and ball practice field, a wooden horse and practice cage, and a clubhouse,
are located just south of Norman, one mile east of 1-35 on SH-9 at the Bob Moore
Farms. Tournament play will be September 1,4,6,8,11, 13, and 15. Admission is
free. The club is also open to the public for charity events, wedding receptions, and
parties; it is also home to the Vince Azzaro Polo School. For more information, call
L.N.
(405) 364-7035.
F
PEEL THE ORANGE
OSU TRIES ON A FLORIDA TRADITION.
T STARTED WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA'S GATOR GROWL, A .
multi-media show that put Gainesville on the map. This fall, 112 student volun- 1
teers at Oklahoma State University plan to be the first in the P;-T--lve with an event .
that will go their Florida counterparts one better.
On September 13, OSU hosts Orange Peel, a com
bination concert, pep rally, and comedy show (not
to mention a laser and fireworks show). Bill
Cosby, star of the hit sit-com "The Cosby Show"
and the new CBS series "Cosby," is the headline.
for the 7 p.m. production at Lewis Field.
Cosby will be joined by Norm McDonald of
"Saturday Night Live'' Weekend Update fame, the 1
Norman band Limbo Cafe, and Dog's Eye View.
Tickets are $10 plus and availableby calling (4
744-7100. Gates open at 6 p.m.
I
I
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OKLAHOMA
TODN
THE MAGAZINE OF OKLAHOMA
In Amish Country,
conventional wisdom
holds that doing without
modem gizmos and
gadgets does not make
one poorer; it makes
family more valuable.
By Ralph Marsh Photography by Dave Crenshaw C
OMING FROM THE EAST, THE FIRST SIGN IS JUST WEST OF
Coalgate on State Highway 131. "Caution, horse-drawn vehicles." But
there aren't any. Just farm trucks and semi rigs and vacationer cars
popping over little up-and-down hills at scary miles an hour. An Amish child
was killed by a semi rushing too fast to dodge a horse-drawn buggy, so the
buggies do not run this road so much anymore. Neighbors are hired to drive
the Amish on the busy highways and carry them to shop in more distant towns.
One more adjustment by a small church of Amish families trying to transplant
their simple, spiritual way of life from the expensive and scarce black loam
Arnishlands of the North and East to the hardscrabble hills and gumbo bottoms in the mined-over heart of Coal County, Oklahoma.
Unlikely Amish Country.
But it is.
It has no borders, electric lights shine late into the night from in between
non-Amish houses, and television sets mutter murder into the softnessof a late
evening. So it is not really a country at all as otherswould see it. Just bits and
pieces of ground gathered up into insulating islands around scattered white
houses set back from the road. They are mostly on a rise, with the fields spreading down and away so that ah Arnishman can sit in the porch swing with his
wife in the evening and listen to the children while theyplay and watch the dark
put their day's work to bed.
The children of Clan'ta.
No electricity, television, computer games, air conditioners,
or personally owned cars. Clothing is homemade and plain,
photographs are discouraged, and telephones necessary for
family business are housed in little outdoor cubicles to keep
their persistence separate from the all-important quiet of family evenings together.
Children attend eight grades-and no more-at a small, oldfashioned school set at the back of a congregation member's
property, taught by a graduate of the same school. A barn with
stalls is provided for the horses that bring the youngsters to
their class work. Buggies are parked in the field. But there are
tractors in the field now, driven by men with Amish beards,
and that was banned by the conservative community until last
year. There are gasoline lawn mowers and garden tillers, so life
is not as simple or as quiet as the Amish would have it be or as
it was when the first four families came here in 1978, looking
for land inexpensive enough and available enough that children of a family could set up housekeeping next door when
their time came. "We found out we couldn't make this set of
20
rules a thousand miles back East and come out here and live
with it," explained one community member. "And so we adjusted to where we were. We did make a lot of adjustments
along the line."
And the important things have taken root. There is a quiet
here that is more than absence of sound, allowing things to be
heard more clearly than elsewhere. Melodious pings and pongs
of wind chimes gently moved. A screen door spring complaining at being stretched. The coo of a tame dove in an airy cage
down under the hackberry tree. Children quietly exuberant
at their work. Laughter soft and hearty, and no shouting. Even
in holiday games of volleyball.
Summer wind, harsh with odors from sweltering fields,
creeps in over long, mowed lawns and softens to politeness
under expansive pecan and oak trees before pushing into immaculate and sparely furnished rooms. People who live here
are gentle-eyed and friendly. Only firm enough to keep the
non-Amish from intruding too deeply into things not meant
for them. Goals are simple. "We just hope that our family lives
O k l a h o m a
T o d a y
1
.
-
invited to mingle with the community).
The bishop is director and administrator of the church. He
is the only one who baptizes, marries, buries, and serves communion. He can expel sinners or receive back repentant members. He is shepherd of the group, but everything requires
congregationalapproval: clothing style, use of machinery, and
other rules not specifically set by Scripture.
N A BLISTERING HOT SUMMER MID-AFTERNOON,
IBen B. Troyer, spiritual shepherd of the Clarita Amish
Church, is at his daily work. The bishop is a slender man with
white hair and beard and startling blue eyes, ordained in
Ontario, Canada, before moving to Oklahoma in 1981in search
of warmer weather.
He wears a straw hat with a narrow brown headband
bleached streakywhite with salt. Narrow blue homesewn suspenders span a homemade shirt to button onto many-timespatched blue denim trousers with the traditional broadfall and
I 'We just hope our family lives are
satisfying enough to our children that
once they get old enough,,,they have
enjoyed the years we had together..+and
that is what they want.'
-Amish elder
are satisfying enough to our children that once they get old
enough and want to have family by themselves that they have
enjoyed the years we had together and the fellowship and that
that is what they want."
T
HE CLARITA AMISH LIVE ABOUT TWELVE MILES
west of Coalgate in southeast-centralOklahoma. Twenty
families, now, in a community they measure eight miles long
and four miles wide. Size is determined by the distance between
the farthest removed Amish families, because that will be the
longest buggy ride to church. The Amish church has no bbilding and wants none, because The Lord of heaven and earth
dwelleth not in temples made with hands (Acts 17:24).
They meet in their most sacred place, the family home.
The church is presided over by a bishop, two ministers, and
a deacon. AU are selected by prayer and lot and serve without
pay for life. Their faith is that God will speak through them,
whatever their qualifications or lack of them.
A u g u s t
.
no pockets showing. His shoes are high-topped black brogans
as if it were not hot enough. And he is not sweating.
He is hanging heavy leather straps which had connected the
Holstein cows to their vacuum-powered milking machines
when two non-Amish appear unannounced in the doorwayto
his milking barn. He politely asks them to please stand out of
the doorway so he can turn the cows out. And while his wife
finishes washing out the milking stalls, he leans for a moment
against the barn to see what they want. "I'm not much of a
speaker to speak to a publisher," he says. "I'd rather not speak
to them at all." Soft, good-natured laughter removes any sting
from his words. "I don't say more than I have to."
Too nice to enforce his wishes, he slides to a comfortable seat
on the ground.
"Yes or no, I can do that."
The Amish Church, you learn, is supported by voluntary
alms gathered at meetings and by assessments set by the church
on the value of members' lands. It is paid twice yearly at communion time. Gathered and handled by the deacon. The
church has few to no expenses. "We put it in the bank, and
whenever somebody is in need of help, not just here in this
church-like sometimesthey have a big accident in other communities-then we use this money to help them out. Or if we
S e p t e m b e r
1996
Success in an Amish community is measured by the number ofyoung
adults who choose to stay on-rather than move on to the outside world.
have a widow woman in our church who needs help, we use it
for that. The last year or so, we had three or four hospital bills
here in the community. We take money out of what we gather
every six months to help these families out."
Amish do not go on welfare. Do not retire on Social Security, but look to their own work and their own people, because
If any provide not for his own, and speciallyfor those of his own
house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel (1
Timothy 5%).
Children are not baptized into the church until they are old
enough to make the decision for themselves and to join the
congregation of governing adults. It usually comes around age
eighteen. Frequent association with non-Amish is not encouraged, but once a year in September,the Amish invite the public to an auction of goods and foods that provides the sole support for their little school for the followingyear and, hopefully,
satisfies curiosity sufficient to keep non-Amish from interrupting work all year on just such a day as this.
The deacon grins ruefully. Flicks his eyes over the visitor's
notebook. "You know," he says, "we lived in Texas for about
six years. Worked on a dairy down there. Them (newspaper)
fellows fiom Dallas came out there pretty near every other
weekend. We had from our house a lane to the dairy. I was
up at the dairy, and this man was standing down at the house,
and he had one of those (long lens) camera deals, and he got
my picture. It looked like I was standing right in front of him
when it got in the paper. Some of them fellows, they are kind
of. .." The words trail off before becoming unkind.
M
INISTERS' RESPONSIBILITIES ARE TO PREACH
and interpret the Bible to the congregation; to lead in
prayer by reading from the prayer book; to serve the wine at
communion; to visit the sick, widows, and orphans in the community, and to assist in marriage and burial.
Raymond Miller is a minister. He was one of the first four
families to venture into Oklahoma in 1978. His open, laughing face is fringed with the traditionalAmish beard, and on this
day, a narrow-brimmed straw hat still on his head, he is sitting in his custom woodcrafting shop amid odors of red cedar
and freshly cut grass, danghg one leg from the edge of a worktable. "The Amish church is not a bit better than the Protestants, the Methodists, or those people," he says. "We all believe
in the Holy Ghost, the Son, the Father, being baptized. The
only differencethat I could say would be our way of living. The
O k l a h o m a
T o d a y
lifestyle would be the difference. By living a simple life, we
' B living
~
a simple life, we avoid the
avoid the temptations that the world has to go through. Ifyou
have never had something, you don't miss it. None of our fami- temptations the world has to go through.
lies came in here and threw their televisions or air condition- If YOU have never had something, ers out the window. We weren't used to that, and we don't miss
it."
you don't miss it.' They do not evangelize. "Why would you want to join the
Amish church? There's a family right now that came out of
-Amish minister
nowhere and wants to join. I tell them, if you are going to
church, I see no reason to stop going to the church you are agree on, that is up to you.' We had several meetings, and we
going to. You can do the same thing in your church that we soon had power mowers, garden tillers...
"We farmed (exclusively)with horses for the first couple of
do in our church.
"If it's just because you think it is so peaceful out here years. We really all tried. Well, with good horses, we could
and...you would like to live like this, that is not enough. But if plow two acres a day, and you plow ten acres and (out here)
you feel in your heart that is the only way you can live...if God that part you plowed the first day is dried out as deep as it was
plowed. So it's just a completely different ball game than what
is the main factor...y ou would have to live that way."
we had back East.
The peace and the quiet do not come free.
"We had a meeting, and we agreed we could hire somebody
Each Amish church has its own set of unwritten rules called
the Ordnung. It is here that centuries of experience and prayer to come in here and do that for us, so much an acre. You pay
supplement the Scriptures as grindstones on which the science for your fertilizer, your seed, and it is too expensive. The farmof simplicity is honed to such fine points as pleats in dresses, ers here are primarily dairy. There are thirteen dairy farms.
size and shape of men's hats, suspenders, whether garments can We were at the point where they put everything in grass, would
not plow up anything, did not raise any crops.
be bought or must be made, usage of new farm
Bought all the things they needed. We don't feel
equipment, electrical systems on buggies, and
that a farm is a farm if a farmer is not farming.
whether shirts can have pockets on them.
With tractors, we could raise a few things for our
Twice a year-before Easter and late in the
own use: soybeans, milo. Raise stock feed, feed
fall-the families gather into special all-day
it on the farm, sell the milk. The family stays
church services two weeks before Communion
together all day."
Sunday. Ministers present the Ordnung as it was
Miller tried to farm, failed, and went to work
applied in the six months past. Living problems
for the non-Amish to make enough money to
that have surfaced in the community during the
save his home place. Then he came home again,
past six months are discussed and steps taken to
doing custom woodcrafting so he can be there
set them right, whether that means changing the
to help raise the kids and teach them the art and
Ordnung or accepting it with any difficulties it
rewards of hard, simple living. "The family
might seem to cause or moving to another
farm," he says wistfully, "would be what we all
Amish community somewhere who see with a Amish elder at audon.
prefer."
light more like your own. And there is an ur...the Lord God sent (Adam)forth from the garden of Eden to
gency, individually and congregation-wide, to reach accord.
till
the soil from whence he was taken (Genesis 3:23).
Communion is vital, and a man with anger or resentment in
"But not everybody has a farm. Working away are probably
his heart does not dare to take communion. Nor does a
troubled church. ...But leta man examine himse2f; and so let him half of the community. Usually, they go to work, and they
eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and come directly home from work, and we don't have any probdrinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself lem. Most of them are tired enough to come home after work.
"Within five years of when the settlement started, one fam(I Corinthians 11:20,29).
ily
lost their farm, let it go back. The rest of us put up a fight,
This is where decisions are made to adjust the Amish way
did
outside work and held our farms. The reason we agreed
from the black loam lands of the East to the hardscrabble hills
to
go
on and use the tractor ourselves, own the tractor, was so
of Oklahoma. "When we first came out here from Ohio,"
that
more
of our young people can stay on the farm and raise
Miller says, "we didn't have power lawn mowers. The commuthe
family
at home. Amish families are usually large families
nity where we came from didn't have power lawn mowers, no
garden tillers. We tried to mow this Bermuda grass with a push and if the man works out, that leaves the wife to take care of
the children and keep things going at home."
mower..."
To minimize the possibility of temptation to use the tracHe chuckles wryly.
"I have a brother-in-law that is a bishop; I have another tors to replace traditional horse and buggy travel, the church
brother that is a minister; I have two brothers that are bishops council ruled that the tractors had to be on steel-rimmed
back East. I asked them, 'What do you think?' They said, 'Hey, wheels covered by uninflated tires, making them unsuitable for
you are a thousand miles out there. Whatever you guys can road travel. "You can go out," says one Amishman, "but you
-
- -
-
August
.
September
1 9 9 6
get warm. But his eyes twinkled like a child's
me about ping back. "We're buildroom right alongwith it. There'll be a breezeen the two, but I still won't have to get
aren't going to go out and run around more than
The waving room is supposed to be
because that is rough on yaur tractor. It causes p
"There are a few places (other Amish communities) where insulatedjust aswell as the house, so 1canlceepit warm in there.
they have the balloon tbes and too many times, 'Iwant to go h d &at way, if it's cold, I'll just stay in the house.
WcdFead that part of it, goingup there where it is cold, but
over to the neighbor's a little bit, and the horse is out in the
pasture, so I'll just take the tmctor.Tyou have them on steel thechildrenare up there, the grmddddren They're just about
wheels, you don't want to grow up so big beca& the wheels as far apart as that house out there, maybe. We are going tobe
Wfwtay between the two."
wouldn't s t a d up."
And that is a major part of the Amish dream.
Those m e e t s of the church who could not liwepeacefdly
Ag for the Oklahoma Amish, "The community is growing
with Amishen drivh@actors in the field m o d an to ofther
Amish c o ~ u n i this
h p'ast year. The decision was mete stronp," says Miller. "It is a nice size. For along time we were
here with just ten, twelve families, When you drive
collectivdy to own tractors and individually whetha @stay.
Either way, the hmrt was cleared of anger and r e m a ~ t , dQThm themad, you see new buildings have been put up in the
Communion ccruld be talcen. The number of M m inl&e h t t m years. When we &st moved oat here, there wasn't any
community dropped kom,twenty-seven to twenty that F~
mawy to put up any buildings."
But new buildings are not at the heart of the dream. Miilds
although not all of thornwbg left did so because ofthe elfis rooting well in the little popover hills of southeast-centd
in the rules. Some oftheismoveswere part oft h e k ~ afIiEe:
y
Dan Mast, a gentlelittle weaver, turned sixty-four tbat year Oklahoma.
and went back home to Iowa, where his two Amish daaghters
At the "next place on down, on the left," from the woodshop, Edwin Miller,
and sons-in-lawwembuilding for him and hiswifealittle k i n e ~~g
Imks W e through the
midway between theirs. Mast was stricken with polio when he screeneddoor of his millring shed befure pushing it open and
turned twenty-one, and cold weather hurts him, so he came stepping onto the sun-blistered concrete apron outside with
At the annual Clttrita auction, it is &mtto arrive
disappear by 8 am.-hottwnrrBe sausages and q
wf
Oklakoma
Today
the slow, handsome grin of a movie cowboy. But he wears the
traditional Amish beard and clothing, augmented today with
a wide supporting belt to help him work despite an emergency
appendectomy he had less than a week before. Two blondehaired, blue-eyed daughtersromp around him, barefoot on the
hot concrete, adoring their daddy. "I am totally satisfied with
what I'm doing here," he says. "I wouldn't have a pickup or a
car or anything like that, now. That's just the way I feel. I
wanted a tractor so I could do the farming. I've got a tractor
now. I'm doing what I want to do-milking dairy cows and
doing a little farming."
Years ago, Edwin almost left the Amish. "There's a lot of
things go through your mind when you are eighteen, and I
thought I could do a lot better if I just went off on my own. I
thought I was getting left behind. It is the impression a lot of
these kids get. Anybody will go through that stage whether they
are Amish or not."
What kept him?
"Family. It really was. The only thing that will keep Amish
children at home is their family-if there is enough pull there
at home. I wouldn't change anything now. Shoot no. Little
things keeps me going. Milk my cows. Do a little farming. Sit
on the front porch in the evening with the kids and the wife.
Listen to the children while they play. Watch the dark put his
day's work to bed.
"Stufflike that."
The science of simplicity is honed to such fine points as pleats in dresses and whether shirts can have pockets on them. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ralph Marsh is a contributingeditor to Oklahoma Today; he lives
his own version of the simple life i n rural Heavener.
GElTlNG THERE
Another Miller son, who builds lawn furniture for a living
in the Clarita community, is completing a handmade black
two-seater buggy with upholstered interior and velveteen cushions for his sister. He started when she had her fourth child.
A one-seaterjust wasn't suitablefor his sister's family anymore.
Of such things are the deepest roots made.
However difficult the soil.
Amish country, then, is where a community of people with
common dreams and similar ideas about God and their time
on this earth sit down together and surrender up their preoccupation with self, rights, and personal preferences in order to
nourish the common good. "I made my decision to be baptized in this church, and everything doesn't always have to be
my way. I can give up to other people's way of thinking. The
church will not stand if we can't do that-without resentment-even though we don't always agree."
Yea, all of you be subject one to another. .. ( 1 Peter 5:s).
Clarita, in the little popover hills of Coal County, Oklahoma,
is Amish country. You can hear it in the silence. See it in the
A u g u s t
happy eyes of a man weaving the power of a pair of powerful
Belgian horses into his own spiritualvision with nothing more
in his hands than faith and a set of slender reins. Because he
chooses to do so.
His tractor sits idle at the barn.
At least for this day.
.
Before the Amish auction off bum'es, quilts, horses, and baby calves
at Clarita's Amish Auction September 14, thq. serve up a sausage and
pancake breakfastfor the public before daybreak. Then the bake sale
begins at dawn. (It's best to get there early in the morning unless folks
want to run the risk of going home empty-handed.) Every Amish
family in the community bakes up a wealth ofgoodies including whole
wheat bread, apricotpies, and maple nut chiffon cakes.
The auction begins at 9 a.m. and ends around 6p.m. (Last year the
highest quilt went for $4,500 though most sell for $300 to $900.
Bum'es usually bring $500 to $800.) Throughout the day, folks can
purchase whole hog sausage sandwiches, homemade vanilla ice cream
(thefieezer powered by a one-cylinder tractor engine), and nacho chili
pies; like the quilts, all thefood is Amish made.
More than 200 boothspeddle antiques and crafts-but only a
handful are Amish vendors. Among them: an Amish couple who sells
homemade chocolatepecan brittle and others who sell handmade wood
lawn furniture and toll painted wood bread boxes and trash bins.
Proceeds fiom the auction and bake sale benefit the Amish school.
The auction is located on a farm just east off SH-48 between Tupelo
and Wapanucka near Clarita and one mile north of SH-31 (lookfor
the signs). For more information, contact The Little Country Store,
owned by Amish, in Clarita at (405) 428-3403. The store, which
carries Amish homemade baked goods year-round, as well as gifts and
souvenirs (not Amish made), is open Monday through Saturdayfiom 8
a.m. to 5p.m.
Those wanting an early start on auction day can overnight at motels
in Atoka, Durant, and Ada. Coalgate lays claim to Dot's Motel (an
older motel but clean) and Memories Bed eb Breakfast--an old
rooming housefiom the early 1900s. The bed and breakfast costs
between $27 and $32 (and keep in mind that there are only four
rooms). Reservations are required, and breavast is included but serveu
at a restaurant across the street. (405) 927-3590.
S e p t e m b e r
1996
rice K m m e uses a
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE KLEMME
M
,
II*I'<
J
IKE KLEMME TRACES HIS CAREER AS ONE
of the world's preeminent golf photographers to
two things: boredom and the Oklahoma Arts Institute. Boredom, he says, led him to buy a little camera after
college to use in his job as an ad salesman for an Enid newspaper. Boredom also prompted him to begin making sojourns
to the Great Salt Plains north of Enid and to photograph the
migrating birds that came through the refuge.
But it was a weekend at one of the OklahomaArts Institute's
fall adult photographysessions with Dick Durrance (who at the
time shot all the major Marlboro man ads) that clinched
Klemme's fate. "We had a lot of competitions every day," he
confided, "and I won all of them. Then one night, Durrance
let me help edit a big shoot, and I saw a lot of things I'd never
have seen any other way. I just decided this was what I'd always wanted to do. So I did it."
That was twelve years ago.
His first professionalbreakthrough was selling nature photographs to Audubon and Sierra. "But I realized the market was
very small, and there were about a million guys trying to fill
it," he recalled. "The businesspersoninside me said, 'This won't
work.' " When a close friend asked him to photograph a new
golf course and clubhouseopening in Oklahoma City, Klemme
took on the project as a lark. The course was Oak Tree. "I
soon realized," said Klemme, "that I was doing the very same
photography (at Oak Tree) I was doing up at the Salt Plains,
except I was doing it on a golf cart instead of crawling around
in the muck." What wasn't there to like?
At the time, the developers of Oak Tree were building
courses all across the country, and their faith in the young photographer from Enid soon had Klemme on planes flying to most
of them. It took sweatshop hours-it isn't uncommon for
Klemme to be up at 3 a.m. so he can be ready for first morning
light-but he had a new career. "I never doubted it was going
to work," admitted Klemme, "but it is a lot of hard work. I
know when I first tell people I'm a golf course photographer,
they think to themselves, 'What are you thinking?' But in the
U.S. there were more than 400 courses completed and 1,600 in
either the construction or the planning phase this year alone.
That's just the U.S."
Around the world, the story is similar. New Zealand claims
four hundred courses. Klemme just shot another twenty in
Italy. North of Hong Kong, the Guang Gong Province is building ten. Morocco, Norway, Spain, Kenya..."Every country in
the world is just blooming up with golf courses," observed
Hemme who has photographed six hundred himself.
As golf courses go international, the sport itself takes on an
international flavor. In Japan, Klemme found golf to be an all-
"Karsten Creek (right) was so young when I shot it; I'd like to sometime visit and see how it has matured. As a young course, I liked
it because it had a wide-open feeling. It has a lot of trees with that big, grand Augusta National feel to it. So many golfcourses are so
narrow and tight because it's cheaper to build ones like that." I .
t
Oklahoma
Today
'I HAW YET TO BE ON A GOLF COURSE
THAT DIDN'T HAW AN ENVIRONMENTAL STORY
TO TELL.'
-Mike
Klemme
"Oak Tree (above) is the most memorable golf
course you'll everplay. You go around one time,
and you can remember every hole and every shot.
That's because each hole has a different character;
so many courses have many similar holes. At Oak
Tree each hole is completely different."
day outing that includes a caddie for each foursome and a woman in
a bonnet serving tea after every hole (in Thailand, each golfer gets two
caddies--one to carry his bag, one to hold a shade umbrella). After
the front nine in Japan, golfers break for steak, sake, a massage, and
a communal bath. "The back nine was just a big laugh," recalled
Klemme. "They don't really care; they just want to get away from
town. The draw for the Japanese was the land, the land."
To Klemme, saving the greenbelts that golf courses represent-and
the wildlife that frequent them-from those who would build over
them is also important. "I have yet to be on a golf course," he said,
"that didn't have an environmental story to tell." He looks at cities
like Chicago or New York or Miami and realizes that but for golf
courses, they could have been developed wall to wall. He says only
golfers appreciate the abundance of wildlife-alligators, foxes, coyotes, elk, monkeys-to be found in such places. In an attempt to educate others, Klemme did a book on golf course flora and fauna entitled A Viewfrom the Rough (Sleeping Bear Press, 1995).
It is one of three books Klemme has done on golf courses. The
"Seventeen is my favorite hole (at Southern Hills, 1&); the architecture
of the hole is vety Perry Maxwell (thefamed Oklahoma golfcourse
designer), the way it kind of rolls and weaves...the pretty way it sits
there. It works really well with the landscape."
'1 WAS W
W DOWN THIS FAIRWAY IN
KENyA, AND THERE WERE FORW MONKEYS
LOOKINC AT ME.'
-Mike Klemme
others include Golf Resorts of the World ("it is the work of a young
boy who wanted to see the world and who stayed at the top 100 golf
resorts in the world between 1991 and 1992," quips Klemme of the
job) and Grand Slam Golf-both done for Golf Magazine. The objective of such books is the same as it is for his magazine assignments:
get the perfect picture. "I have to show the course on its best day,"
said Klemme. "It's got to be as dramatic as possible. And it's got to
be normally from the golfer's point of view, becausewe want to draw
people in so they can experience that photo. What they see on the
printed page should allow them to play that hole in their minds."
- Klem& has photographed the best of the best. He sits on two
panels for Golf Magazine (along with Jack Nicklaus and Arnold
Palmer) that annually name the top 100 courses in the U.S.and the
top 100 in the world. "We judge them on playability, memorability,
beauty, shot values, overall ambiance-among other characteristics,"
said Klemme. Himself, he considers Cypress Point in Pebble Beach,
California, to be the most beautiful in the world, l i e s Augusta National, and considers the little-known Kauai Lagoons in Hawaii to be
underrated. "American courses stand up pretty well," Klemme said
matter-of-factly.
.
.
ii His own personal favorite? Oak Tree. "It's the most memorable
golf course you'll ever play...Each hole has a different character...
We're blessed with a lot of great golf courses in Oklahoma."
That said, Klemme admits to one little secret: he actually plays
very little golf. Instead, his biggest joy comes from discovering a
new course no one has seen yet and showing it just right. "It's like
being a discoverer," Klemme said. "And if I do it just right, the person looking at the picture starts to think, 'Yeah, I'd probably get out
a seven iron, I'd hit it just right of the pin, and I'd let it just fade
back right into the hole.' "
-Jeanne M. Dwlin
Above top, Bailq, Ranch in Owasso, Oklahoma;
detail, Kauai Lagoons, Lihue, Hawaii.
32
Oklahoma
T o d a y
* .
thirdxU.k. h& in he ye& ~QOI.( 2 % are
~ tiwa ofdheb u r biggestplf
t o m a m i in tlre w d )
This&EI, Smtthern H i l l r a~P a Tour Chpm@whip October 21-27;
wMh notus p d @ o u s ds the PGA Cha~piOnshipor U.S. Open, it nonethedess
draw theyear's top thiqmomy winners. 15aypmfor the public ~ k r tat
t
$15 affd inc2de w6ess to ths golfcome and parking. (A seven-day Chb
House Pass lets non-members also roam the hospitality tent a d cl&hQuse.)
F m y m t m b e r s ~at
s Southern HiWs, a M a t e dwb located atdlst and
Lewis and wn&mt?$ ranked owe of the U.S.'s top 25 co~rse~,
w e d to &st
$45,800 (%he@ to bwy into the dub's stoJcI plus an armualjk (this daes not
incMep$fwts ar balk, we might note). (918) 492-3353.
At Bailey Golf RMtch in h s o , &ere are .prommbershr'ps. Gteenfies are
$19 drrrbgthe 4arrd $23 on tfte weekends (prices diflerfb twilight and
sutrdc~nmho~m).Ha? $149 a p r , apah,tME t r t ~ dmtr'zlesone $oj&e r~ysn8s
of
gag largebdofbaIEs,anblliFccfun@dgrmfeea.?'branch,M o n
86th Stmtjustamz% westaf US-16% recently hostad a quah!@ng t o m t
jbr the US68 Psu&hh(Themtianalrouwtammb held in Bawd thisyear,
is one of& largest amateur taurnamentsin tbe &)
(918)272-9339.
AnhurtI& mnkea a m g the top 100 US. courses @ GdfD&& Oak Tree
Go2fGEMbin Oklaherma City hosts tk?Bart Onner Celebriq Ciask September
29 and 30 and the Vince G3ll Festival of %heHofse Cele6ri@&;otfToumamertt
Qctobm 16.
For $2,500, teams of fie p& aLn*
an OZppic me&& atthe Bart
Cunner C h i c (orpay $500 a n d f i d f m f othztpkayrn). Some &VHB~~
Olytqians, including Connds own M,Olppicgymnnst N i i a C o r n &
wjU a t t d P r o d b+$
the Bart Cmner Eduamuamon
Fund,whkk helps
@@me
traveland other expenses to m e mforp~~wggymwts
who
might othnot be abk to afford to
An arrdign a d banquet t&es
p&e Septdber 29 at the NafianalCmkyHall of Pame; the
is
September 30. ($054 892-1510.
A month later, Vime Gill, B.J. Thomas, and Stwe Dwens-ammg ohher
cekbn'hs-take part in the Vina Gill towmameat. Anyowe who Eanpo;tty up
$650 can p@. B d benejt children with disdbilijties. On O&bm IS, a
receptim a d audhudh@n
ace set at Remington Park;fol&whg dee t w m e n b
thereasa i%-hlep~rty.(4053 842-4141.
Oak Tree, like SmthernHi&>is aprivate club; mmbmk@scost $25;Q00,
plw a $300monthlyfee (whichinclw&sgo~ca~
t~bails). (405) 348-2OiM.
At Stillwater's KaMen Creek Galf CXuh mexnbgnhip inelYdes golf carts,
ba& and the right to invite threeguests at
a tiwe t@ play (&$Ma h@. Member- )L,
ship runs $1,500 for out-of-state
residents, $ZQOOforOkh-ns
living ouhib a a - m i k ~
and~ ,
$3,aMplys a one-time $3,W
initiation fwfor fhose &er in.
Kmm Creek, howwer, is
also open to the pablic. Green
fees are $125, whkk i m W prfaft
and balk The dub, l o W f i v e imd a half
miles west of StjBwarer on SH-51, is also
developing houses abhg dre course (threeare
going up now), and half ofthe two-acre and
one-ante lots in thefist phase are a h d y
soh'. (405) 743-1658.
A
'I THINK GOLF COURSES ARE THE 4
ULTIMATE. EXPRESSION OF MAN AND NANRE WORKING TOCETHER.'
-Mike Klernme A u g u s t
.
September
1 9 9 6
m
His epic novels
opened a window
on one of
Oklahoma's most
powerful and
enigmatic tribes.
In the process John
Joseph Mathews
immortalized the
Children of the
Middle Waters.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ho-wa-gi tha-thi-she shki ithi-the a-ka no no e e-sho
ta-do ha-zho ke shki ca'ni i-the
e-ba no e
(Whereveryou are and
whatever you do, God sees you.)
-Francis La Flesche,
A Dictionary of the
Osage Language, 1975
By Michael Vaught
J
OHN JOSEPH MATHEWS WAS BROUGHT HOME AND LAID TO REST IN THE
yard of his house, and now the house is dissolving under the prairie sky, the sandstone walls easing into the bluestem and the dirt, and in not so many days the man
and his house will join the other bits of bone and brass and footprints that lie under
the surface of the Osage Hills.
It is an easy thing to be overwhelmed by John Joseph Mathews. Born in Pawhuska
a century ago, Mathews accumulated education and knowledge like some people do
wealth and possessions. He took a degree from the University of Oklahoma in geology, followed by a graduate degree in zoology; then he crossed the Atlantic to take a B.A.O.X.O.N.
from Merton College, Oxford University, England. He studied at the University of Geneva,
received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and declined a Rhodes Scholarship ("too restrictive," he
said). Cambridge University added him to its International Who's Who of Intellectuals. He
was an aviator in the First World War, hunted in Africa, and toured Europe on a motorcycle,
but he came home to Pawhuska, Oklahoma, as Violet Willis told me, "to find what it was to be
a man."
Oklahoma Today
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Singers to the Moon :By John Joseph Mathews
,
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Educated at the Universfty of Oklahoma in geology.ahd at Merton College, Oxford, in natural sciences, John Joseph Matht;ws was akare
American blend of scientist and poet. Part Osage, he-served on the Osage Tribal Council for many years and made his home outside
~ a w h u s kH
. is book Wah'Kon-Tah was i 1932Book-ofithe-month Club selection. Hq d@ iti 1979.
c
EDAR Canyon heads in the west pasture, and the hater +at flows down the water course in the bottom df the canyon flows into Bird
(CreekSome of the elms, hackberries, sycamores, bur oaks, and pin oaks have tried to climb u p the canyon from the creek, but the
rich alluvium of the bottoms did not reach very far up the canyon, and they never attainedlthe height of their parents along the .
creek. The cedars of course did much better, and at the very head of the canyon there was a ttemendo;~ bur oak. He was o n the edge of
the prairje, and he must have f o ~ adprivate water supply:
The canyon was like a gash in the earth. It looked as if a giant had slashed the earth with his sword, and the edges of the gash had fallen ,
away like flesh,when a venison haunch is slashed It w a d seem that after-the giantls'anger had passed and he had thrust his sword back
. .\
,
into its sdabbard, he had walked away pleased with himself. The elms, sycamores, hackberries, pin oaks, and cedars.grew &I thick in the slash canyon that the sunlight idydappled the water of the
water cow& during the summer months an4 ?lade fretwork ,withthe shadows of the bare l h b s and twigs in the winter. Op each sidk of
the water course, the canyon bottom was carpeted withleavesof severalseasons. 1twas a wild s b t , and you could only get there by horseback ,
or,afoot. rf you went there in the lare afternoon and sat on the sandstope ledges and were careful to wear clothing that blended with,the
moss and the lichen of the rocks, and if you kept absolutelystill, you might hear and see strange things.
First; about four o'c1odc;);ou might hesu the "whoo, ~OO-WH9-ivhoo,
whoo" of the great homed owl. It is a 1azyhunting call for such
a savage bird(and it would,comeat intervals, and one might thinX%at the owl was disinterested, since his voice was so quiet and casual,but
he was one of the fiercest hunters of the creek bottoms, the bladcjack ridges, and the prairie.
Also from the creek hottoms you might hear the much more fearful cry of the barred awl. One might thinkthat 0nly.a very savage beast .
could utter such a hunting cry, and in imagination might see h h aiprowl, and there might be phckles on the back of the listener's neck.
Unliss a listener had been assured that the terrific b o o m ~ g"whoo,
,
khoo, whoo, whoo-whooo-hoo-ah-ah-h-h-ha" was only the hunting
.
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cwof the barred owl, he might believe that only the savage great horned owl could utter such airy. The smaller, round-faced barredowl
was not savage at all. He had no great eartufts as did the horned owl, and he really looked too sleepy to be the frightener of bifds and animals. If you sat very still on the ledge of sandstone which,formed the edge of the canyon and yqur clothifig blended with the moss and the
lichen, ,andit was late afternoon and there wis no air stirring, +en amoss-spotted and lichen-splashedstone'you had been l~okingat might
- suddenly move and become a grey-tawny inimal with speckled belly and legs: ' ~ would
e
be as large as a medium-sized dog whose tail had been docked, and he therefore had only a Stub for a tail. This apimal would stop and look about him, then walk on in the goom of the late afterhoon,lifting and setting each foot
- od
Sometime when he stopped to lo~kabout,his r i d s
.sub of a'tail would twitch. He would be interested in everything,'smellingof the leaves axid the tivigs aqd investigatingamong the large sandstones that had broken off from 'the canyon's edge and had rolled down.the flank, finally coming to rest near the bottom. .
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The h,unter cat would disappear up the canyon, and the observer who had been so stdl so long must now stretch his legs and change 49.1
And anyway it would be growing late, and there would be-only thk sad lige voice of the phoebe w310 had a mud nest under the
.
edge of the sandstone outcrop, and he would staeto scold you for being so close t o his nest.
- 1
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- Sammy of ehe ranch came here to sit quite often. He had heard the owls from the creek bottoms, he had seen the bobcat corhing up the
I canyoninthe gloom of the later afternoon, and the phoebe had scolded him many times. Olie day in May he came there to sit with his back
:
to the sandstone ledge and ,wait foy something to happen. He tied his mare Peg back on the shelf of land higher up. He loved her very
much; they had grown up together, and they had becom~ompanions,but when you wanted to watch animals and birds who didn't know
L
you were near, you couldn't h$ve success with restless P,eg near you. She could certainly see movements you couldn't possibly see, and she .
could hear the faintest sound of a twig being stepped on, and best of all, shico4d smell the faintest of musky odors: But thatwas no good
when Shmmy wanted to sit in his favoriteposition under the sandstone outcrop of Cedar Canyon. Peg would soon become restive and
. prance about, pawing the earth, and if shewere close to you she might sniff the back of
neckand cause you to move clumsily.
So this day as he didevery-day, he tied Peg a hundred yards back from the canyon, and he had sat for an hour before his eye caught
' movement at the head of the caflyon. There by the bur oak stood a coyote. She had come softly to the tree and then stopped behind it and
frozd. She was watching something, and he followed her gaze, and there he saw two coyote whelps having tug of war with a chicken wing.
.
They tugged and tugged, and they might have been growling at each other in play s f course, but Sammy couldn't hear them. One was larger
than the other and seemed very dark. The mother was unseen by them, and she stayed behind the tree and watched %em for some time,
then she showed herself,.and the two whelps left their wing and nished to hGr, nuzzling the h i r of her belly. She lifted her hinalegs and
stepped over *em,2nd they followed her to the mouth of the den among the loose rocks, just under ~e caprock at the verysead of the
canyon. ~ e ; eshe lay down and the whelps had their h e r .
As she lay there,'the great horned owl boomed from a nearby post oak that had had its topsblownoff by high win& The mother coyote
paid no attention to him,and certainly the whelps paid no attention. When the w a P s finished, the mother got up
and started off an her night's hunting. The little ones, now like furry balls with their bellies like sinall balloons, started
He had sat for
to follow, then stood and watched her go. She stopp;d when a little way off andkame back and siood and looked at
them. h he^ seemed to understand; they turned and disappeared into the den. ,
an,hozrrwhen his
Sammywas happy. The coyotes Ead nofthe slightest hint of his presence, and he was filled with his own importance.
,
He rose +md stretched and walked back of the canyon to the spot where he had fled Peg. He was carefulhot to go near
eve caught
the den; the mother would get the man scent when she returned,an&shewould probably move her babies. Peg watched
him approach with her head high and her forelock over one eye. He refused to mgch her mane, as one did with cow
horses so that there would be no interference with the rope. Her mane, like ~ ktail,
r was too beautiful. She had dug a
movemelrlt at the
depression in h e earth with her hooves in her impatience over his absence, andwheh he had untied her, he had to rein
her in a tight circle in order to mount. Before he got his rightJeg-over and his right foot im the stirrup, she was off in
h&d of the canyon.
a lope.
,
.
He reined her in when they climbe&out of the west canyon, or shP would have jump-walked u p the steep,'twisting
cattleeiiil., On the divide she fought the tight rein and was shakingher head,,then she noti~edthe full moon climbing out of the prairie and - , stared a t it. A big red moonwill often startle men and h'orses and other animals when it first appqars. At this moment it began. It began
- with a wolf-like%howl,long and d~awnout, then itbroke into jripping, then a long, diawn out yowl. h o s t immediatelythere was a chorus, a d then coyotes to the east and the north of the divide joined in. Suddenly the chorus pear Sammy and Peg stopped abruptly, as if some director Kad brought his baton down sharply. After the coyote songs, the prairie seemed to be without life. Samny didn't get back to the head of Cedar Canyon as soon as he wished, and when he did the whelps had left the den. There were
some 6ones there, part of the dried skin of a calf that had died just after birth in ~ebkarjr.The skin had been a favorite plaything of the
whelps. The summer passed with lightning over the prairie that looked like trees upside down, and before each summer storm, the coyotes
howled, moved by the low pressure, and when they howled in a certain manner you could say with certainty that there would be a charige '
ofweaeer within twenty-four hours. Sometimes they howled close to the ranch' house and the two stock dags'and the bird dog swore at - :
them with their hair on the back of their neck and shoulders standing erect.
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In August Sammy would o+n ride oveyth. prairie withbheb Simpson, thecowhand who had g ~ t s $ r troPingthi young coyotes, who
were now practically grown, but not as smart as they thought ihemselves to be. 'when Sammy and Sheb saw one, they rode toward him,
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then Sheb with his rope whirling over his head ~ o u l dspur his horse after the, yo,ung coyote and throw his loop. Somgtimes the coyote
would slip through the loop, but sometimes he caught one, then played it as it pulled back against the rope. The cow horses, of the ranch
thought this to 'be queer business, and they wodd snort and back up. Whw Sheb was by himself he w6uld kill tkem and hang them from
the fence posts so that.people a u l d see them from the county road. This was probably a queer sort of boasting. However, when S ~ m m y
- was with him he turned them loose, seeming to agree with Sammy that it was much more fun running them with greyhounds.
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b&veen thkm and'tbe high-backed running hounds. As for thehunters, he had no fear a i d , but he avoided them.
T G c e however, he had dunk oiq bf his day be$ and ;rapt down the canyon, stoppirig to stand in plain Siew on.the other side ~f t&e
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&yon, *tching b o a men and dogs without'eitberof them beg aware of him. He was qreless about his trail, knowing that the dogs
y&g
only stop momentarilyto s&at it, while the,'hunters would'never know 'a Sbyote G
as within a mile of them.
&s mend w h e r he howld pften, alone.. When as a whelp he had fiit left the den to h& on-hisoivn,he-stayed intrailing distance
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of his mother, bbt one da);he had iotten lost from her and his brothq, ahd he had stood btl thi prairie and cried fiom loieliness. Now in
, mjdwinier, especiallywhen the earth was \;miteyith snow, he would stand black a d t t h e star:bright<ned snow and yith muzile to the
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sky howl like a mountain wolf. Sometimeshe would meet with othcrs,and he ivould a$proach them,and theywould.$ touch noses and
wag their tails lazily, not with dog-like enthusiasm;then as ifdirixted by.~omeghostly&rector,
they would start their song. They would
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stop suddenly and' each go off on his own business.
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D d s thip second ivinter of his life, he nevei~awhis mother or his father, and hi had no ties whatever,but when ~ebruiuy-e with
its mud and its4rippingugliiessrhewasfilledwith-astrangeexcitement,and& howlipghad a strange,liltingcarelessnessiq.it, almost Itke
' laugkter. Bewould go to his lying-upplace on the edge of cedar cahyon after his night's h,ui~ting,a'nd he would lieVJithhis eyesfialfshut,
but his faculties+ere alertalways. He rnisscd no sound or movement or odor, andmually he staged herethe whole day, at 15ast on dear _ ,
days, only hunting duringthe days when there was a drizzle'or laR.flakesof snow.
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. BGt now inhis secondwinter,i i t~his lovemoon of the coyotes,he was drivenby a &ep urge. Hc would come to his lying-upplace early
, , &the mornings and perhaps fall as;leepfona short time,'thp hewould get Up and tuni around severaltimes like a dog hg
his bed in
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the leaves. He would Be down againwith? contentedlook on his face, them the urgeks~uldcome vpan him, and he would be compelledto
, leave the daybed andwolftrotup ontothe prairie, and when he cameontotheprairie, a forcepulled him toward aUhited StatesGeologid
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' Surwy pm tliat marked.the center of spction twelve ind which would have been a c d e r qf some neat little farmstead if the land hadnot
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He approached the surveyepinuith his tail han$ng down in coyote fashion, to be bumped by die moiiments of 'thehind legs as he
walked. Onreading the ph,he stood for sometiple reading thefnesqes. -9ereand at other places,& & stone,the wolf tribewould* ,
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. leave th-egmeskages in m h k Sometimes a trail hpund ,&rJosing$e trailand becomingsepat'atedfrom the paek would visitcthe 9 9 and
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,b
- leive his messade, and often a high-b.itcta:d @eyhound-staghound cross of the +&
pack would stop in his graceful
- wolf trot home to
' learn &news and leave his oyn meisage. .
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All these thing! ~inebackcould sad, qnd if youhad been watching@+youwouldhave understo~dwheth~r
or n6riheFs he ieceived
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On-thisday of thawingsnow &ring l%b&ary, the loveqoon, hebecame d t e d , and his rag-like tail moved ever so slowlyand actually
'lifted a little. He stoodf& somet h e , theiihe circledthe pin, and with nose to,the wonderfiilly scented earth, he wolf trottedto b.e north
' just jrt nqod, The trailhe followed was strongandvery easyto follow,not onlybecausethe :arth was damp with thethaw bpt
P .b e b u ~ t h seceni itselfwak kpe&dIy strongand even clung to the de'ad broom weeds apd the blooin stah of the bluestem.
When he arrived sn the flankpf Prairie CM&en Hill,he stoppedand rioseh thegrass, making ccirde. His no* told him ' - But
in-&
,. an unpleasant truth-thatthe female scent he was fpllowingw& joined by another. in his c u a g he'foudd the messageof
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a hale coyote on a broom wked. In fact a w&ming. He cyuld ody express his annoyanceby pointing his nose upward and . second'winte~
in
to die'grey skjr. ~e stood far sometime, looking over the horizons, ?Ipn trotted
o;,foklowing
the
, howling his -piness
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of the female k d the othermale:
- trailAfter
this love?nocrrr
trailing for y o 'hours he fo&d himself on the brakes of Dog Creek. He stopped:again, p d now his tqngue w&
hanging out a little,and he begin to whimperlike a dikturbed dog. Again he raised his nose-and-sang-& songof bafaernent
to &e south. here against the skyhaweretwo . o~c*o~~s,hc W ~
to the seeding grey sky. He trotted on, then stopped.suddenlyand
hthters, aqd at the heels of theii horses the-high-backedhounds followed skpidly, not even attempting tb see a coyote, ,
a
dep;n-&g on their h u n e compqdons, &e horsemen.
Tlie high-backed hounds were not trail hounds, and he had no wdq;biut
thiit finding his trail,.bit he must remain
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.- invisible. He brgot all aboutthe thfillir;gtrail he hid been followingand sankvery, very slowly to theearth, hidden now by .
deep
urge.
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' the-tallbl~estern$hichin itswinter terra cdtta p8ase was perfect protection. But he must witch the hunters, andhe pus&d
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some 0 6 t h ~
iall blueste4 aside with his nose and lay with cocked ears and waited.
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- ' As the h o r s ~ e nand the hounds appro_ache&there wagof course?o talking betweenthe men, andthe ho&& tiotted alongbehind the.
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horses with their eyes down, steppingaside dcqsionqy to invesiightesomem6vement or the spotfrom whicha meadowlarkhad liftedor ! i d *
some scent thathad been wafted to them They never made casts fbr a scent trail and always cameback to fall in line behind the 7 ' sgho?ses. ~inebackwatched the hunters as they approached, and itappeared.that they.liiight be coming too close, so he rose, and with his. ..
belly dose to the earth, he s f d c dowi the flank df the lid into a ravine, then i~
the wafer course, ka$iglow and t q k m g fo_rthe head.
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'. Wen hetarrivedat the head of the rdvhe, he slunkto the divide, and here he turhed td wat* the hunters. Theywouldnot knie his way,
but theycame q ~ t close
e to *ere he had lai~watcl&g+em without thestupid rymhig houri* gettiqg his s,centto at leasf put thehunters
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on the alertby their actipns,even*%thiy cogdn't bail. Hefelt safenow, and curiositytookcontrol~andh9 alloived himself to standupright :
so that he could see,better.,Thehunters rode on facing no* an4 watstraight ahead, and he stood to the wbt of them.
hen one of the horses sawhim and threw itshead up and g m d at him. The huntersstopped and lookd, and the h o d rirised their -- >
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heads,anilevengough lookingin his directiop couldn't ?ee him.Mpw itwas timeto go, so he stippydoverthe divideandtrotted d ~ w the
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-,rqyine on the otfier side.
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The hhters wodd have missed the statuesqueobyotewatching them 2 Peg ha@t 'seen him, andSammywas filled with pride when he
saw Sheslookingather with interestasthey rode alongin a lope. He could scarcelykedpfromBoasting. Theyknew'the patkm; t h q q d '
~ u l tr6t
d c a 7 ~ , ~ ~ tnext
o ridge,then lookback to see if thehdters were$$Qwing,
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and'if sohow close d e y mightbe. C?y?tes.seemed
&,:,,ke 5L ,
i k ' 4 * 2-:
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to benever quite sure that the hunters were serious. T& p&haps had to do with self-confidence, apd racial memories, and m ~ other
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andthey had not yet adjbsted their instincts to the
things. In their racial memories there wasno enemy on the prairie ablet o ' o u them,
fact th'at theman-animal had introduqed a high-bded animdthat c09d match them in their great sped.. But there was still racial memory ,
color& Theycoidd lie down or$ down
, confidence that they had more,th‘an theirbspeed; they could a€m4st always rely on that
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and look exactlylike a clumpuf w&or bluestem grass or a aandsltone r+ _\
This lack of adjust&enj to new condi60nr wara>mri to coyote himtqs. m e Lineback was taking his &up the r a h e , stopphg
tb p e point Where h$ had stood. peg was fighting her bit, and the hounds
iftin to look back, M y and Sheb were lOPihgtheireirhorks.q
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. high and with heads up were looking forwwil.,
we~-stepp&~
when the hunters reached &e top o f t h c r i b *here U.&a& had stood, he had not yet come to the second ridge, so &t all sa* him .
- as he sped up on seeing them against the ,+line. Peg s%&k her head dnd%owing her'slobbers: leapt forward. Even Sheb's wurkadaycow
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horse caught thi.spirit, and t h e were off.
being LiheBa& s-he
had seen him only at idistanre, and h i s was not hr;range, and key
Sammy bad not worried aboutttheir
sf lovesick coyotes.
re far away from cedi& Canyon. He did& know about the
a& ;an down the flank d t h e ridge, +en tip *eer&rine,a
d & h a h e amived at the *d ridge, he kept to its crest. he how& were
beautifullyandgainihg o~ the coyote, and Shebbeeapexttited w d shoutedoverthe p o d q of hooves, "Woul&'t be surprised
a s a wolf-look at tlie size of 'im." .
. Sammy felt a pang of unhappiness just fqr the mommt, d;n he immediately convinted himself that this was not Lintback's i b g e and
that Ce& Caiyoa was sevad'miles to the southwest,&ping $ridges in plain s@rL
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The hounds were gaining, but slowly, apd&eacfY-~heb'scsvhorse had begun to huff, hhuff,and eve0 Peg was tiring, despite the faathat:
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.her flaxen tail stood straight out like a banper and hq flaxen mane whi& q
s farr ashestodd in the sthyps, The hunt had t6 halt at ?barbed wire fence, and as they walked their blowing bows &'a gate, 6nezof&e hounds came w
n
igup to them, having run into the'. -
lower strand of the fence. ' ~ h h h nwas
t ended for Sheb a d Sannmy; by Ue t$xe they had gone &rough the g&, they could nev'ef hope to8 '
catch up to the hounds, so they stopped-on a high hill and got o-$ thefr horse$, dropped &reins, and sat in-the grass and w8ited. The .
, , horses' bellies were mo*
1% bellows. '
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During this time Lieback w m d i n g for his life. J$ehidn't paSe even look back over his,shbulder, and anyway he'could senix the
'dos&ess of the hounds running silently. He kn& how close trd hounds were by the volume of their voices, but m d n g hounds gavkno
voice. -He ran dowp into the .Sand Creek bottbms 4ran up the ban$ l o o w for a pIate to ixw I% had no fox tricks in his racial .
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m a o r i d +out wit&[email protected] scent-trail, e q e c d Ythio@ m k d n g , tho* wet hair would only~iav?weighted him down. h
d anyway
his purkuers were hunting by sight and what good wouldwafer bk him,if they kept him in sigh8 And th+ had gept hint insight. As he reached the divjdk between Bird and Sand Creeh, he w a s h o s t beaten, 'Phe earththat had thawed under theday'j sun was not '
refreezing, and ~s made the g4mg wen more'difficult. His feet were now heavy with mu&, and the trees and rocks of cedar Canyon weresdfatr awaYrandjust behind ~inebackwas'?le~uck, the three-quartersstag h o a d ,
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Coyot6 seemed to be
snapp* at the long hriRpf &%ind legs. Their were anh/ two of he pack in view now. With any b&er two - .
m&nb'Frsof the pack ~@eback
&f&beq
able* ho1d.b own in a fight, but if one of -thetw6 were-019Buck, never quite sure that - there would rn hope forh,
,@if KDtot& and great size. MisrBlue, the other h ~ who~would
d bb in on bkill, was p~'whippet~~d21the
fa&estm'kp& af the pack yhen the running was not too&eavy. ~ineback'sl;eart.waspotm+g~tldn%is &&t as though it might wish to leiwe his'body to escape thedeath that , thb hunters ~ & e '
.- seemed sufe, and new he f-et
ha&, dehitelj, a d h e whisked h@pud-
BU& smP& at
upper
tad
in
a
cjrcle,
momentarily
blindbg-Ple
h
&
I.r.h<did
fhi4,he
a
d sharply +t &ht an*,
anddole *,'
heavy
serious. ~ h & ~ ~ ~ h i ~ ~
of the Birdcreek fl@ plain, By &,time he recovered,
Buck rushed past him and crashed inta the m p @ g
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leave~prwhichwerg exactly tan mtta c ~ l ina hii bat.
weback was completely lost in mZ
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,-ha. to do with
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ble~u&wakedaboutwi~headhl$h~mlocatelhis~ua~,aadwhea~isr~lu~~u~~thhim,t
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attention whatever to &exq! s a t t&t Lineback had left. stood high-headed~looldng
abi3iit tbgrn,p*
iden? and*'man~ both
nokr ~ h dtongues
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%ereout, and they <anted with .
They were nmning horn+ wha hiinted by sight, ndtby
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throat noism, So they flopped $itb g
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m to rest.
other things. - . ~inebockhad k*t going d& tbe.ae#s $sodplain, completelyprotectedbythe &or of tiie *oalclea<esd and by their heidt of thiee br Cpr && TheyTheyU
be& frien&i&k tragic k&j, He,w&Inmt tao tired t a c b b -
&&wayup the Bankof the ridge on thc6thez sideafthe creek, but lxehad to dyir, i ~ en o~t x ~m dthe could
have?d;arvimof i h m n n i n g o & t h u g h ~ h e ~ a d c o 9 1 e~. e l r y t h o e ~ a n ~ g f ~ r- a.n t r a u. r ,. w i t h ~ ~ ~ ~ d ~ d t h e d
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firom which he hacfcoqie. ..
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That ~$&,the how& came tothe ranch house>siqlypd in pairs, md ~an& &ed
the white&-hair;
of each one of thk&&r '
blhd.,Wheshefound none, he was strangely happy. kie ] a s ~ n a i v & ~ i $ e b a & k s the object of the a f t v n ' s race, since their coyote
. - was no* prdiniry~cq~te.
It is doubtful if racial memories guidedLineback to $;:d i n g oaks that day, but the n& time he was *-obi& of a-race, exper&ce '
-did, an? very namNdphebecame famousin the next
y m m d - w y ' s n&e stuck Hebecame "ole heback,".ipd every owner
of runninghounds in $he country tried for him, but he al~3rrs;eodtre* in the rock-strewn cahydris,vvherethe r m h gciala grew. He . ' hadlearned howto evade trail hou*.
He .ran aqmgcgttlehe~ds
k dPd a t i n g on the p r e d e d h n
and one timq he
.through a herd of ran& horses, and being%&tened qr pret&dingto be Mghtened, they raalong with him, one of them playfully ki*
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at hh. ?l;is +wried his kent-completely,
Also he had &other way of H l h g his scent; arid in thishe
guided by racial memory again. .whed'he set out fdr the mght's hunting,
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he would visit the carcassbf a bull that had h e n killed by a rival, and he would roll in *erancid rib case, he and others having eaten most
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of the flesh: NOW there was lia mu& chance f6r the trail hounds to get.wind of him. since he masqueraded his scent theYmuit cross his
&ail. [email protected] droppingswere bette~inwhich to roll himself in order to ki! his scent, since hoqds would not have the least interest
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Running before the trail hounds was never so frightening d running before the running hohds. He was so full of the joy of living that ,
he sometimesenjoyed the race Gth the trail hwds.'At least Samniyheldthis theory.-fie knewbe mohta'i-wolf voice of Ole Lineback ,
just-as everybody did; you couldn't mistake it. He reasoned then that if he didn't somithe~enjoy&e race with trail hounds, why did he
.swear at them? After the hoyds had been mouthing for several hours, you could suddenly hear the bass challenge of Ole Linebaek from
the point of a ridge south of the ranch house. Sammy didn't know that when Ole Linebaqs mate or one. .
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df his whelps of the @ar were 6eing runby the hounds, he would cross the trail and show himself, and if
. this didn't turn the hounds from his mate or on5 of the whelps, he would stay close to them, then during .
Runnin$'b#ore ;he trail
a lull in the mouthing, he would howl close by to attract attention to himself.'
Trail hounds were much more friendlythari running hounds. One morning while Ole Linebadc and his
' hhunk wm n&so
mate were tearing at a steer carcass, a sad-faced trail hound appeared. He stood apologetically and-very
, stupidlya
d wavedhis tail slightly. He was lost from the pack of the night before, ahd he yq limping and
fightmint as running b40re
very hunm. heback looked at him for a moment, then advanced toward him, holding his head very
low, ivith his tail dose and with the hair of his body erect. his w& the ~ o ~ bluff
o $ posture, and apparently
the houi~dunderstood it, since he turned and limped away with thi point of his tail touching his belly.
-therUnning houndr He Was
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Trail hounds were to be feared only when &ey were on the trail and mouthing, but %e stag hound*
greyhound cross were to be avoided at all times, even when alone and lhhping and Iost. They would over * $0
thejOyOf living that
run and kill anything that would run from them, in the form of cats; dogs, or wolves. But Ol'e Lineback
and his mate paid no attention t~ bird dogs, except when they got too close to their den, yen the mother,
he sometimBes+
the race
who was always close, would run them off, Qne day the ranch bird dog came nos@ga b o ~within
t
fifty
yar& of the den; and Lineback's mate saw him.. She lowered her head and raised the hair dong her back ;
with the trail hounds.
and adxanced toward him, but the bird dog'oply stood and watched her advance and began to bark,
excitedly. The moiker kept advancingwith head low and eyes turned up to the dog. He ran'ashort distance
and stoj?ped again. He misfread the bluff. It meant that he must run away fromthe coyote's de'n apd never,-never come near again.
The mother coyote became angered, and every hair an her body stood out until she looked B e an angry porcupine, and with her tail
straight out and fluffed like a great swab, she ran at the bird dog. He turned,and with tail-betweenhis legs ran hard for the ranch house with
me mother coyote just behind him;She a u l d easily h a y outrun him and k g h f him, y ~ peqhaps
d
killed hi,but why do this when her
bluff was working so splendidly?. spot: the bird dog, expeited to be killed momentaiily, however. This ridicdous race ended at the hope . ,
trap, but oqly for the mother coyote; Spot ran on and crawled h d e r the porch.
When the whelps were young in early summer, Liieback and his mate worked well together, and everi during February, a time when he
was not always a fa;thfdmate &d often trailed other females, he would hunt for the mother and whqlps and oftenEring home a rabbit or
chicken. Sometimes the cows would give birth-to weaklings, and they were never able to rise to their feet to suckle. The wise pair knew
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about such calves, and when theycame upon8arange cow standingbver a sick calf, they sat hthe grass and waited for it to die, then waited
for ;ke ;ow to 1eave.beforethev could feast.
Wheh these carcasses &re ioqnd, Saqmfs father and other h c h e r s jumped to concbsions and cursed all coyotes as etern$ enemies.
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But when an agency of the Federal G6vemrnent who had to do with such matters as v&t
con&olsuggested that they place chunks of
a
poisoned horse meat here and there on his ranch, he thought of his hounds and rejected the plan. But these energetic people in'the spirit
bf efficiency placed chu& elsewhere in twenty-mile ridius. They placed these poisoned chunks,in FeBmary, knowing that the coyotes
wodd be waqd'@ng over an extensive area.
Racial memory.couldn't protect Lineback, since there had been nohch planned poisoning in the history ofthe species, before inan.
When ~inebackand a young'fefialewere trotting together across the prdirie one ~ebiu&n$t, her nose led them to a chunk of the poisoned
horse meat. ~e only tastedof it, but she was hung+ and feasted. Later when they trotted off together, she becime thirsty and led them to
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water. After-iappingwater, she turned and fell, @en trawled on her belly into the weeds and died.
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Lineback became ill, but before he could go back to the pond to quench hik thirst, he heard the trail hounds. He ran hard fbr a short
time,
then
became
very
sick
He
stopped
and
vomited;
h,e
felt
beqei.
;?d
easily
eluded
his
trailers.
The'next4ay
he
was
well
again,
but
the
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-houndsn&r returned to their master, who had paid no attention to thenotice in Spanish and English that poisoned m q t had been put ctut.
'.,?henext time ~inebackcame across ashunk of horse meat; experience was at his side holding up rwarning hand, and he ody sniffed it ,
and left q qusk message on it. Mow trail holind~and running hounds and poison were futile against him.'
His fame grew with the years, then one day while riding the west line, Sheb saw a dead coyote, He got off his horse and kicked it, and .
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the body w~stillfleiible.He turned-it over, and-therewas a black line down its back He picked the body up and hung it from the corner
- .post, again ig viewrithe county road.. This was t r u l important
~ ~ ~ ~boast, since Lineback's nose almost touched the ground.
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Ashort distance froniwhere lie f w d Lineback'sbody, Sheb soIved the' riddle of his death. ~hkearth
had been disturbedwhere Lineback
had dug down to a cyanide'gun. He had dug-dom.to the Htrong love musk of a female, as this was February &gain,@elove moon. He had '
tugged at the wved bullet end of a 44 caliber shell, and when it had come out, the cyanide exploded into his mouth, and he had died*
1
. a few yads. The 44 shell had been loaded &th cyanide granulesahd was so contrived in a sheath at the pulled wadding released a trigger
inthegun..
There had been neither racial memov nor experience to hqld up a warning hand, but that night within a quarter of a mile from wh&ie
he hung, the coyote ;hogs began in a long, drawn out yelp, then reached its apex in a jolly, rollicking, lilting song that sounded very much,
. like laughter.
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Aug,us?t
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September
1996
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way&f lies. "BeJMes,".jtm
,&hei Ewe, "IV needto look
"1 Bx yo= hakc W.E.' [email protected]+ it?; maviq, YW how,I&
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t& wind ~il8b&~d.the time, b& it ain*t.!
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~ ~ ' @ i a b o ~ t ~ ~ & ~ & w i n d ' ~ ~ ~ ~ Q u a d h a , p i g g b k n ~ i t h i t . ~ & c o u ~ & s h e ~ - i n ~ & ,:f + h ~..r e d.
meant ht'jast ahout @i..tbing coirklbrppcn. .-' - '
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sh~~id~ys~.daathim,oqe~ehadpe~dwhe_n~bbPP~~&&~o~~owh~.woun~&
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d@rmthat~&m
over
e tob,with bet moith a Itde pn+er&! up m(1hereyebmxsdr&m tog&a'r-thm ~ k B o b b y @
@d do*
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;back uplnfo hesky.u & a ~ w w.&,
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a s ~ E u & r 8 m p W i q t 1 ~ & & 1 ~ o k s ~ o o l h ~ b u t w f ) ~ d ~ ~ for
l i sot g dn 'I$dI'in
,
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: l a a u i n ' , ~ I p h & d o , i t ; t l & i ~ ~eP d ~ ~ ~ p ~ e d ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ s ~ & a n d ~ e d u p o n t o ~ e
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iim W$.'s w.*DojwdlcuowIII$&," s@ said b o b g pp+d&mt him, '?rat I m f - m d - a - W w
d&$I W W d y
.; ~ ~ b ; F r y s ? ~ . ~ & ' ~ ; ~ . , & ~ s ~ b i ~ p l ~ ~ t h l i n t h i s h a ; e k e n ~ o u t ' ~ r ~ m ~ i $Fd' ~ a.., t ~
. g
, I - h ~ W ~ e b f I q y ~ e i n ~ ~ & q t & t , ~ ~ P O @ t a~ ~. ak t .m ~. ~
" ; e ~ w h o ~ ~ h a d ~ aI a! d?
.- , ,d&dthe&@+~sheh$U&m~bi*bfj~.
Justlikeske~toMBim&h~+pt~erpddaad~like&es~
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as if sdrehddjmnoticedhe w a &&.
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rUhddon'tyou dalte &l$obody,,eitk; W~B.I qnean it Tab knowk
d?. h d - b i d s , ~~6ti're
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look@el'rn akpt &htee& dh't
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$ ) r q u r q u r ~ ~ d ~ s ~ s o that
d $ ~thing
t a ihe
a ~d &s a stsre. N O Wagainst UndeWoodg, but a co&&-ad d few.tabl&in a
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dusrjTdstoxe+'tar~~tD . u ,
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~ ~ ~Milm
~%ethC
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~t? tachJean ,
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f wouldk to &ttd ~ d d dk
m4w0rkk.o a singing
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"w,B.,yI"uamit ntfl ~ou'realittle &iq.~ o gotto
u g r o w u p & but~wcan'~~meout
anti
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Mhudat him - ,:
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#st rhhggpu'iegonaa'do is get m a key topnclleW d f s cabin?;
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.intothe hpgbihml aid steakan algebra a t tyause s h e w bo..too bq-ko'rking pn ha music to
~ ~ ~ . ~ ~ ~ ~ i s ~ o ~ n a a ~ ~ e n a ~ o t m ~ & ~ ~ r - ~ t h t .:.
h a n a \ r .r y i '2%
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r a ~ ~
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timeO R - W ~ ~impomaq
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mh6nbd told liia~iwu~lpdo it r+, btt i Wikid'e *
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T o u ~ & m ~ l ~ k m b ~ e ' ~ ~ ~ d j f y
~o~.~.hail.s~p&d&[email protected]$iedoot
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H o W s de& Itwas almpst too easy. But the
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Jean
A?an
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7&a gahonk @re
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just
figate
but
a
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sheshesteod
up $d!Crakeddhynath. "Anddk&hq@, we gotchq&
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foxhe." Shqwipedthedi* &f &q
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. tonight ,$4aina&ysla$swing intbep'a. and takeyaual&g ditb ms ~ ~ e $ s q $ d , ~ t t c m i j $ t~randina
. > . ~. ~ . ~ ~ ~ ~ a t i s ' ~ , ~ l ~ ~ ~ . ~ a t h e p l l l r d ~ h e r h B ~ i a a a t i i q e , r ~ 1 d ~ e ~ t & - n e i n t
-I&& mv&g~.l$.& on ~pg'i'chwraiwlr feanAm t9 4:&g b."HE mad &eiB@e oddif her mama k#~ e a n h - he-.
&qshe mixxibibdwg the co+
roads, fq&g &aLafprkko- to,.& side as.* Bew hp, W.B..fi@rd'L *st justhe &&her ,
=ma@'@
ha *ve4repE,
since~ean+b~t
h a v e a ~ d py n d k mama hsdto ta~e&&&aa@ri,wb ~&worse~u~1Jg@ari
- a baby. WB*h
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b p w.
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"Jean
I don't v k t my of yo& crazy W. Just gb straightto c h u r c h ~ bdack.:
"Yes, ma'am," JeaiAnn shoiteed b&
"Hoycome your mama and daddyain'rcomin'?" she asked ps W.B. c&
into the truck.
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"They\re goin' ov& their,booksfrom the store tapight. Tryin' to figim ways to save more money.",
a cloud of dust. The shurch was a
. . Jeaa Ann jammedthegear shift into reverse,and theyflew'bbg~&cult.ofthe.driVewaiyi hldden i~
. littleovera mile away, and MLB.4et go a big sigh ofrelidas JeanAnn p*d onto tke grass in Gront of the wHte building and sla&edon
,
fhe brakes, causing them to reel forward and ba& as the ild W& aunt! to @rest.
"Who's that?" Jean Ann h
i
e
,
grabbingw$.'s arm k tbcg 'ctau* their bra&. W.B. watched as a &anger loped Up'thesteps ioward
i
theentry to the church: The double doors at th4 hoot Qfxhesanbuarywere prqpped.ojen, and the two doors on either side of the choir
were also open to allow the air to circulhte in the hot, humid summer nigb"t. W.B. w y already sweating,and.hc hoped~&therBilly'$ 1 ,
sermonwbn't going to be a long one.
"Who?" W.B. b k e d to where Jean hm's finger was pdiutbg, pretendinghahadp't seen anyone ynusual, as they walked through the
church doors.
,,
Tbrt." Je* Annbat irritated qt him-too
sometimes. Ske wqr pointin$ to a tali~trangeiwho W,B.WB.could mq-f&yre out ' rnessed'io be maybe ei$hen br six He wbre faded jeans and a ).Me bind-co&shirt and appuedto be .
either tired or bred with tht--tire congregation. He scootedW i n t o apew and flipped the h+ out of
'@
collar with long finger&leanAnn pdedW. B. to the pew "ght behind, and W.B, could-seeher s e g a t her
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the dark curlslying just overt& ban&f the cohr.
W.B. felt ]*AI,L$S
q & g &patie~ce;aJlzhroughchurch. shk'dropPedahj?nnal;sheclepredher throat;
d).ive
W*
h e slid over to get a loolqt the sideof the strmger's'f&e;'S'he.dide v e 6 but stand on her head to geihis
oPei,'and they were ready for the last h w , "&'~od,
attention through the bflgsemda. F i y , i t
alongt h e - C ~ U ~r V&
. Our Help in-Ages?pt.%.& had hoped itwo d 6e an &miliar one,but *one seemed to beg for J e a ~
Ann to belt it ou!. ,El& YO^ rose and peibbled &ghtty as she a w e i n d o h tq the last verse: " T i e , like
fbrcng 0 t h*d~
W& to
an evir r a m gstreq? ~ea$Artngang, her dears
o
p
r
m
voicesoftheoldladiesaroundthwr8oon bears &.all away. We fly forgotten, as a$eamlDics at the opening
o was uyorli@pp fromthat last pbt, and he knew enbughto k&p qbiet for
t h a s i d e a s s h e ~ b y . . day." W.B. c o a , i e l ~that ~ aAnn
aminuteor two to l&e imotip:aof it &kin. Sliealwayssaid thatsensitivepeople likeht&+fneddedquiet
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sometiniesto feel the e f f e a . a f b ~ g irt Q that getsgr&& hearts to swell.
.
Jean
Ann
stoodwith
her
eyes
closed,her
face
G
h
t
e
d
in
higeneral
direction
of
h+n,.but
W.B.
cogd
seeher
peeking
through
barely
.
opened slits at thk broad shouldeisin front of her. As the stranger sidledout of the pav, ~ a n ~ n n ' s ' e popped
~ e s dpen, and W.B. felt hel:
grab his'arni again. "Can you believe that guy? Can you bekm the nerve?" She was practically pulling W.B. down the aisk. "He didn't .
".
wen turn qaund. flat a 'hew or n o t w . Some people are such snobs. fome people &ink they're just'too good.:."
"Maybe he wasjusl in a.hurry," W.B. %aid; %ta c* lyk dawn. ,"gaybe he had to meet s m ep ~ p l e W.B.
. ~ knew it washopeless.
. Nobody treatedJean Ann like that. W.B. remeinbered when me
~ a b $Isr had puqoply "forgopefl* to tell Jd
Ann that all the
kj+ were meeting at the lake oneFriday night.
e?dEd.ap'inatemble cat fight that pro_bblywoulp'velanded Lisa Beth Parker in t&e_
hosp& if some of 'the boys h a w t pulled the& &f &f,f o&er& held Jean Ann down 'til she cooled off and pronhised to take Lisa
Nth's apology. ,
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%Look,W.B., he's met his match with me;: ~ e a A
n nn &xi& : " ~ ies &ma be one s o e cowboywhen I leave town this summer,you an
.
bet on that." W.B.'M neverseen her quite agi~ted.,W;etetin&&car;~?J.B. w e & placeifo go."
W.B. rollqd the window,down, and the humidityp y h d bta the
like cotton candi. 'Yau heard'~&, Jean Ann, WeBretofgo
straighthome."
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"A&, don't be s&h a baby, W.B. Your mania'kno%i he;N Brother BiQ can go on some,&ghts. Besidei, ye're n;t goid far? shigave .
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him a sidelongglance. "Just over to your daddfstabiin Is a&*
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The t r u t lurcha d o h thi black-topped road, an&'w.Ws stbmach,lurchedwith it. His daddy'sem Hias iff-hits. It had always
been off-limitssinie the beginningof time;& seemedto W.B. Dddyhad built *cabin before W.B. wasasm~bo~m,
and onewent into .
it %&out aspecial inyiiationand, even at ht,,W.B. a d d wunpn the fingers o f ~ nhand
e who had been in;ritd. W.1. had never even
kis W d y had tri@ to explain, but hesaiditj11sbwaQ2tthekifld'
been in it, despitethe fact that he had6egged and pleadedamlllionedthim.,
- I of bipg a kid cqdd ever understand. W.B. wan'ted to &stand
l& his &IdY m e than anythug i
d &aught he was different
from any adult iatown. Fbr one thing, he was older thq ths a&&p n t g by at I h t ten years, and for 'mother thinghe @xdto pl9y in
-Westefn Swhg bands d ground T e q and ~klahoma'ahd&+sass
He even piayed fhe Cain's.Ballroom in Tulsa That's.why &'was
- older. ~ e s l i d hhd~t o get thewildnessout before aqin'
&kid. N& h ij-@
with old~ oFe l ~ e nwbrs
~,
%heanfiddle,
H mphepJ the churqh o r g e t *who md,d real$mme to ,iifewhep she played the piatlo in the &per bf Daddy's storeL. and ME$.
Thepoi@was, Daddy sad
i , ,the cabinwas aplace fmhlbbalbawthhswi, It was theo n l y p k thatqdljr~his~
and ~metimes
he'bdto+p.the'wto m n i n d ~ - w h liewas.'Daddy
o
hid&ow&+mqin reasdn &at w..coul&t@ there, h
e the two of@m
not in a small place like thecabin.
were son$xd up tagethgth%t he woddn't.be ableto pl where be W e d atrd W.B. left off, ape*
W.B. stilldidn't hderstand, buthe bad stoPped&l&g? a
d QY& &efears had begun to see the cabin as spme sortof mysterious place&t
adulthoodwould give hhn,theright to Gtei. W.B. could only hope &t &meday he woyldbe worthybf h
a
d
g
bis Daddy take him to the
gathk
his
thoughts-and
maybe smokea
cabin, wen though his mama told-&I it was really nothing1just a place for Daddy to,be aloneto
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"Jean &,I
cahlt do this,..* WlB. began.
. " ~ i d say
1 we were go& to do anything?" Jean A b &tempted. ."We're juit ganna
diive
over there and look a; it from the outside,
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that's all. Can that be so bad?"
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Y guess notn-W.B. still didn't trust her mood. "But that's all. And just for a minute. I don't want you goin' and gettin' me grounded,
Jean Ann.",
, we are." Jean.Ann pulled to a stop on tfie road in-front of the field where the cabin stpod.
. . ?would stopwonying, W.B.? ~ o o khere
try
to
drive
in
there.
Unde
Woody
mlght
notice
Gsfi
tire
trackshrough-his
field."
"I guess Lbetter not
4
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"You meanwe're gonna get out?" W.B. could feel his heart beating hard as he looked at the cabin standing eerily in the moonlight in the
.
middle of t h e ~ p e nfield. Beyond the cabin, a grove of blackwahiut trees cast black shadows across the bluish yellow field. The clear night
and the almost full moon made everythmg look slightly-lopsided and unreal. It didn't seem natural to W.B. to be able to see this well +t
night.
"Come on." Jean Ann had already hopped overthe hitch running along the side of'thZ road and was crawling through the barbed wire
'
fence. "Are ya' afraid of the boogey man?"
.
W.B. followed her. The cabin wasn't really a cabin like most pedgle.think of cabins., 1t reminded W.B..of a house of cards. ,His daddy
had mpde it out of *hatever scraps he could come up with, andthere was reallypo style, as Jean &m would say. It was practical as those
things go: When you looked at it,
could tell why a piece of scrap m e a w a s where it wasprwhy the cbrmgated plastic was in that exact
spot, because'no piece could re$y gaanywhere else: W.B. knew that it had adirt floor and some kind of stove-like fireplacethat his daddy
had rigged out _ofa b m l . It wasn't a pretty structure, and it looked a little crazy stuck irr the middle of a ;ow pasture, but W.B. felt that
most people respected his daddy and could ignore the stranginess of the cabin. h d those who didn't ...well, they just weren't much liked
- by anybody anyway. . ,
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Jean Ann rattled the door, but it wouldn't budge. "Let's goaround t o the back."
"Jean Ann, let's just go," W.B. begged. "I don't want to do this. I don't want to be here. Let's just go." "Quit whining," ~e&Annsaid. She was jumphg up and-down,trying to get,a peek in the hlgh, rectangular windows near the top of the cabin. "i'm dying to see in here. Aren't y o i ~even curious, W.B.?" "No," he answerqd. "It's just a placebr Daddy to be alone. ~he're'snothin' there." * "Here. Boost me up so I can see in. I'll tell you.what's in there.':
I
W.B., cupped his hands, and JeanAnn put her foot in, but W.B. couldn't lift her high ehough. "Comeon. W.B., you're strong$r than that;" ~ean-&n said just'as w.B.'s grip broke and they both fell intostheweeds. "Hey, I thought I saw someth6g. Really. I thought I saw ablack box or something." ,
_
"Don't start makin' things up, Jean @."
', "No, really, I did. I swear. I'll prove it to you. Get me that k6y and I'll go in q d look and tell you what's in there," Jean Ann said. "You
don't have to have nothin' to do with it, except you get me that key. Mayhe Uncle Woody's aspy or an FBI agent or something."
W,B. started back across the field, stornpjng so Jean Ann would know he was mad at her. "Jean Ann, let's go. I gotb get home before I
get in trouble."
\
"Okay, okay. I'm'takid you home, but you get me that key." W.B. diQ't say a word the rest of the way home.
As he got out of the truck, Jean Ann said, "Meet me at your daddy's tomorrow morning at eleven." W.B. didn't
,
The cabin wusthe O ? Z
- answer, but almost said 'no,) a word that ~ e a ~nn-almost
n
never heard come out of his mouth.
The next morning W.B. saw Jean Ann walking up the sidew* toward his daddy's store. He ran to catch up with
I
hi;most of his anger from the night before was gone. Th3y hadn't done anythmg, aft&all. ~e had walked around pIdce thatrm& w k hk
fhe cab& pleaty ofttimes by himselfwondering what w~ in it, sp he shouldn'tfeel so mad at Jean Ann for doing the
s h e thing. .
, and sometimes he had
"Oh, look," Jean Ann said, jerking her head toward the sidewalk across the st?eet. "I mean, don't look'now, but .
doetn't that just make your skin crawl?" She had caught sight of Scotty, the legless boy who was scooting himself
- to
thme to remind
along @e sidewalk. "Imean
thought of it,'..can you imagine having a train run over your legs fike that and jtist .
slice them off?" Jean Ann rubbed her arms with her hinds. "The poor kid, but I guess he: used to it."
himsefiyho he was.
.."I guess." w e both knew &e story, but for s6me ieason we had to go over it all again when we saw Scotty. "His big brother w b playkg aroundthe train tracks and lift ~cottysittin' there for just a few minutes. That's allit took.." "That reminas me."ean Ann had that 16ok on her face that said she had sbme excitement going or was going to make some. 'YOU gotta
meet me at the train tracks tpni&t, just h e r it gets dark Tell your mama you're c o d over to my house to borrow a CD or something.
'
I got
- some new CDs at Wal-Mart in Muskogee the other day, so I'llbring one with me for p u to take home."
- 'Whatare we gonna do'at the train tracks?" W.B. hated the train tracks, mostly because of S c o w He could never hear a train without
,
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. fiat picture g$ni through his head.
. "Pra*e."
Jean Ann smiIed mysteriously. "I can't tell you now. lust be at the west end of the train yard right at sundown."
"I don't know, Jeap Ann..."
"Have I ever lied to you, W.B.? You know you always haye a good.time with me. Besides, I need your help, remember?"
,
W.B. couldn't resist the fact-thgt Jean 4needed 'him. He felt a p& athis heart and pro'inised to be thdre for her the minute she said. "Thanks,W.B. Now be quiet about everpthig. 1don't want your daddy gettin' suspicious,"JeanAM said as they pushed open the screen dodr into wdody's store. ' Well, look what the cat drug up," Woody said is the door sla-sd
behind W.B. a& ~ e a Ann.
n "You two comPin tohelp ine, or areyou just here to get discovered by sm~aHollywoodtalent scout?" cold in her tracks. W.B. iooked around her frozen shoulder to tde end of the counter, where : "Hi, Uncle Woody, J.,." Jean Ann stopped
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the mysterious stranger sst, having a hamburger and a shaky \ . '
"J~&&G. W.B., have you met Tom Calberf yet?" Woody asked.
"Uh,,no;I don't believe we've met," lean Ann waked smoothly toward the stranger, cool a+syou ~1-e. W.B. admired her q i c k recovery I
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1996
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,whai guy wouldn?.
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much like toothpaste c o r n m a d
up on the stool beside him.
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just moved here. My
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"Oh, so you4 begoing to~thehighschool?
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.'Yeah, senior year? Tom said. 'He toi,k"abite ofhis ~ b u r g & . ~ ~ ~ ~ ? "
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~ o r l d ~ r i ~ &It *ached
~.
l.+i heart. She g@ked
- . T m a sophornare." W.B. thought JeanA d d d lj~~oedqsw@et
mi=
,.
~h
id om, .
6ver at w.P:, sha&g their s e ~ e&ti shewouldbe'ieaviag @s &mm&. WB.grinned ather. ~ a n ~ n njk? p d y h g a r ~ w
t + n g him. '
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"YOUYoudtbt S & ~ - ~ t ~ s t6sdionm.
~ eif.there;s
~
an+g i m d g to do in thk
,place. Yoa'kdow...in&&&
me to sorilep~dple."T~wuvasn'tdoing a v e r p ' g d job of alike he tvasn't
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in
J&
Rnn,
thought
Wb.
It was like his daddy
-
YezlZI,I'm~dund,andf,~wj~&~t&~~~u'd&eto~eet,"J~P;rinsaid
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:Gbo&". TO^ wipeda nip@ &his moudi. '%ell, gb& go. My W s w W g for h e to help himdut.
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sai$Jeurt Ann was 'no - Seem'around, then." . ' .
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'&re." i&n~ nmtthedlh
n
slamdxb& @e screendoor. Shemnedbackto fackw.i, who y~aslookihg
regular girl; she .was
. .
through the bubblegpm ba~eba]!
a
~w.B., ,kenumber h
a
t[told ~ o u . . , ~kno~...abaut
u
- .tonight. I,n& to p do
r@it'd+r._".
She$lled a ymngand MO& m a g d e eff the rack @
soniithiiz' eke. , a ,
f l e d it up. "Tell Uncle Wwdy IYp ~ f 8 f t lb
a$&. ~ustbe th&e," .
, .
.. W.B. dthtbe6 P l t ~ e tlbeprdt~ma~&3r%&w
krtin
lezn~nnt&&
g
up; Pink-omge fbgw
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ds
e shot thou& &U blue &q,a
d Jigbtmiag hub were just b
e b flash againstthe dark
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~$icketsh d $WIT
l& s a g iq$e h h i d air. The d o a d gave W.B,.the creeps, d began
to feel-a%* m e t JeanAnn for t&ag himto come &ree Hf sat as gmdl as k coulP,h& p a d 4 M t
- . _ ht ;heri apd he~cohdfeeldk%eartpeqding~iaF ,
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"Here1 am. l'm here.", Jean &n'sa0ag hgssMod in ftQPt
ofhim:
~ 1 d , ~ c k l do*
e d from a 'maP; on her right ktiee. 7du &&t'
th$H $wasn't going to show up, did p u ? I'ab106t W m j d f hippingan agddamn ro&..thougKt I mght ha& to call the whole thing - -'off.." M.B.¶ookedupathei. S h e b ~ e d f l ~ ~ a n d h e r ~ ~ p y ~~ esr~e ~~e es ~v- &
e trh.t y
a k r a ~ d i d w h & & & v r r a s m
- the brink of an dvenmre. That's
it was about'% fldbght %.B~ It was Eke his daddy said,-Jm &in was no replar Hid; she was
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" Y ~ Uw&e&& him, vk@'t~ou,Jeanean*?" WB md&dBhy3*thlt.with'a c
e&
&at mide
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i I fiddled wi% the swps of tke ptus& %!hgtarey&,td@g Hboub WB.?"
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, "I don't &eveit," W.B. *d. u ~ a v 7 r e ' & W h&itmF. 1t" - ' .
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J e a q h slung rh;purse up-bver,her &odder and g h d it S.B. -"1.4m't
know
wh4t y o ~ ' r abdut.
~ ' You
~ &en2
b o w a dam
- , ' 7
e g you're talltia'about, W.B."
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"'@at's a 4 e nW.B. wdl~weilhard to clear the
iqhisvtbroat.:~aybe.half
out 0f he& . , , . - the .stuff ten me i$ Justlike bettin'
ahd doin' b m e d q w & yo&&.
~ll'thiit..?. . . '
',. "Mister%whydo you thinkwe're here right thfs &qe &rvRay?"bhed at him. '1Cbme oh, W.B', what's got into ypu? I-thwght
y6.u were p n n a help me mat. 'I%
old Tata.$e's
& just 1' me fr~c$th"bort%'ti1 I leaye. Quit worrying JO mu&"
W.B. felt the m d trimye as a tiainMia&~ellng
@a€ &&$, W.B. d ah& stre&
tra&>oa bod&
w e M ,
'mass ~ h pd u ~ them.
b
W.B.LOOM TWO tiaim. Isn'tt* jw p&Yn
leap A& $to+ up, watching d
towar+. . \
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t h e q ? . W . B . f e l t s ~ & ~ e t i i r m ~ c e f i r s t o ~ ~ g t a a e ? - a n d e o ~ ~ ~ h e 8 d ~ i t h ~ a r m s ~ ~ e ~ b o r e.
beasts fiom hell cli&g on eitherside of
the wh.ectss'thra;viag QI& sparks and the y s tdw@g over h,
teete&g a ~ CC
dgin '. ' ' .. . .
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. , theigm&lu9$1
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- . After what swmd m W.& to be f+ever; .the-trraini*
lpdt b'f&I& Ann p&ig him UP. .%B:? are &I 4right? it's just a
- 'buphofold tdas. i w&liWt let mythqg happen to you.* W$. .plnBlup ant@@ Laca. H; was s t i l f h -be~didn't'.mtlean ' , -1
+nntoyebow,~he&.
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: "a j$t do& like all that&, @at's all.''
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~ & ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ im 6o p d.&'&d~g~.bw
a d ~ . t t saw%4iike
,' ~
ef ee,dom to me. Gome &
,I $.I'll
I$
&o%pu.what:I
,
want1 .
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W.B.W Ibad ~ t ; &i&t but he f o ~ d ~ m - h : t a * i d &e
h of
,~c.m.
,
"Nw,here'dwhafl want-wto
ofiervb*
wd ~ i t - i n & t
y~k$gly, but brig . -
i n d & h o l d p a l a t a f ~ when1
d&'rin-td@-witb-&e7. I wantBolito take care ofmyCD player '@d my CDs u9ti,IYmset&.*
lean Ann looked t ~ d d t 4 a ' ~ d m
of axb ~ ~ a"Irpi b to &this @in outif' hae'and i'll needyou -.
'
to help me &b up ahd b tlqw my pursebp.to me o m ER'p-ftL'
Gkithat?'
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"Sure, IeariM but maybe p a W dl&&h&cil
, - 1 <:. ;
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~ ~ ~ t y d ~ ~ ~ ~ t h a ~ ~ t o f ~ ! - ~ ~ f s ~ p ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ t & . ~ & n ~ e r l ; w * ~ o ~ s ~ P., ~.
, everybdyknows~aroundhere.% d o y ~ ~ ~ & e & e $ r i . d e o n t \ o f ~~~~ o u l d . ~ s a ~ ; ' Q h , h i : i ' m j u s t- ~., .
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iway. Do you mind &ving me to Dallas? " ' ... .
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"Okay,butthis doesn't look tho safeto me~either.: ~ . ~ . ' l o & eup
d int6thebl* hole of ihe box&.
"WeIl,'at least this way,I'Mm my pwii T?m control, ~ e rboost
i me up, then throw that pursiup, and we'll seehow itworks." W.B. '
pushed her up into,$hecar pnd heaved the purse up after he;. It tookwo tries before Jeak'Ann dughtit, but things weht pretty 'smooth,
W.B. thought. .
.
"Good." Jean Anh s.aid, "ybyhklp me do*.?
I
"Here. I can do that." W.B. turned.to see?'ow walking out of the shadowsbetween the cars of@e train. .L
"What are y6u doin',here?" W.B. asked.
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"Just had a hunch y ~ mightbe
u
over here tonight," said Tom, 6oking s&aight at Jean ~nn.'
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Jean A& turned red and rached for Tom's outstretch4d hand:
-as
"W.B.," $.said, stilllopkingat Tom as shejumped down. "1've got somestuE1want to tell TO&...about school 4 d everythlng...think
.
you can make it home okay ~n your-aivnr
. .
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. "Yeah, go dn home," Tom said-.-'I'll make su$
k c g e t s home alri*."
' .- - "Are you sure?' W.B. thought the last thing he h t e d to do was to leavethe two of them alone,but
he feltlike all the*fightand air had
- ?
gone out of him.
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"Go on, W.B.," JeanAnn Said. "I?Useeyou tofnorrow.9 ' '
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~ i g hthen
t andthere,the thoughtoccurred to W.B. that h e w h i c
a
r A n n . As hewalked home; he turned
.I.-:
the idea over and ovef in his he& andrforthe life of b,couldn't figure,out why he was goingto do it for ber, but he was.
detting thekey was easy. Daddy jualeft it on thebig dresser in his parents' room albng'with the C,erts,receipts, pennies;m wrappers
,
addwhatever els6Daddyhappenedto en$$ out'of &l pqckets that wiek All W.B. had to do w h t foi his daddyto leave fcrr the store
. . k:
. . . ia the morningapd trike the key. We'd never even notic~itwas miising foiweeks. ThatIsjust theway Daddy was.. WB. just !hoved thebig
out the doo'r,beforet e 0
. Hiigiabbed a coupleofbiscuitsoffthe stovewheremama had left them that
goldkey & @pocket and
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moniipg and headed over toJeanAnn's.
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The road out to JemAnn's was a*dusty,gravd.one-laneroad lined with blackberry bushes on eitherside. Every now and *en, W.B.
stopped to pick a hapdful of bemes as he ponderedwlwthg a not to
JeanAnn hwe'the key.,If his daddy'found out, W.B.
might npt seedaylight for the rest of $e shiner. He fingered the key in hisp~cketash e.sdedup the ruts in JeanAnn's 'driveway.
'"I-fey, W.B." Jean Ann was already?ut on the porch, loo&&ean'ly-+id.
What's up?" ,
The minute he:saw her, W.B.'s rpindwas made up. "I&t
it,"he whispered.
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' 'What?"
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. , rou'kner7itn
How,could she n$ know? "'lhe key."
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h nn juinp&.l GP. 'That's geatt was it hdrd to ? i v e it 6 m e tme we it. Are you
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sure it's th'e rrght one!"
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-"Ofcourse I'm sui.e." W.B. handed her the key.
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, sThis ikagreat. okay, I'm goin'~vkrthere to-t."
JeanAnn looked at him,%d I ' q goin' by myself: '
. . . nutway, if s6m9bo@doei fiid9ut, sflbe the only one to p in trouble."
the-caknthat was
"No, Iwantto go, tho;" -:. - '
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"I don't think so, W.B. Trustme." jean i\Mput ;hand on hi arm, "AllI ;ant to do is have that cabh
- almost like some hidden
.
I
5 asakideout in c a I need
~ it. I know soiheonewhocan getme a copy of this key withouiraisin' suspicion,. .
ahd dei you andl can go there any t h e we wint."
'm
., v - , . . f&@e&tq
. z
., \ - C t .h;,.,
"I don't know
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3-.-,
... "
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. "w.B., beli& me," ~ eh in said in her sweetestvoicet "~'vethogtif a lot about this. YOUdon't want
- us to.get caughtand iness up my'whole p h , do you?"
<
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.' ' "We& I.guess not. ~ uI get
t to go as spon q you get that other bey m& said $7.~:"-And
, 40dt be too
1 .?.
.- e t i : .'
.-.
. long $bout it.. I don't want Daddy to notick? - .
f, % +' y
- 'C
*
his gui& dud fmpniui s o w .
gbt hp and .
. --f'
That eveningW.B. sat on the porch, feelingrestless. pacjdyant behind Ilim,
, , - ' . . I ,
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balked
araund
the
yard,
then
floppedback
down
on
the
porch.
Before
long
he
was
up
again,
h$ing
up
and
down'th\esteps.'
\ .
. 2-. ,r4:. %ou ants in your pants or wlias tonight, boy?"DadQysaid, picking OF a ~rahytune tamatch y.~t:imood.
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-Just feelin' rdess, I guess. IdhkI'll get my pole and walk over to the pond te seeif anything's bitin' tonight."
. ,., l .. %'
-"~k;;j,son. ;But don't stayover there' too long."
W.B. r& to the shed, grabbed i@@i
p'?le, and took off down theroad tqward the cabin. As he got do&, something*ade him $ow .'
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- . down it h y s did. Therewas a mysfe* to.&i cabinthatwas'alrnost'like some hidden forasfieldto-W.B. It felt'morerespectful to w& ;
. , .
up to it. Thatvnight,he heard wh@peringvoicesas he jumped fheditchto the cowpa~ture.He-recognized JeanM s high-pitched giggle,
<
but the lowervo<dewas damiliafto him. He quIdn't makd oh{ what theyweie saying,sohe ducke'd alpngthe fencbuntilhe was directly
in frontof the cabin.' ASrjr'.~.looked tho&$ the tall weeds screening him, he s9wTom 1over JeanAnn 9she fiddled with the-key ' -. -.
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inthe lo& W:B. codd~ee-ToOm's,handover
hers and the key gIipting in the moonl@t. w.B.'s t h a t dosed and kept'ascrbam.insidehim
', that welled up frbm somewheredeep in his gut. His h d d s were' cleichedin tight fists at
. :, ..'.I*.+!!+?
;*+.:;,-i
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' -door to the cabin, he W h e d i t ,theweeds aqipounded the groundw&,his Qts.
The purple shadows under the black walnut trees iodd h&e swallowed h h p p foreter right *n and there anif he wbuIdhav~been , ,+'
-7,'
- happy. At that ~ ~ m eW.E
* knew as clearly =.the moonlight
- \ . that,JeanAnn would not be leaving this summer or pzobably ahy othet
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summer; but lie had lost her just
as
surelyas,ifshe
had.
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Apnea Exit
By Earnie Mbntgomery
Earnie Montgonieq lives and &-ites in ~ i w e t a t;his is his jintpiece offiction for ~klahomaToday.
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D
UGALD, it's that da*n machine!" Lila ~ a r i eso&lairied,
l
as,she did each morning. "It shakes the livin' hell opta you
and that's why you're tiredallhe time an' sleep the way you do." Her voice rerhinded Dugalaof a rusty gate hiige;one that
screeched with the slightest breezy provocation. Through thirty years of marriage, what had started as a little kernel of irritation
from her first complaints about his sleep habits had grown into a cixicretion of hate, an evil, odious pearl that grew daily between the shells
of their two pitiable egstences.
Every akt of the other added to t
k thing that lay between them-the way Lila's jaw joint clicked whenshe chewed her food, how he
rolled his eyes each.time just before he spoke, her weight, his hair loss; her too-loud-laughter when guests were present, his silence except
when guests were prhsent, his clothes, her clothes, her hau, his, he^, his, her, and on and on and on. But espeiially, particularly, Dugald's
sleep formed the core .aroundwhich their 4ate-pearl flourished and'gllstened,an orb made from iridescent mother-of-misery.
Skeep. Dugaltl worked hard at sleep. He n&ed sleep. Mined it fiom a.great b i d of exhaustion heaped higher a d higher each day, like
some mksive, earihen mound he mi& construct with the b'ulldozer he operated for the county. And today the bulldozer pressed heavy
tracks on Dugald's m'ind ds his long, basset-like face stared across his morning coffee toward the emPCother side of the breakfast table,
where Lila never sat.'
,
"That dozer'swrecked somethin' in your head too," Lila said. "That's why you snore like'you do. ~ i kydu're
e
tryin' to rip your noseright
off your face."
She stood at the kitchen cabinet, stirringa cup of hot tea. Lila faced away from Dugald, and the large pink flowersbnher purple housecoat
splayed o'ut across her behind like designs on expanse of wafipaper.
"Wallpaper ass," Dugald said to himself. "Her brains'are &as wallpaper, an' she wears 'em an her-ass."
.
KA-CHUNG. A toasteF on the cabinet in front of Lila coughed up a piqe of toast ai~dsent the warm, gentle, brown smell of roasted
bread intb the air. As Lila reached for the toast, sunlight, from the window over by where Dugald sat, played across hcr hair and lighted the
xN
The
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. gray that now dominated t6e red. Freckles littered her pale ark, little pigment islands thatgrew darker with age.
Time was when Dugald thought those freckled were.cute, especiallythqseon her slightlyupturned nose, the wajr,threeof *themlined up
in a Gttle mw right down the middle. But no more. Now, Dtigald thought theefreddesjust made her lookpainted, likethe sky-colored eye
I
, shaddw She wore above the waxy mascara that tried to make each eyelashblad;~erand longer andthicker than its neighbors on each side.
"1f p d d jqst gone tq college, D'ugald," 4ia said. "Like I I d . An' like my brother, Toin, did. Then you wouldn't be shin' an €ha;
,
THING'ever'day, havin' tlqe crap shook outa you: Then you'd sleeplike normal people sleep. Not be tired: Zcould sleep better. We'd
. bothbe..."
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Dugdd said, as He scraped his chak backward &omthe table and stood to leave.
"I backed the dozei over,acar
i
"...college," Lila continued. "If you'd gone, now ypu'd be a bank presidqntor-adoctor, maybe. Or a teacher. Or anything except..."
.
Lila's hcad snapped up, Her toast:covered w@ two spoonfulsof her ~ u n~yrtle's
t
plum jelly, poised-atmid-mouth. What did he say?
;
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- Backed the dozer over a car?Whose car? Was anybodyin it?
Abruptl< Laa whi;led around. She heard tlie front door slam. Out the window, she saw Dugald's broad, blue-denimed back receding
'
down the walkwaytoward the street. In front of him, his old blue Ford pickup waite'd, patientlyparked beneath the branches-of the elm
.
- . ,tree her fatherhad planted'when he gave thkm the house, right after they returned from their honeymoon.
"Dugald!" Lila yelled. - .
,.
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*
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Both her hands made spontaneous & a h at the mid-thigh portion of he! housecoat and hiked up rhe hem as she ran to the door. A soft
. . .
splatsoundedwhenthetoast landed,jegYside down,and stuckto the new fake-~ood;~ar~uet
~oleum
6om wal-~art.thatshehad gotten
Dug$d to install the week before.. Down the middle of the kitchen the pattern didn't & t ~ h ' ~ r o ~ because
e r l ~ Dugdd had read his tape
4
meawe incorrectly.
,
"Dugald!" Lila shfiekedwhen sheslammed'outthe door,bnly to hear the old Fordioar and see an angry.bluesmokecloud bruise the air
,
.
as Dugald drove ;way. ' .
.8
.# =
d g d dsmiledas hiherdd the P i & ~ Palong, A dulliche thrufnmed his temples, and capillariestraced lidTtired, red road maps on his ,
I
,
,
eyewhites. Tiredor not, Dugald loGedto drive his oldtruck,a '65 modelthat he feltmoreas if he put on to wear than got into to drive. Lila
I
1
had ragged him two weeks running when he glued gold carpet scraps ontb the pickw's dash. "Nobody!-But,Nobody! Not even a FOOL!
EVer coverstheix dash with carpet!r shehqd screeched, moretimes than he caredto count. And he had run shorton carpet scraps, so ablue
I
island of dash upholstery peeked out at l&n just right of the speedmeter.
,
-,
, "That oughta screwup 'errmind for today)))Dugald muttbred as he turned oito the.hi&way that led td the cow& machine y$rd.
,Ahead, ablue.jayflewjust in fiont of the Ford's hood, as if trying to race. When Dugald speededup, the bird peeled away a ~ d 4 e winto
w o v e of freesbeside the road.
"Let 'er thi&i really messed'vp somethin'," dugald mumbled through the steering*vhe;l as hiseyes flicked briefiy'to th.fleeing bl&
-- . jay. "Yessir.' She always thii I screw up [email protected] let_'erchew on a smashed car for the day."
I
, Actually, the fact that he trdyhad crushed a car with the bulldozer causedDbgaldconsiderablew(~'ny.Not'that it
'had been much of a car. ~ u sanold,
t
motorksshulk of aBuick that hisuncle, JuniorBorduSine, countycommissioner
Both'her hands
, of Towson County, Oklahoma, had pushed'ovefby the back fence in the countyyard. But Dugdd worried because
I
he had gone to sleG ahs he backed the bdldozer dpwn off the big flatbed truck ysed te c a w the huge piece of heivy
sponfan~
, equipment. Whatif people had been in the car? Kids maybe? Dugald's dozer had crushed the Bvi& like a beer can . .
at a recycling center.
grabs at the
Haw could anyonego to sleep on a running bulldacr? While workingthe controls,at that,,~ u ~ adidn't'know,.
ld
.buthe worried that sometimehemightrun mer s o m e w gthat reallymattered. And besides, @e othermenheworked
mid-thigh portion
'with had kidded him, called him "Crusher," and unclehad really raised hell, saying, "Dugdd! Dammit! You ain't
wnrth theprice of p e e d paint when it comes to watcliin' where you're goin'!".
. of her housecoat
By the time Dqgald parked in the countyyard, his gut hadgown tight as wire in a new fence. He dreaded the day,
the teasing that would come; along with his uncle's disapproval. But the day went fairly well, Only one person
and hiked Up the
mentioned"crusher," andjust onetime at that, and he t
s e e 'm e , n o e n once. CommissionerBordvhe
spent the day attendingsomemeeting at the countyseat,while his nephewpushed bver trees wherea retention pond
was being constructed awayon the sooth sideof the county,down by the Texas stateline. And Dugald driftedoff just
hem US she ran to'
one time, whilehe sat on the dozerwaiting for Brewster Caldwellto open a gate. At quitting time, Dugald shuffled to
.
his pickup, put ,it on, and pointed himself toward Lila.
.
"
' ;the door.
Dugdd
heaveda
longsighwhen
he
parked
udder
the
elm
tree
and
stededhimself
to
leave
his
truck.
As
he
slammed
,
the door, he noticed a splat of fresh bird droppings on the Ford's roof and heard a blue jay scold down from the
1 =- brandes above. Dread acl?ed his very bones, and Dugaldwondered how many times Lila wodd mention "codegem
to&&t a d him beingsomethintotherthan abulldozer driver andhow'wonderfulsheandherbrother were for having + - ,
1
gone to schooL '
4
:
bla's brother h d attendedcollege all jght, for onesemesterin 1966. Thenhe flunkedout, got drafted, and got himseIfkilled inVietnam. .'
.L t
Shehad lasted aEttle longer,two-and-a-half semesters,beforeher academic effortscollapsed. But Ma had the notionthat anybne,alive or :.dead, who had so m u ~ h breathed the air on .a college campuslived sever$ millehnia ahead of Dugald, a fact she never ceasedto explore
and one thht gnawed emotions as he approached the house.
\
..
. .; .
Sud&dyrjust before ~ u ~ areached
ld
the porch, the front door of the house blasted open and Lila's voice shrilled, "~ousm'aasheda cat! *.
I finally got hold of cur uncle Junior on the phone, an' he told me what happened. What d'you mean sayin' som&.like
that, then
, I * ,
'
&I
&&in' out? Why I never..." .
.
A
Dugald rubbedboth eyes with theJacks of his hands a's he steppedthroLgh the door. The house seemed intent on suffocatingh , ' a n d
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A y g u s t
S e p t e m b e r '1996
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From a reclusive sanctuary he built high on the prairie, he wrote some of the finest books
ever produced by an Oklahoma experience. In their pages, he decanted his understanding of
what it means to be a Native American in a world no longer in balance.
Mr. Carl Ponca is curator of the Osage Tribal Museum in Pawhuska, a museum founded in
1938 primarily by John Joseph Mathews. On the day I went to speak with Mr. Ponca about
Mathews, the museum was full of Austrian teen-agers who seemed a little dumbfounded by
their host. They had come to see something romantic, I imagine, but arriving in the Osage,
they had found instead a people living in the 20th century, preparing for the 2 1st. Mr. Ponca
compressed the story of his people into a Jungian duality of Earth and Sky,speaking to this
ragtag band of international youth in smooth German. After he saw the teen-agers to their
bus, we went into the museum and spoke of Mathews. Mr. Ponca knew the famous author,
and he always refers to him as John Joseph. "John Joseph was really a man two generations
ahead of his time," Mr. Ponca said. "He was criticized occasionally for just writing down what
he was told, but never before John Joseph was a history so well recorded."
Before Mathews became a student of his own people, many histories had been written of
Native Americans, usually by white men who for the most part were told what they wanted to
hear by the people they spoke with. Mr. Ponca reminds me of George Orwell's warnings about
history as a political tool, angled or slanted delicately enough off its proper course to justify a
course of action.
Mathews seemed to have a sense of this danger always lurking just off in the wings as he
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . worked toward the creation of the Osage Tribal Museum, building a potential castlekeep of
Of the nocturnal hunters, the
Osage language and culture at a time when the Osage people were still in danger of cultural
great horned owl is the most
dissolution but long before most Americans placed much value on such things.
important. He strikes fear into the
In those days the old men worried that "the sheet water of oblivion might wash their moccasin prints from the earth," Mathews writes in the introduction to his epic novel, The Osages:
hearts of the guineas with his
Children of the Middle Waters. The book took decades to research and write, and Mathews
booming and freezes the life of the
traveled many miles and listened for many hours to the old men of the Osage as well as other
grass roots and the running oaks.
tribes. The detail and truth of the book are powerful, even in the days before history, when
Only the nonchalant skunk carries
history was the story of your own family, of your own people.
When speaking of his book, Mathews used the term "instinctive knowledge" to account for
on with his turning of cow chips
things that could not be held in one's hand nor explained-yet also could not be denied as
looking for beetles to feel suddenly
true. The stories in the book were told to Mathews, but he used his own means to share them
the sharp talons of the great bird in
with his readers, often presenting an occurrence with little fanfare or explanation for the reader
his back; his blackness is of no avail,
to recognize on his own.
The Osages was the closing of a circle that John Joseph Mathews began with the publication
and the two white stripes running
in 1932 of Wah'Kon-Tah. Wah'Kon-Tah became a Book-of-the-Month Club selection that
down his back, like the scalp lock of
same year, clinching success in New York publishing circles for Mathews. The book is based
the Osage warriors serving as a
heavily on the life among the Osages of Major Laban J. Miles, an agent first assigned to the
challenge to all enemies, only
Osage agency in 1879. Mathews' childhood home was on the hill where the agency is situated,
and the young Mathews was a frequent visitor to Miles' office. In the book, Miles, a white
advertise his position to his deadliest
man, is the protagonist in a story of Native
enemy. But even when the white
American experience. Mathews recognized in
Miles a man who appreciated how closely the . stripes are rudimentary and he is
Osages' survival was linked to the preservation . almost completelyblack, the keen
of their culture.
ears of the great owl can detect the
In the 1930's, John Joseph Mathews left befaintest crack of a stick or scratch of
hind a disappointingtirst marriage (and the false
a claw.
fronts he found in the East and in Europe) and
returned home for good. He built the native
-from Talking to the Moon
sandstone house in the Osage Hills that would
be his home and then settled down to a life of
remarkable self-examination. The result of
these years was a small book (reissued in 1980,
a year after his death) called Talking to the Moon.
'
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
One might now have expected the .
.
Osages to live in their log cabins,
with their garden patches enclosed
within worm fences, and expected
them to seek the churches scattered
here and there in order to get some
relief for their confusion. Since they
had not put away their concept of
God and their blankets and
moccasins and their leggings and
scalp locks and their predawn
chants in 1825 when they turned
over their land to the immigrant
Indians and were assigned to a
reserve, one might expect them to
do so now, since their buffalo were
gone...Now perhaps one might
expect them to cast away their
blankets and their moccasins and
their bear-claw necklaces and their
mussel-shell gorgets and their
quivering scalp locks of turkey
"beard" and deer tail...
They remained resistant. They
chanted each morning to the
Morning Star, and they fasted, and
they held the mourning dances with
no change except where individuals
might evince anxiety and make
1
slight changes of adjustment. There
was an unsureness about their
religious ceremonies, and the once
formal Ceremony of the Dove
became more popular, and
unscrupulous medicine men used it
for profit and self-aggrandizement,
but this was the beginning of
deterioration rather than adjustments inspired by anxiety and
doubt.
-from The Osages
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It has been favorably compared to Henry David Thoreau's Walden, but to this writer it is a
much more hospitable and fire-warmed work. "I realized that man's artistic creations and his
dreams, often resulting in beauty, as well as his fumbling toward God, must be primal, possibly the results of the biological urge which inspires the wood thrush to sing and the coyote to
talk to the moon," Mathews says early on in a book full of clouds and bluestem grass, quail
and setter dogs, and the people of all kinds who Mathews loved so dearly.
Talking to the Moon is a story of trying to live in a balanced state, but it was written at a time
in which Mathews shrugged and accepted the limitations of the "word symbols" he was given
with which to explain the truth. He even took to calling himself Our Lady's Juggler of words.
He lived in the house on the prairie he called The Blackjacks with his books and his fireplace
and his setter dogs, even after he married Elizabeth, who wrote the foreward to the reissue of
Talking to the Moon, the woman who Violet Willis describes as "the love of his life."
Violet Willis, who still lives in the rolling hills that Mathews called home, has a sadness that
shines through her clear eyes as she leans over the table to share a deep regret. "I didn't know
he was dying," she said. "I really didn't. I knew he was ill, but a woman had moved here to
Pawhuska, and she did so want to meet Jo. I knew he was ill, so I went in before her, and I was
hesitant about this. He was so dignified even then. I told him that I had brought a lady to
meet him who was simply in awe of him, and he looked at me and said, 'Well, Violet, if someone is in awe of me, then by all means bring her in.' "
To Miss Willis he is always Jo. The copies of his books that she keeps around her are signed
"Jonin dedication, and in her memories he is Jo. In 1931,Violet Willis was a young girl struggling to put herself through school in Oklahoma by tutoring and feeding dogs and lighting
coal fires. Any rosy future seemed a far off thing to Violet, until her mother spoke with
Mathews' sister Lillian at church one day, describing Violet's struggle. A few days later, Violet
was sent for and brought from a physical education class to the coaches' office, and there, wet
with sweat and in her gym clothes, she found the president of the college and the dignified,
precise-spoken man she came to know as Jo. After a short interview she was employed as an
assistant to the dean of women and insured her education. "I always tried to thank him, even
to the end, but Jo always brushed it off."
After graduation, Violet went to work for the Osage Agency in Pawhuska, and after several
years she became a secretary for the Tribal Council, which included John Joseph Mathews.
Impressed by Violet's shorthand ability, Mathews asked for and received permission for Violet to accompany him and an interpreter for a series of interviews with men who had knowledge of the use of peyote as a sacrament in worship. Violet remembers that some of the men
were less than pleased with a woman being present during the interviews, but Mathews paid
them no mind. Violet spent hours working on Mathews' mission, attempting to freeze and
preserve on paper a people's culture at twdight.
She remembers Mathews as an independent man and one who could
be unconventional at times. He dressed in his own fashion, wearing bush
vests or pith helmets or his well-known safarihat, unconcerned with any
raised eyebrows. Some who remember him still view him as something
of an eccentric,but unconcerned would be a more accurate description.
Violet recalls a woman who came to Pawhuska to interview Mathews,
and rather than meeting him as arranged, she went straight out
to The Blackjacks unannounced and uninvited, only to h d
1
Mathewsbathing in his yard. The incident grew into rumors
that Mathews was a nudist, when in fact the man was simply
trying to take a bath without the benefit of a house with running water. But Mathews saved hurt feelings for deeper wounds.
"He was hurt by many of the things that had been inflicted on his
people," Violet said.
He rued the mission of the Carlisle Indian School-"to kill the Indian and save the child"-in his books, and only toward the end of
his life did he join the Catholic Church. He couldn't resolve stories
of Indian children shaved of their long locks, forbiddento speak their
native tongue, stripped of their tribal clothing, and roped and
1
.
Oklahoma
T o d a y
With his tattooed chest naked to
the waist he walked cluickly to a glass
hanging on the wall. He took up a
comb and parted his long iron gray
hair carefi~lly-along the straight red
line running down the center. For
some time he looked at the red line
which was the symbol of the straight
road which he traveled each day.
Each day as he combed his hair he
tvas reminded of this straight road
which was red as the symbol of dawn;
of the rising sun; red the color of fire
which Tvas the Father from which all
things came.
He turned cluickly from the glass
and walked out onto the porch. He
dragged t o school like livestock \zit11 the tenets of Christianity. In the n a m e ofeducation ( s o m e thing Mathews held d e a r ) , Indian schools were forcing children into a m o l d that rarely fit. A n d
families w h o d i d not send their children voluntarily h a d their annuity a n d allotment payments
withheld until they did. J i m KedCorn, a noted artist, told m e o f his grandfather returning
h o m e f r o m school naked, having stripped away the s l ~ a ~ n e fclothing
i~l
h e was forced t o wear.
For s o m e reason RedCorn's story reminded m e of Mathews' refi~salof the Rhodes Scholarship as "too restricti\ie" for his own fluid intellect. Matllews b r i ~ s l ~ eu dp against his o w n m o l d s
that didn't fit.
Earlier i n m y visit, I had overheard M r . Ponca trying t o explain t o t h e Austrian teen-agers
that Native American children tend to b e right-brain learners, a g r o u p best served by free-tlowing thought a n d information a n d often stunted b y reginlentation. As the t o u r continued on,
I was left wondering h o w m a n y m o r e J o h n Joseph Mathews, waiting t o b e discovered, m a y
reside within a h u n d r e d mile radius of where I now sit.
For visionaries a n d great authors are among 11s-if we are only alert e n o u g h t o notice t h e m
since they d o n o t always carry the trappings ofsuccess n o r
titles o r names. To M r . Ponca,
J o h n Joseph Mathews was J o h n Joseph. T o Violet Willis, simply lo. T o the lady f r o m P,~\vhuska
w h o looked d o w n a t my desk last winter a n d noticed a copy of Trllkirig to the h l o o ~he
, is a
m e m o r y of a kindly man f r o m her childhood w h o helped her with a portrait that hangs inside
t h e front cioor o f the Tribal M u s e u m . T o others like myself, w h o never heard his spoken voice
o r his laughter o r went wit11 h i m a n d his setters t o kick quail o u t of the s u m a c a n d tall prairie
grass, h e is J o h n Joseph Mathews quite possibly t h e hest writer O k l a h o m a has ever p r o d u c e j .
@I
Miclincl Vrlir,ql~tli11cc O I I ( ~~ vritesill Osr~geC:olrlit~~.Olrr tllrlrrks to 13cl111ieMilcs f i r sllnring I ~ c r
btood for a moment, then as \\'ah Tie
Go, the grandfither, peeped over the
prairie, he chanted in a clear voice,
"I1'a/1 Tzr Go, IVoh TZPGO,may my
feet go along road that is straight;
may my lodge he filled with meat,
may my lodge be filled with children;
may I live long on earth, that my feet
may travel straight in roads of
earth ..."
When the lower edge of the sun
barely touched the horizon the chant
stopped, and the early morning world
Jee~nedto be listening, except for the
coughing of the pumps carried from
the oil fields on the heavy air.
-from
\Val1 'Kon- 7'(zh:
Tlie Osage
'
h4flii's Roarl
A u g u s t
.
S e p t e m b e r
1996
the Il%ite
R
OBERT BURBRIDGE OF OKLAHOMA CITY ALways appreciated a good deal. But he liked the hunt
almost as much. He hunted for stocks, second-hand clothes,
and, in the last half of his life, 19th-centuryfurniture, paintings, and decorations-all
with equal enthusiasm. "Daddy was
very down-to-earth," explained Bobbie Burbridge Lane. (Afavorite family story has Burbridge's granddaughter, Dianne
Lane Beffort, volunteering at a local thrift store, only to find
shopping for new clothes.)
Such a down-home image is hard to resolve with the 4,000piece art collection that in September will go on the auction
block at Sotheby's in New York. Remarkable. Superb. Rare.
Treasure-trove. These are the adjectives Sotheby's specialists
have used to describe Burbridge's forty-year-long accurnulation of precious objects, the total of which they must now disperse. If Sotheby's estimates are to be believed, the sale will
bring in close to $3 million.
Oppositepage, clockwisefrom top left:a Wedgewood urn on a stand; a
painted cast-ironfigural torchiere, late 19th century, and a pair of
parcel-gilt and painted cast-iron torchieres; a C.J.Mason & Co.
ironstone, two-handled vase and cover (circa 1829-1845); and a
painted wood ship model (estimated value $8,000).
O k l a h o m a
T o d a y
R
OBERT Oscar Burbridge was born in Winfield, Kansas, on
July 4, 1907, to Lavinia Augusta and Clarence Wright
Burbridge. Soon after, the family moved to Oklahoma City,
where Burbridge would live the rest of his life. The father always dreamed of the son becoming a minister, but Burbridge
intuitively believed he was better suited for business. And he
was right.
In the 1930s, still in his twenties, he began a series of university tours through North America; participants earned college credit, and Burbridge got to see the continent. A pioneer
at heart, he soon found he was an even better inventor. Ideas
just seemed to flow into his mind. Burbridge Lane recalls many
times as a child hearing her father wandering about his room
in the middle of the night as he tried to work through one of
his notions.
Unlike most of his contemporaries, however, Burbridge was
savvy enough to know that in the 1940s manufacturers-not
inventors-got rich. He dreamed up items that we still use
today-tamper-proof identification badges, take-your-ownphoto booths, decals-but more importantly, he became the
man who made them. He built a warehouse in Oklahoma City
where he turned his inventions into reality. Then he secured
an exclusive government contract to make security badges
through both World War I1 and the Korean War; in the 1940%
he cornered the market in decals, becoming the world's largest manufacturer for the next two decades.
Rich beyond his imagination and something of a workaholic,
Burbridge might nonetheless have toiled away in relative obscurity had not a neighbor suggested that he buy a few 19thcentury antiques and objects as an investment. In collecting,
Burbridge found the ultimate good deal, but that was soon
overshadowed by the power of the art itself. Fueled by an admiration for the exacting standards of craftsmanship that typifies the decorative arts of the 19th century, "He became a
researchaholic," said Burbridge Lane. "He eventually went
from working full time to collecting full time."
Opposite page, Portrait of a Young Girl and Her King Charles
Spaniel, American School, 19th century.
A u g u s t
. September
1996
He brought to collecting the same all-or-nothing approach
that had made him a successful businessman, often buying
entire collections in order to get one important urn or table or
lamp--selling off the remainder to antique dealers with nary a
regret. He supported a network of buyers all over the world
working for what he called his "cause."
Over the course of her childhood, Burbridge Lane watched
her father's collection grow to the point that she had to walk
down the hallways of her parents' home sideways so as not to
bump into the many antiques that lined the wall. More disconcerting yet were the thousands of pieces that never saw the
light of day after Burbridge bought them.
Burbridge's routine was to find a coveted piece and have it
shipped to Oklahoma City where, upon its arrival, he would
inspect it for damages, then box it up in a warehouse-never
to be looked at again. When the doors of the warehouse were
thrown open for Sotheby's experts in March, they encountered
crates and boxes that had sat there closed for thirty or forty
years. Indeed it was the first time Burbridge's own daughter
had seen most of the objects (though Burbridge did keep a
sample of his collection in his family homes to show trusted
people).
The similarity of that moment to the opening of Aladdin's
Cave wasn't lost on Burbridge's daughter, who evoked the old
fairy tale when initially writing to Sotheby's about the collection. Accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of the rich, even
Sotheby's was bemused by Burbridge's habits, penning press
releases that referred to "specialists uncovering a hoard of precious objects." "It is very unusual that he didn't live with it,"
said Elaine Whitmire of Sotheby's. "His pleasure obviously
came from the collecting. He liked the hunt."
He collected European, American, and Asian furniture,porcelain, sculpture, and paintings. Among his treasures are an
eight-foot-tall gold and silver figural clock of a woman (estimated value $50,000 to $70,000); a pair of golf-leaf, handpainted Secrestopographical urns ($20,000to $30,000); a Gall6
cameo glass "Peony" lamp (sold earlier this year for $112,500);
and a painting, Courting Scene, by Vittorio Reggianini, that is
expected to set a record price for the artist at auction (approaching $100,000).
Oppositepage, clockwisefrom top: interior of the Burbridge warehouse
as Sotheby's found it; a pair of S&es topography vases (circa 1825); a
19th-century chest.
Oklahoma
T o d a y
The proceeds from the auction will go to the Burbridge
Foundation, which Burbridge established in 1958 to fund
worldwide missionary work, in effect satisfying his father's
original hope that his son would join the ministry. Only now
the foundation is turning its attention to its own back yard,
with the hopes of making Oklahoma City a model for cities
around the world to follow.
The empty warehouse that once held the Burbridge collection will become office space (completewith state-of-the-art
business equipment and a public relations staff)for not-forprofit organizations working in the Oklahoma City area. "It
killed me to sell it for sentimental reasons," said Burbridge
Lane, "but when I realizedwhat good it could do, it turned me
around."
According to Wes Lane, Burbridge Lane's son, the goal of
the foundation is to see unity among churches so that the
church community can do a betterjob workingtogether to help
meet the needs of the community--from youth programs to
services for the elderly. Already at work is an after school
mentoring and tutoring program called WhizKids, which the
foundation imported from Denver, Colorado,where a volunteer named Larry Bross startedit to help third and fourth graders from inner-city schools. The partnership between Bross
and the Burbridge Foundation is a natural, said Burbridge
Lane. "I can't even begin to tell you how important education
was to my dad."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Lisa Nevard of Oklahoma City is an intern at OklahomaToday;
this is herfirstfeature for the magazine.
TheBurbridge Foundation Collection of 19th-centuryfirniture,
paintings, and decorations will go on the auction block September 11
and 12 at Sotheby's, 1334 York Avenue, New York, New York 10021,
(212)606-7176. (The only exception is the Gall&cameoglass and
bronze "Peony" lamp, which atpress time had recently sold for
$112,500.)
ProceedsFfom the sale will benefit the Burbridge Foundation of
Oklahoma City, which in the aftermath of the bombing of theAlfred
P. Murrah Federal Building has dedicated itself to the restoration and
revitalization of thefamilies and neighborhoodsof Oklahoma City,
with the hope that its home town might serve as a model for cities
around the world.
Thefoundation is located at 3701 N. W. 42nd, Oklahoma City, OK
73112, (405)946-3698.
Oppositepage, a circa 1900 Gall6 cameoglass and bronze lamp.
A u g u s t
.
September
1 9 9 6
W i t h 250,000 ponds to call its own, Oklahoma has a shoreline for almost every one of us. NE STEAMY LATE SPRING MIDNIGHT I WOKE TO
something I may never hear again: the chorus of amphibian bellows joined, after a pause, by another chorus. It
took me a moment to realize what was happening: in unison,
all the bullfrogs in the pond were breathing their strangecall. This
was strange because unlike other frogs, bullfrogs usually sing
solos, their bellows randomly crossing. But tonight a deep down
harmony hung in the still air. The sound was unearthly-ifsomeone had told me right then that the frogs were signaling an orbiting spaceship, I might have looked skyward. I wish I could say
it was a sign that peace on earth or something of equal magnitude was imminent, but it wasn't. The following night the frogs
had lost their harmonious rhythm, and their night song was back
to a random jug-o-rum jug-o-rum.
Listening to bullfrogs fall in synch is just one of many little
natural thrills that come from living near a pond, like walking over
a pond dam in midsummer only to see a red-winged blackbird
making a nest in cattails or an armadillo taking a mud bath. In
midwinter, when a pond can be frozen slick, a glimpse may occasionally be caught of a central newt swimming under the ice.
A pond can be very beautiful, noted Henry David Thoreau of
Walden Pond, but its beauty is humble rather than grand and
often really appreciated only by those spending long, lazy hours
on its banks.
If you live by a pond, its face will become as familiar to you as
the faces in your family. Each of the ponds on our place has a
name, and each has a story. My favorite, the Lily Pond, is a small
pond, covered in July with big yellow lotuses under whose giant
pads (as big as elephant ears) equally giant bass lie in wait. At
the Wild Woody Pond one night a smart coon lured a neighbor's
Lej?, butterfly weed on the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.
coon dog into the water, and we awoke to sounds of bays, pond in America, covers some sixty acres. Thoreau himself
splashes, and frantic yells. The Big Goose Pond is our largest used the words pond and lake interchangeably. In general, a
pond and the one where Canada geese nest each spring; dur- pond is smaller and more shallow than a lake (shallow enough
ing their stay, we awake every morning to their melancholy for sunlight to reach the bottom), has a muddy bottom, little
honks. All summer long on the Heron Pond a great blue heron wave action, and plants growing along the shore and often part
stands sentinel, occasionallybreaking the stillnessto spear frogs or all of the way across. Unlike lakes, the amount of dissolved
and fish. John's Pond is where my brother-in-law fell through oxygen in pond water can vary greatly within a twenty-four
the ice when he was a kid; and the Old Pond is so named be- hour period.
Natural ponds occur in a wide variety of ecosystems-there
cause it was the first pond built on the place (once after an old
cow took sick, I waded deep into its mud to push her out so are alpine ponds, bog ponds, meadow stream ponds, and in
limestone areas, sinkholes. The Northeast and the Great Lakes
we could doctor her).
In Oklahoma, ponds are everywhere and well-used. Count- states have the most natural lakes and ponds, bodies of water
less Oklahomans have drunk from, swum in, meditated upon, carved out by glaciers during the Ice Ages. The northern Plains
statesare also dotted with many smallponds, called
and been baptized in ponds. "Everybody loves a
prairie potholes, formed by glaciers. Glaciers, howfarm pond," says Paul Koenig of the Oklahoma
ever, never reached this far south, so Oklahoma has
Water Resources Board.
YOU
few natural ponds. The Oklahomapanhandle does
With an estimated 250,000 farm ponds, OklaCPL(~Z
have ephemeral playa lakes-many of them pondhoma has more farm ponds than any other state
a?L size. Playas are like big puddles that fill up low
exceptingTexas and more ponds per square mile
places during the rainy season and then go dry.
than any other state, period. Most have been
Another natural pond is an oxbow-where a river
carved out by bulldozers since the 1930s-an
4hM
meanders, leaving behind a cutoff area of still waamazing engineering feat in itself. Ponds have
ter. Ken Williams, fisheries biologist at Langston
brought year-round water to uplands that never YOU-&
University, speculatesthat buffaloes may have been
had it and done their part to transform Oklahoma
responsible for wallowingout shallowponds. Near
from a well-drained prairie state into if not quite
Ft. Reno a lot of buffalo wallows still exist, he says,
the Land o' Lakes, then at least the Place o' Ponds.
and one particular wallow near the Cimarron River
Generations from now, archaeologists puzzling
fills each spring with a foot of water. When a few
over the thousands of shallow depressions dotfish from the river are washed into it, it becomes
ting what was once the Oklahoma countryside
MCINTosH
an instant, if short-lived, pond.
may dub us the Pond Builders. Like the Pyramid
CONSERVATl
Most of Oklahoma's ponds, however, are
Builders of Egypt or the Mound Builders of Spiro,
manmade farm ponds, carved out by men on bullwe will be known by what we liked to build.
Soil samples will tell future generations that most Oklahoma dozers. Some biologists question the value of ponds just beponds were built to water cattle, and the locations of otherswill cause they are not natural, says Noble Jobe 111, associate direcmore than hint that they were designed to halt soil erosion. tor of OSU's Water QualityResearch lab. But Jobe likes ponds.
These remain the supreme reasons for ponds in rural Okla- He grew up in fish pond country east of Oklahoma City in
homa, though increasingly more frivolous reasons are taking Choctaw, and swallowed umpteen mouthfuls of pond water
hold: Farmers and ranchers have taken up fishing, city folks before realizing how many tiny animals he was ingesting. Now
retiring to the country dream of their own golden pond, and he knows better. "Ponds are amazing systems," he confides.
Natural or manmade, ponds possess a well-recognized food
the many Oklahomansliving the double life of working in town
but living in the country are transforming muddy stock tanks chain. At the bottom reside microscopic plants or algaes that
into sparkling fish gardens or duck-dotted wetlands. Upscale make food from the sun and add oxygen to the water. They
suburban developments boast ponds, as do schoolswho want are fed upon by microscopic animals such as small freshwater
their students to learn about wetlands. These days it seems ev- shrimp, insect larvae, and some fish. Small fish eat the small
eryone wants a pond-and those who don't have room for a animals, and they in turn are eaten by big fish. While beloved
pond animals like largemouth bass and bald eagles have been
real one build microponds of black plastic in the backyard.
A pretty pond is a great place to bird watch-and as the Japa- extensively studied, other less glamorous but equally essential
pond animals like dragonfliesand leopard frogs have been nenese have long known-a great place to find a little peace.
glected until recently.
The Ponds of McIntosh County
What is known is that once a pond is dug, it quickly metaSK ANYONE THE DEFINITION OF A POND, AND morphoses from muddy hole in the ground to complex ecothey will tell you a pond is a small lake. The line between system. A case in point: We dug a small pond in the summer
lake and pond, however, is a bit muddy and open to debate. of 1993;by winter it had filled with water; by spring a scum of
The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS, formerly algae floated on top and sedges ringed the shore. The algae disthe Soil Conservation Service)judges a pond to cover six sur- solved as spring progressed and yellow flowered water primface acres or less. Yet Walden Pond, perhaps the most famous rose took root and frogs moved in. I have seen crawdads and
/'
b
&
6khkXZ
A
A&
& --
u.'
A
O k l a h o m a
T o d a y
.
turtles on its banks; above the primroses dragonflies fight earning their name as mosquito hawks. A few small fish-carried
down the draw from the pond above it-feed on the algae and
insects. The possum that makes a midnight snack of my watermelon probably has an after-dinner drink at this pond.
Oklahoma is prime pond-building country because most of
our soils have a decent amount of clay that holds water pretty
well, observes Glen Gebhart, a fisheriesbiologist with Langston
University Extension and Research. There is enough run-off
water in eastern Oklahoma to keep ponds near full most of the
year. Early settlers recognized this and built ponds the hard
way-with a horse and a blade or with a horse and a fresno (a
large scooped bucket hooked to a horse). Most of these early
ponds were very small, often not more than one-tenth of an
acre, enough to water a few cattle or horses.
The coming of tractors and bulldozers sped up the construction process. A few folks riding the wave of early Oklahoma
prosperity had the wherewithal to build big pleasure ponds.
One of these was Max Meyer, father of the late Tulsa bookseller and author Lewis Meyer. In his best seller Preposterous
Papa, Meyer describes his father's building of a six-acre pond
dubbed "the swimming pool." With a sand beach, a "twentyone-foot, three-level, three directional steel diving tower," a
springboard, umbrella-shaped fountains, and a bathhouse, it
was the pond to end all ponds. Meyer recounts how he and
his friends loved to jump from the diving tower, only to sink
"deep into the soft gooey mud that held me for a second like a
suction cup. Sometimes I panicked lest the mud refuse to release my feet so that I could rise to the surface and breathe
again... It was a thrilling and awesome adventure."
Meyer also describes the forlorn scene when spring rains
failed to come, and the once glorious swimming pool turned
into an ugly mud hole. The Dust Bowl drew new attention to
the state of the nation's farm land. Erosion was a critical problem in Oklahoma before the drought of the 1930s began. A
survey by Oklahoma A&M College reckoned that fully onethird of the land under cultivation had erosion to the gullying
state, and some land was so eroded it could no longer be
worked by farm machinery. U.S. Department of Agriculture
erosion maps of the Thirties showed Oklahoma had a greater
percentage of land badly damaged by wind and water erosion
than any other state.
To combat this kind of threat to the nation's crop land,
Congress created the Agricultural Conservation Program in
1936, which provided cost sharing for conservation practices
such as field terracing, shelter belts, and pond construction.
The Soil Conservation Service was created around the same
time to advise farmers which practices to implement. Ranchers could also get cost share money to construct ponds to water livestock; in fact ponds are often still called "tanks" by
ranchers. By building several ponds around a place, the cows
would not congregate at one, overgrazing the grass near it and
eroding the dam and shoreline.
Such programs helped pond building reach its peak in the
1950s and '60s, according to Dwain Phillips of the NRCS.
Ponds were cheap then--our Big Goose Pond cost the family
August
-
I
only thirty-three dollars. These days a two- to three-acre pond
can run three or four thousand dollars; pond building has
slowed partly because of the inventory of ponds already available and partly because of cuts in government assistance. These
days a landowner must have major erosion problems before he
can be considered for cost sharing. Whether you have erosion
or not, the NRCS will still come out, survey the site, design a
pond, stake it out, provide ligs of contractors, and check on
the job afterwards-all free of charge.
McIntosh County is one place where ponds are still being
built to combat soil erosion, says Anthony Lawrence, county
conservationtechnician. (Five were cost-shared in 1995.) Others, albeit without government money, are being built for watering stock as well as for irrigatingwatermelons and corn. Two
types of farm ponds exist. Embankment ponds-most common in central and western Oklahoma-are built on a draw
or in a gully, the water impounded by a dam. Excavated or pit
ponds are built in a flat place and filled mostly by rain. The
terrain dictates the type of pond.
The NRCS has provided technical assistance on approximately seventy per cent of the ponds in the state, and by now
they have pond building down to a science-from the best
water depth, to ideal dam width, to the proper size of a drain-
September
1 9 9 6
pipe. *Ifyoudon't build a pond right, it h J tlast v a y l o n ~ " main happy to serve on the local committees that run each
says Phillips. *After*years
of experience,we preftymuch conservation district beawe they remember only too well
know what will last twenty to thirty years."
having to drive athlong distancesto find water in the 1930s.
The recent name changefrom "Soil"to *NaturalResources" Since those bleak days, the landscape bas been tndormed.
Conservation M c e reflects a change in national as well as Ponds have caught water that would now be in the Gulf of
local concern. *Our emphasis is now on ecosystem-based Mexico and kept it for Oklahoma =I am really proud that we
p W & " says Sam Viles, Mchtosh C o u f l ~
a c t comer- have been part of that," c o d & Vila. *Ifyoufly over astern
vationist. Viles and Lawrence have &neered W o w pon& Oklahoma as the sun rises, you can see tbe ponds dmhg like
diamonds."
AMam,aBoy,&aPond
9
or wetlands to attract migrating waterfowl. Vileg alw works
with an increasing number ofpeople who want a paad to water their horses and to fish h
dwho want if to be amhetid y pleasing. Around Oklahoma cities, the majority ofthe
NRCS clientele fillinto this ategory,what Phillips calls "hobby
farmers."
Pondsmaynot just be for cows anymore,but old-timers re-
N OKLAHOMA THE MAIN TOPICS OF CONVERSAtion are the weather and W g , observed a mgadne back
East twenty years ago. Though I think the description was
meant as an insult, the twenty-seven percent of OkZabmms
age 16 and up who fish probably wouldn't take o f b x . How
many of us 6shin pnds? No one h o w for sure,but according to a telephone survey in 1990, almost twenq percent preh d ponds over reservoirs or streams,
We regularIy have shngers stop and ask to fish in our
ponds-usually with a kid or two,fishing poleg in hand, riding
in the back of the pickup. We have r d a r s w n e famiIy
winds its way across oar pasture in an old LTD, pulls out lawn
&airs, and &k
for hours on the Old Pond
Perhaps the allure of fishing in a pond is in its simplicity.
You don't need a motorboator a Ilfejdwt-you can fish right
from the bankwith a cheap cane pole. You don't have to worry
about jet skiers roaring by either. And if you're a novice'and
don't catch anything much, that's okay too-somehow it seems
less serious than coming back from the lake empty-handed.
Talking to fishing p r a at the universitiesand the stateuvilxllife department, you often hear something like, "Oklahoma
farm ponds have a lot of potential.* That is a nice way of saying there are a lot of muddy ponds out there containing a lot
of stunted fish. But it doesn't have to be that way, says fisheries specialist Glen Gebhart. Ponds can be clear and fish rich:
he once watched an wpreydive down into the waters of a pond
and pluck a caffish from the water as easily as a man picks up
a penny Eromthe sidmak For someonewho loves to fish, Eke
Gebhart does, it was a d d h gsight. "It was so neat to see him
dive and hit the water," he recalls. Gebhart has made a career
out of advising Oklahomans how to grow fish in their ponds,
both commerciallyand for the home, and he practices what he
preaches. He hsls tmnRd an unproductive pond that yielded
at best twenty-fie pounds of fish annually (the Oklahoma average) into a pond fromwhich he can pluck five hundzed
pounds offish peryear nearly as easily as that osprey did "My
fish pond where you could catch
goal was to set up a fa1&Q8tk
fish year-rowd on a,-teed
basis," he says. The keyword
here is gammtwd. Igme can believe the man, he can set fcwt
on the pond's bank and in ten minutes have dinner--guaranteed.
Gebhwtproves hisb a s h h u t three times a week. The p o d
sitsjust a favyards awayfi$kh his house outside ~tillwatekThe
day I visited, it took him $bout thirty seconds to catch a pretty
canary Ydpw ha1f:pound:kybrid blue@ sunfish. Usually after he lands five or so, he b e s the fish into a room off the garage where he rnets the When he b d C & buse, ke had
the carpenters build him' tow counter top &.@kt level next
to a sink and garbage diqjsal. It takes him mthar temrnind fillet
("after youa*
utes todead a
cleaned thousands, )rou'rd on aut
and tlum he takes them @ th
The Chinese philosophq Lao
said, "Cooking a shall fk&
is like mlhg$~,
s d khgdbm," meanh&mth shauldk1d
gently handleid. ~ebhart:&llowsths
i:&$
li ;l
3'
and fry the?, yori've lo@a lot of your.:
W W urly. .
health~alue,n,he
dys. Th ' t h e kom baitingzhe hook to rai$ingh&ork: thirtyniinutes tops.
By Wdlulation, somc$ve thousand fish residein hispond
now-nh&-eight perce$ of them hybridUut@ls doq with
mu&t hadred channqpatfish and ten hgemo~thhass.
~ e b h a W & &oqihybridlhiuegill, which am a ~ 1 " ; kfmm
~s
the male blue@ aqd a f&ale green sunfish. The crosq pro'
I
August
.
SeptembeCr 199';'
y.
duces about ninety percent males, so he restocks every other
year. He appreciates the fish's good taste (behind walleye, but
ahead of crappie) and the fact that they bite readily--especially
good for young fishing enthusiasts. How aggressive are bluegill? Gebhart has been known to catch them without bait sometimes, and he and his son Brian have been nipped while swimming in the pond. Gebhart has even observed Canada geese
jumping up and down in shallow water from the bluegdls nibbling on their feet.
Gebhart thinks of his pond as a fish garden and himself as a
fish gardener. Fish gardening is less work than vegetable gardening, he maintains. To grow nice-sized vegetables requires
fertilizer; to grow nice-sized fish, Gebhart feeds them every
second or third evening. The food he uses looks like dog food
but is a standard mix of vitamins, soybean meal, and fish meal. His fish are welltrained-within a minute of throwing out a r
handful of feed, they appear. "They can 1
sense the vibration of footsteps," he explains.
Fish have a mysterious intelligence-not
only can they hear well, they have an extraordinary sense of smell in parts per billion.
Gebhart is also convinced that catfish, for
one, can smell fear. And indeed there is evidence to suggest that catfish put out a phero- umli G
mone after being caught that soon causes the
rest to quit biting. It is easy to spot Gebhart's catfish (especially the albinos) as they feed, skimming the surface, mouths
open, barbels (whiskers) twitching. The bluegills feed differently-hitting each pellet with a little splash like a small firecracker going off.
After a few minutes we hear a big splash-it is a largemouth
bass come up for his share. The largest fish ever caught in the
pond was a twelve-and-a-half-pound largemouth fourteenyear-old Brian caught. The largemouth bass gives the angler
an exciting fight and has a mystique that the lowlybluegill cannot hope to match. While trout are most popular up north in
cold-water ponds, in this part of the country, no doubt about
it, the largemouth bass is number one with the angler, says
Barry Bolton of the fisheries division of the state wildlife conservation department. (The ODWC provides fingerlings for
pond stocking free of charge to fish-free ponds.)
So popular is the bass that it tends to be overharvested in
ponds. Not so in Gebhart's pond-he concentrates on his
bread-and-butter fish, the bluegill, and lands a big bass for an
occasionalthrill. As a red-eared turtle steams up to get his share
of the fish food, I am carried back to childhood and feeding
the fish in my neighbor's living room aquarium. Of course,
we never ate the guppies, while Gebhart and his family consume over five hundred pounds of fish per year. He spends
only a hundred dollars on feed-making his fish an economical twenty cents per pound.
Not surprisingly, the Gebharts have just about quit fishing
in lakes-why bother when you can catch all the fish you want
ten times faster in your own front yard?
I
Waterworld
7
0 SWIM OR NOT TO SWIM, THAT IS THE QUESTION.
I look at the muddy water and momentarily lose my nerve.
I don't know why I am so chicken-people used to swim in
this pond all the time. But every time I start in, I remember
the red eyes of the very large snapping turtle we caught one
day-and the way it snapped when someone grabbed its tail.
Forty years ago people weren't so picky. On a one hundred
degree afternoon with no chlorinated pool or air-conditioned
house handy, farm kids jumped into farm ponds like frogs.
Even rather stern farmers were known to park their tractors
by a pond after a long, hot day in the fields, strip down, and
take a dip. The fact that one might sit on a snake or step on a
turtle never deterred anyone.
It is a simple fad that water attracts animals
both warm and cold-blooded. Because of
ponds, water snakes, turtles, frogs, salamanders, and of course, fish, have become
part of the upland landscape. Fish-eating
wading birds like herons and egrets have too.
Even bald eagles occasionallyvisit large remote
ponds in western Oklahoma, says Jontie
Aldrich of the U.S.Fish and Wildlife Service,
as do whooping cranes. All kinds of birds are
attracted to ponds to drink, eat insects, and
feast on plants such as the grapes and wild
roses that spring up around them. Redwinged blackbirds nest in cattails, as does the common yellowthroat. Quail, killdeer, swallows, and mourning doves also
frequent ponds.
If you want to get in on the real action, drop in on a pond
around midnight-that is when the menagerie shows up. Deer,
raccoons, armadillos, bobcats, and skunks come to ponds to
eat, drink, and socialize. It is not unheard of to hear at night
the splat of a beaver tail hitting the water. The population of
beavers, everyone in Oklahoma agrees, has exploded, in part
because of the proliferation of ponds.
When a beaver moves into your pond, the effects--downed
trees, higher water-are hard to miss. But many animals that
come to ponds are almost invisible. Bats, for one. The endangered gray bat feeds almost exclusively over water, including
water in ponds, says Steve Hensley, of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Oklahoma. On summer nights common bats
such as the red bat and the Mexican free-tailed bat drink from
ponds and eat insects such as mosquitoes, mayfbes, and caddis flies on ponds. Some bats eat more than three thousand
mosquitoes per night. They also eat pesky insects like Junebugs,
cucumber beetles, scorpions, and the moth that turns into the
corn borer. Other pond animals also take a bite out of the bug
population, most notably toads, frogs, and dragonflies.
Though there are plenty of wildlife-at-pond anecdotes, the
exact impact of the building of so many ponds on terrestrial
as opposed to aquatic wildlife has not been studied much. It
is difficult to compare Oklahoma pre-pond and post-pond because no one really knows the numbers and range of many of
the animals that now visit ponds. However, some biologists
Oklahoma
Today
have reservations about the overall effect of ponds on Okla- ponds McKnight calls a wetlands-scape; each pond is equipped
homa ecology. Because ponds hold water and the nutrients in with special pipes which allow him to control the water level.
them upstream from creeks and rivers, some worry that the Each August McKnight draws down the water from a depth of
animal and plant communities downstream may be suffering six feet to about three-this exposes a large area of mud onto
subtle negative effects. Or that ponds built in the wrong which McKnight broadcasts Japanese millet. The grain is alplaces-such as wetlands, springs, seeps, or low water pools in ready growing when the first fall rains come in September and
ravines or creek bottoms-may destroy these unique habitats. the ponds begin to fill again. "It puts on a wonderful seed that
At the least, ponds add diversity to what might otherwise be everydung loves," he explains. "Allkinds of migrating birds
a uniform landscapes teeming life space in the middle of will stop and attack the millet." The shallow water in many of
acres of crops or pasture. And though wildlife in pre-agricul- his ponds allows a number of water-loving plants to growturd Oklahoma did quite well without ponds, in the ensuing cattails, milfoil, duck potato, and smartweed. Smartweed
years Oklahomans have so altered the land, often destroying grows in moist soil around the edges of his ponds. "It's really
natural water sources, that ponds may now actually be essen- pretty, similar to redbuds in color," he says. In the fall it makes
a striking display and is a favorite duck food.
tial to wildlife survival.
"I love ponds," says McKnight. And as he did as a kid,
This is especially true for waterfowl like geese and ducks.
Migrating waterfowl fly over Oklahoma each fall and spring. McKnight fishes and swims in his ponds. "I try to nurture,
For eons they stopped at riverine wetlands-flooded bottom- within reason, my inner child," he adds with a chuckle. Boy
land forests and sloughs. In the 1950s, Oklahoma had almost Scouts have ventured out to see the projects and to help with
280,000 acres of natural wetlands; today fewer than 50,000 re- planting trees, many of them around the ponds. McKnight's
main, drained for agriculture or flooded by large reservoirs. efforts won him the National Wetlands Conservation Award
While natural wetlandswere being drained, thousands of acres in 1994--selected from hundreds of entries across the counof ponds were being built-making ponds today the most try. As he said in his acceptance speech, given in Washington
numerous wetlands in Oklahoma, according to JontieAldrich. D.C.,"One person can have a profound effect."
Like fish ponds, duck ponds would be more important ifbetLong Lfve the Pond
ter managed.
MATURE, HEALTHY POND IS A WONDER-HOME
To this end, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has instituted
to
a large number of plants and animals: from bacteria to
a program called Partners for Wildlife. The program offers cost
bass,
mosquitoes
to mallards. Inevitably, though, ponds fill in
sharing and other assistance to people who want to make their
and
become
marshes.
This happens because ponds slow down
land more wildlife-friendly. This sometimes includes building
run-off
water,
allowing
the sediment (dirt) in the water to fall
or cleaning up ponds. Since 1990 the program has converted
some 6,500 acres to wetlands, in the process turning some out and settle in the pond. If the watershed is covered with
crusty farmers into dedicated bird watchers. "I think people grass or trees and the water coming in is relatively free of sediare becoming more aware of how important and valuable wet- ment, it takes many years for a pond to turn to marsh. A pond's
life is relative, but some suggest taking the average depth of the
lands are," says Aldrich.
One man who did not need to be sold on the value of wet- pond in feet and multiplying it by twelve to figure the number
___
lands is Hal McKnight, the forty-seven-year-old owner of - Wheeler Dealer Bicyde Shop in Oklahoma City. McKnight is
hardly the crusty old farmer: "I am haunted by waters," he says,
borrowing a quote from thebook-turned-movieA River R m s [
Through It. Water is McKnight's passion, and he has transformed his family's fifteen-hundred-acre cattle ranch in north- ,
ern Stephens Comty into a southern Oklahoma water world ,'
Not just during the migratory seasons, but year-round, hie '
place is home to mallards, teals, canvasbacks, redheads, Ameican widgeons, and p
n&
itotname just the ducks. M~Knight+~
enjoys them all, but the most wonderful thing, he says, is t ,~ .
see eagles.
McKdght's philwphy can be summed up by a line hm,another &H~~,FW
o f ~ r a z m s :"Build it, and theywill co80:ti@.'
About a dozen pondswere on the place origidly, some s
t
a hundred years old. Since he became a Partner for WildWe
eight years ago, Memight has built two dozen more ponds, as ',;
well as dikes and levie~wbich enable him to flood an oak forest in the winter for the benefit ofwood ducks. He has created
or restored two hundred and sixty acres of wetlands so far.
-,-- - .-,.-.,
The centerpiece of his project is a series of small shallow w'i@Qe~na p~ridnear SapuIpa.
A
-
-
August
-
S e p f e m b e r 1996
--
&
of years a pond should last.
That life cycle is considerably shortened if the
watershed above a pond is crop land. There are NOW.
a lot of red ponds in Oklahoma because the red
day from crop lands washes into ponds and forms
a kind of rusty-colored soup which sometimes
takes years to settle out. The sediment can interfere with the life cycle of fish and the tiny organisms they feed on. However, it is not just in rural
areas where ponds get silted in. Koenig cites land
development without proper safeguards against
run-off as a major threat to ponds in outlying suburban areas.
He has witnessed a pond below a construction site fill in after
two rains. "A lake or pond is a reflection of its watershed," explains Koenig.
Other ills can also shorten the life of a pond and make it all
but unusable to wildlife. Run-off from heavily fertilized lawns
or fields can cause algae blooms (a big problem in golf course
ponds). When the algae eventually dies, the decomposition
process can suck the oxygen out of pond water like a vacuum
cleaner sucks dirt out of a carpet. The result: dead fish.
Irorlically, the worst threat to the health of a cow pond is the
reason for its existence: the cow itself. Cows trample tender
vegetation around the pond which provides cover for fish and
hatching grounds for the insects they like to eat.
Cow herds can also erode the banks and dam, stir
up the muddy bottom, and burden the pond with
tk5
waste. Every pond management scenarioput forth
by the myriad pond pros in our universities and
government agencies calls for excluding or limiting the access that cows have to a pond. Options
include fencing off all but a section of the pond or
tk5
allowing the cows a narrow corridor to the water.
More expensive, but popular: installing a freeeeproof stock watering tank below the dam.
Immediatelyafter fencing the cows out of two ponds on their
fourteen section cattle ranch near Keyes in the panhandle, Lane
and Karen Sparkmansaw birds they had never seen before-a
pair of avocets, uncommon nesters in Oklahoma. The avocet
is a pretty wading bird with a long, slightly upturned bill. This
pair decided to nest on the ground near the pond--certain disaster if the cows had been around. While the Sparkmans
planted trees around their pond, the avocets would play with
them, flying off and circling back. They observed the avocets
taking turns going to the pond, getting their feathers damp, and
then returningto sit on their lone egg. One day the Sparkmans f
finished their farm chores and went down to the pond to find
the newly hatched avocet swimming in the water. The
h@ &!&
44
M-
.- '
Below, lower pond willows at Sutton Urban WildlifeRefuge.
h?fd
&
Sparkmans+who run Cattle Co
cattle, b p e t~ &e their
hub fbr t u e a ? W eand a draw to visiting wildlife eathus
It caninMbeathill
When twa.GiamtCanada
pond, it was such aa
bors kept dose tradc of their comings and pings.On
they nestedbeside what has since become the Big Goose
but the dogs ate the eggs. The next year they got sm
nested on an i s 1 4 in @epond. The ~ d six
t :fine
been relocated ta
breeding p6pulation. So fiu it has worked; goose
boomed. Their native habitats are s d
from Northern Kansas to southern
lar to OklahomaSs
middle of a pasture, is ideal for these wary black and white
birds. One of nature's most watchful creatures, geese like q'ea
shorelines so theJrca keep tm eye on predators. In&&
chob
of food, geese are mare like cows than du+feasting
on the
first tender shoots af grass and dover in early spring.
tkt@
project is,a sign that O U o m a can claimto be a w e h d titate, ' ,.
...............................
to eleven and those 65and
Mountain Cuisine CCRCLING HAWKS, BARBADOS SHEER M D
TROPKAL PLANTS nma CEDARVALE GARDEWS AN OTHERWORLDLY DINING EXPERIENC~. w
EN BOB HOWELL, SR., AND HIS WIFE, ELAINE, FIRST OPENED THEIR
little snackbar at Turner Falls Park in the heart of the Axbuckle Mountains, they
flipped hamburgers, roasted hot dogs, and fried up &oat. Two decades later, a
second generation of Howells are still at it, but the onetimehale in the wdl is now a sprawling enterprise known as Cedarvale Garden & Restaurant.
Cedarvale sits where the circa 1930sresort, CedarvalePark, used [email protected] place is a
lot quieter, however, than it was in the resort's boom years, when CedarvalePark counted
among its attractions a skating rink, dance hall, and some thirty-odd cabins. The rink is
now a vegetable garden and only foundationsremain of what o m drew tourists from miles
away. "After World War I1 started, this place was kind of abandoned," said Pam Howell,
Bob and Elaine's daughter-in-lawwho with her husband, Bobby, now owns and runs the
restaurant. (With gas rationing, people couldn't afford to travel to the resort.)
Although no original cabins remain, Bob, Sr., built new ones that folks can rent yearround. The retired engineer has also masterminded the restaurant's maze of gardens,
bridges, and decks, though Pam credits her mother-in-law, Elaine, who died a few years
ago, with being the "heart and soul" of the restaurant. "And that's one reason why we
wanted to carry on and not let it close after she died," said Pam, "because they put
too many years of their lives into it."
'I TELL PEOPLE THAT I
Despite the passage of time and a
FEEL LIKE WE'RE SHARING
change in generations, some things reOUR BACK YARD.'
main consistent. ~ o simportantly
t
to
-Pam Howell
many diners, the trout. At one time, patrons used to catch trout in the park's wellstocked creeks, then pack it over to the
Howells, who would grill or fry it to order. Life is a little more complicated in the Nineties. Now twice a week, Cedarvale receives a shipment of fresh trout from a trout farm in
Missouri, but it still grills up fresh.
Butterfly trout-dipped in a batter made from a closely held secret family recipeis the
favorite with guests, though Cedarvale's stuffed trout, wrapped in bacon and grilled like a
steak--fish head and all-is most unique. "I've had people in from Colorado that say they've
eaten a lot of trout, but they've never had anything this good," said Pam, beaming with
pride.
At last count, the menu at Cedarvale offered seven trout entrees, along with steak and
chicken dishes. It serves them-most often--outside on a flower-filled deck that overlooks
a tropical garden, Honey Creek (which a little farther south drops 77 feet to form Turner
Falls), and a limestonebluff on which a herd of exotic Barbados sheep reside. (A quarter
buys enough duck food to keep both children and the restaurant's bevy of ducks happy
while dinner is cooked.)
The botanical garden (complete with arbors, bridges, and benches) began after a friend
presented Bob, Sr., with a variety of tropical hibiscus. He proceeded to add to the collection and-almost without any grand intent-the hibiscus evolved into a botanical garden.
The collection is now so large that during winter months, some thirty varieties of tropical
Bob Howell used his memories of botanicalgardens in Europe and the U.S. when designing Cedarvale's.
August
.
September
1996
TROUT EU'DORA
10 ounces rainbow trout
Thoroughly clean and pat dry rainbow
rout. Spray inside with non-stick spray.
Stuff with corn bread mixture. Wrap
vith bacon. Slice and secure with
othpick at thickest part. Spray each
@de with non-stick spray. Grill seven
minutes on each side.
CORN BREAD STUFFING
1 cup hot water
1 112 tablespoons margarine
1 112 cups corn bread stuffing mix
112 cup cheddar cheese
Mix hot water and margarine in a microwavable bowl. Stir in stuffing mix. Cover and cook on high for four minutes. Remove from microwave. Stir and add eese. Reheat in microwave to melt Sheese if needed. Stir mixture thoroughly
md let cool. Yields stuffing for four
rout.
p
- '
1 cup yellow cornmeal
112 cup flour
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons powdered milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Dash of red pepper
''
1 medium onion, finely chopped
I
1 egg
112 cup water
Mix together dry ingredients. Add
1 onions and egg. Pour water around edge
~fbowl. Stir mix,ture, starting from
,ottom of mixture using a large spoon.
Mixture should be barely moist. Overdrring will cause hushpuppies to become
ough. Drop by teaspoonfuls in deep
"
fryer at 350' degrees until golden brown.
'
Makes 12 to 15.
,
$
8
F O O D
e
ItaiianreStamtofL
oma'sLitde1taly-h delighted
dinerswith~farmlystykcuisine
saved in tudfhb portions for three
generations. An Oklahoma original.
ESWBLISHED1925
1
lEREBS,OK
3 ~ s P ~ 9 t c c e i a n ~
BANQUET FACIllTIES FOR UPTO 250
Monday-Satnrdny490pm. Sunday 12m
Twilight dining on the deck.
. plants require room in a greenhouse the older Howells built on the property in the
early 1980s. And like the grilled trout, the garden has become a Cedarvale signa. ture.
Being an outdoor restaurant has its pluses: the pleasure of watching hawks make
. lazy circles in a sky washed cornflower blue by the rain or seeing fireflies take over
:
:
:
the sky at twilight. It also, however, has its limitations. Cedarvale is only open from
the first of May until the last weekend in October. Covered patio decks shield customers from inclement weather. And a new mister helps diners fight off the heat (a
commodity in great supply in the Arbuckles most of the summer). No matter how
hot it gets, however, the routine remains the same. "We still serve outside," said Pam.
"We just grin and bear it."
-Nancy Woodard
I COUNTRY INN ]
Lavish in the casual elegance of a quiet hilltop retreat. 5 luxurious suites swimming pool & spa Also dinner-only reservations 20 miles north of Tulsa on Highway 75 (918) 37 1-9868
-your hostsJerry and Shauna Agnew
"THEINN PLACE TO BE"
made with native stone, others
with cedar; one has vinyl siding.
Each includes either a kitchen or
a kitchenette.)
Oklahoma Today
t
Playing Detective
THRU SEPTEMBER 8
For those who dream of playing
JessicaFletcher, SherlockHolmes, or
Sam Spade-albeit in the safety of
own home-a compromise: a
useum exhibit that not only gives
e lowdown on new crime-fighting
chniques (DNA profiling, forensic
xicology, fingerprinting, firearm
dentification) but puts museun
I
'
l A
1.
.&rime opened to rave reviews in June
Idit includes a lineup of historic
-.
and video profiles of forensic
grimes
); the Omniplex has also booked
Police Department
to lecture on crimetechniques Saturdays in Aut and the first Saturdayin Septem. (Lecturesare free with museum
~dmission.)On August 10 and 17,
he museum hosts Whodunit Mysery Evenings-sort of comedylmurier mystery dinner theatre meets
Oprah Winfrey (the audiencegets involved, and there's also a private
,bowing of the exhibit). (405) 424-
MUSEUMS b GALLERTES
AUGUST
1-18 Diirer to Matisse: Master Drawings
from the Nelson-AtkinsMuseum of Art,
PhiibrookMuseum of Art, Tulsa, (918)
748-5314
Sleuths on the loose a7 tne ummprex.
1-24 BartlesvilleArchitecture, Bartlesville
Museum, Bartlesde, (918) 336-4949
1-25 Contemporary Prints from the
Philbrook Collection,Philbrook
Museum of Art, Tulsa, (918) 748-5314
1-29 Cherokee. The Firetaker, Cherokee
Heritage Center, Tahlequah, (918) 4566007
1-31 First American, First Oklahomans:
Indian People, Cultural Center, Pond
City, (405) 767-0427
1-31 The Genesis Exbibit, Seminole
Historical Museum, Seminole, (405) 3821500
1-31 Invitational Art Exhibit, Five Civilized
TribesMuseum, Muskogee, (918) 6831701
1-31 Lavern Scott Show, Plains,Indians &
Pioneers Museum, Woodward, (405)
256-6136
1-31 Painting the Cirde From Tipisto
Shields,JacobsonHouse, No=,
(405)
366-1667
1-Sept. 8 Whodunit? The Saence of
SolvingCrime, OmniplexScience
Museum, OKC, (405) 424-5545
I-Sept. 22 Prairie Print Makers, Philbropk
Museum of Art, Tulsa, (918) 748-5314
1-Sept. 22 Prix de West Invitational
Exhibition, Natl Cowboy Hall of Fame,
OKC, (405) 478-2250
1-Dec. 31 The American 1ndia.u~nn& A
Historical Perspective,Philbrook
Museum of Art,Tulsa, (918) 748-5314
3-Sept. 1 Renate Negler. Pastel Pain*,
FQehouse Art Center, Norman, (405)
319-4523
19-Sept. 25 Howard K d ' s Ceramics,
GardinerArt Gallery, OSU, Stillwater,
(405) 744-6016
31-Sht. 1 Plains Indian Exhibit, Great
phius Gallery, Colony, (405) 521-3841
31-Oct. 1 Cherokee Artist Homecoming
&t Show, CherokeeHeritage Center,
'1"ahlequah, (918) 456-6007
1-o&.1 The Modern Masters, Bartlesville
Museum, Bartlesville, (918) 336-4949
1-Jan. 5 W i Trost Richards: 19thOentury American Sketches, Philbrook
Museum of Art, Tulsa, (918) 748-5314
5-O& 27 Ragtime USA: American Art 8r
Design, 1900-1920, OKCArt Museum,
KC, (405) 946-4477
7 CHildren's Arts Festival, OKC Art
bduseum, OKC, (405) 946-4477
&Now. 3 Visions &Voices: 20th Century
Native American Paintings, Philbrook
h;Iuseum of Art, Tulsa, (918) 748-5514
13-13 LivingHistory Encampment,
Museum of the Cherokee Strip, Enid,
(405)237-1907
15-27 StephenHuyler's Photographs of Art
in Rural India, Gardiner Art Gallery,
OSU, Stillwater, (405) 744-6016
20 $enaissance Ball, OKC Art Muse&,
."
2 .
August
.
September
1996
,
1,
59
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE GROVE AREA
CONTACT THE GROVE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE,
104-8W. 3RD ST. GROVE, OK 74344 (918) 786-9079
Food with a vie^
On Beautiful Honey Creek
CALENDAR Down Home Blues Club, Rentiesville,
(918) 473-2411
31 Labor Day Gospel Concert, Henryetta,
(918) 652-9136
OKC, (405) 946-4477
21-June 1 Frederick Rernington Exhibit,
Nat'l Cowboy Hall of Fame, OKC, (405)
478-2250
28 Fall Gala, Philbrook Museum of Art,
Tulsa, (918) 748-5314
29-06.30 Kelly Vandiver Paintings,
Gardiner Art Gallery, OSU, Stillwater,
(405) 744-6016
29-06.30 Priscilla Smith Photographs,
Gardiner Art Gallery, OSU, Stillwater,
(405) 744-6016
.........
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
SEPTEMBER
..
DRAMA
AUGUST
1-17 Oklahoma!, Discoveryland
Amphitheatre, TulsaISand Springs, (918)
245-6552
1-18 When Z Was a Dinosaur, Children's
Theatre, City Arts Center, State Fairgrounds, OKC, (405) 951-0000
8-Sept. 1 The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare in
the Park, Hafer Park, Edmond, (405)
340-1222
9 1964, The Tribute (Beatles Show), Poncan
Theatre, Ponca City, (405) 765-0943
9-11,13-18 A Grand Nightfor Singing,
PerformingArts Center, Tulsa, (918)
596-2525
9-11,15-18 Four Dogs ob. a Bone, Performing Arts Center, Tulsa, (918) 596-2525
9,10,16,17,23,24,30,31 TheMan WhoRan,
Picture in ScriptureAmphitheatre,
Disney, (918) 435-8207
15-18 Quilt, A Musical Celebration,
PerformingArts Center, Tulsa, (918)
596-2525
19-21 Something to Hide, Performing Arts
Center, Tulsa, (918) 596-2525
22-25 Hay Fever, Performing Arts Center,
Tulsa, (918) 596-2525
24 Laser Light Spectacular, Performing
Arts Center, Tulsa, (918) 596-2525
SEPTEMBER
5 Flying Heart Puppet Theatre, City Arts
Center, State Fairgrounds, OKC, (405)
951-0000
5-7 A Midsummer Nights Dream, Woodward, (405) 256-7120
13,14,19-22 The Taffeta, Community Playhouse, Broken Arrow, (918) 258- 0077 14 B.L.A.C., Civic Center, OKC, (405) 2972584
19-22 All My Sons, OCU Theatre, OKC,
(405) 521-5227
20-22 The Night Hank Williams Died,
Stagecoach Community Theatre, Peny,
(405) 336-9019 27,28,0d 3-5 Nunsense ZI,Little Theatre, Muskogee, (918) 682-3257 29 42nd Street, Sequoyah Institute, Tahlequah, (918) 458-2075 Bravehearts SEPTEMBER 21 & 22
Hammer throwing and working
sheep dogs set an authenticbackdrop for
the 17th annual Oklahoma Scottish
Games and Gathering at Chandler Park
in Tulsa.
Members of the United Scottish
Clans of Oklahoma will vie in the sheaf
toss and pipe and dance competitions
(read: dueling bagpipes), and Scottish
recording artist Alex Beaton and the
McTeggart Irish Dancers will perform.
An authentic Irish tearoom will be in
operation, and Scottish food and wares
will be sold. Organizersexpect 10,000to,
ahem, brave the gathering. (918) 2416399.
-4.B.
MUSIC & DANCE
AUGUST
9,10,16,17 Jazz on Greenwood, Greenwood
Avenue, Tulsa, (918) 584-3378
10 Country Dance Mania, Central Mall,
Lawton, (405) 248-1353
11 Red Dirt Rangers, Mount St. Mary's,
OKC, (405) 236-1426
15-17 Gospel Sing, Municipal Park,
Seminole, (918) 445-2400
17 Bluegrass Concert, Carl Albert High
School, Midwest City, (405) 737-9944
17 Country Music Awards Show, Showcase
Opry Theatre, Nowata, (918) 336-4617
18 Folk Music by Freefall, Mount St.
Mary's, OKC, (405) 236-1426
20 Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Civic Center
Music Hall, OKC, (405) 297-2584
22 Falderal String Band, City Arts Center,
State Fairgrounds, OKC, (405) 951-0000
24 Classical Guitarist Edgar Cruz, Mount
St. Mary's, OKC, (405) 236-1426
29-Sept. 1 18th World Series Fiddling,
Langley, (405) 732-3964
30-Sept. 2 Dusk 'Til Dawn Blues Festival,
A u g u s t
.
September
1996
3-5 STOMP, Civic Center, OKC, (405) 2972584
12 Great Composers I: Mainly Mozart,
Tulsa Philharmonic,Holland Hall, Tulsa,
(918) 747-7445
13-15 Anna Karenina, PerformingArts
Center, Tulsa, (918) 749-6006
13-15 Casey Dickens & the Former Bob
Wills Texas Playboys Reunion,
Pawhuska, (918) 287-3316
14 A Family Concert, McMahon Auditorium, Lawton, (405) 248-2001
18 Pianist Van Cliburn, Civic Center, OKC,
(405) 297-2584
21 Masterworks I: Rachmaninovby
Moonlight, Tulsa Philharmonic,
Performing Arts Center, Tulsa, (918)
747-7445
2629 Music on Exhibit I: Mozart in the
Museum, Tulsa Philharmonic, Philbrook
Museum of Art, Tulsa, (918) 747-7445
29 Dave Brubeck, Blues1Jazz Guitarist,
Civic Center, OKC, (405) 297-2584
................ INDIAN EVENTS
AUGUST
1-17 Trail of Tears Drama, Cherokee
Heritage Center Amphitheater,
Tahlequah, (918) 456-6007
1-17 Tsa-La-Gi Buffet, Cherokee Heritage
Center, Tahlequah, (918) 456-6007
2-4 Apache Blackfeet Society Ceremonial,
Red Bone Tribal Dance Grounds, Fort
Cobb, (405) 247-9493
2-4 Kaw Powwow, Washunga Bay, Kaw
City, (405) 269-2552
5-10 65th American Indian Exposition,
Fairgrounds, Anadarko, (405) 247-6651
9-11 19th IICOT Powwow of Champions,
Expo Building, Tulsa, (918) 836-1523
16-18 All ClassesIndian Slow Pitch Softball
Tournament, Wheeler Park, OKC, (405)
236-8072
16-18 Wichita Annual Dance, Wichita
Dance Grounds, Anadarko, (405) 2472425
21 Indian Temtory Day, Five Civilized
Tribes Museum, Muskogee, (918) 6831701
29-Sept. 1 44th Cherokee Nat'l Holiday,
Tahlequah, (918) 456-0671, ext. 542
29-Sept. 1 Ponca Powwow, White Eagle
Park, White Eagle, (405) 763-0120
30-Sept. 1 Ottawa Celebration & Powwow,
Miami, (918) 540-1536
30-Sept. 2 Choctaw Nation Labor Day
Festival, Council House, Tuskahoma,
(918) 567-3297
I
CLASSIFIEDS 1
CALENDAR
ANTIQUES
LI'L RED BARN
Antiques and unique craft collectibles in a
country setting on Route 66. Claremore,
Oklahoma. (918) 342-5772.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
BED A N D BREAKFAST INNS
ALLISON STREET INN
Pre-statehood Victorian home, period furnishings, full breakfast, on historic Route
66 in Chandler. Reservations only.
(405) 258-2993. ARCADIAN INN BED & BREAKFAST Enjoy pampering and luxury in the settmg of
a Victorian romance novel. Intimate
oversize whirlpools, canopy beds and much
more. Edrnond, Okla. (800) 299-6347. BED &BREAKFAST OF TAHLEQUAH May all your dreams come true in our fully furnished, vintage 1940s garage apartment. St., Tahlequah, Okla. 74464. $50
215 Mor
c e cates
x available! Reservations: Dr. Bill and Mary Geasland, (918) 456-1309.
CANDLEWYCK
BED & BREAKFASTINN
Secluded woods nestled on the shores of
Grand Lake offering cozy suites complete
with fire lace and whiulpool. Delightful
candleligt breakfast. Private boat dock for your recreation. Grove, Oklahoma
(918) 786-3636. THE DOME HOUSE
For information and reservations, (918) 465-0092. 315 E. Main, Wilburton, Okla. 74578.
HERITAGE MANOR
BED &BREAKFAST
Elegant turn-of-the-century accommodations in a charming country setting.
Aline, Okla. (405) 463-2563 or (800) 295-2563.
HOLMBERG HOUSE
BED & BREAKFAST
Perfect for OU athletic events! Historic 1914
Craftsman inn located one block north of football stadium. Anti ues, gourmet
breakfast. Norman, 0Aa. (800) 646-6221.
MAYNE HARBER INN
A gracious colonial mansion set on three
wooded acres with numerous comforts and
attentive hosts. Shawnee, Okla.
(405) 275-4700.
NELSON'S HOMESTAY
BED & BREAKFAST
Charming, antique-filled colonial home.
Southern hospitality at its finest. El Reno,
Okla. (405) 262-9142. .
. . . . . .
.
. .
RESORTS
MARVAL RESORT
Family resort on trout stream. RV sites. Log
cabins with fir laces. Recreation for whole
family. ~ower'%m
ois River near Gore, Okla.
(918) 489-2295 WIUOW SPRINGS RESORT &MARINA
Lake Texoma houseboat rentals. Boats from 40-56 ft. Best way to enjoy Texoma's
secluded coves and island beaches. Rt. 1,
Box 279, Mead, Okla. (405) 924-6240.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
OKLAHOMA TODAY CLASSIFIEDS
TEL (800)777-17931FAX: (405) 522-4588
SEPTEMBER
SEPTEMBER
6-8 Seminole Nation Days, Mekusukey
Mission, Seminole, (405) 257-6691 13-15 Indian Summer Festival, Bartlesville, (918) 337-2787 14 Intertribal Powwow, Bristow, (918) 367- 2249 20-22 American Indian Realism, Bartlede, (918) 337-2787 22-28 Intertribal Native American Week &
Powwow, Enid, (405) 234-5261 27-29 Comanche Tribal Fair, Camp Eagle, Fort Sill, (405) 492-4988 1 Start 18-20 Goal Silver Cup, Broad Acres Polo Club, Norman, (405) 364-7035 1,2 Clem McSpadden's Bushyhead Labor Day Pasture Roping, Henryetta, (918) 789-3237 1,2 Living Legends Rodeo, Henryetta, (918) 652-3331 4,6,7,8,11,13,15 SilverCup,StartNatJl President's Cup, Broad Acres Polo Club, Norman, (405) 364-7035 5-7 Cherokee Strip PRCA Rodeo, Enid,
(405)237-2494 5-7 18th PRCA Great Plains Stampede Rodeo, Altus, (405) 482-0210 6,7 Pro Bull Riders Tour Challenge, Lazy E Arena, Guthrie, (405) 282-7433 AUGUST
13-15 Fall Trailer Extravaganza Team Roping, Lazy E Arena, Guthrie, (405) 11 Billy Cook Team Roping, Ada, (405) 436- 282-7433 1998
21,22,28,29 4-8 Goal League, Broad Acres 12-17 101Wild West Days Rodeo, 101 Polo Club, Norman, (405) 364-7035 Rodeo Grounds, Ponca City, (405) 765- 4400 ..................
15-17 Freedom Rodeo, Rhodes Park, Freedom, (405) 621-3276 15-17 Pawnee Bd
i Memorial Rodeo, AUGUST
Pawnee, (918) 762-2108 7-11 Grant's 28th Bluegrass & Old Time 15-17 Western Heritage Days & IPRA
Music Festival, Hugo, (405) 326-5598 Rodeo, Bristow, (918) 367-5151 9-11 Antique Fair, Claremore, (918) 341- 16 Freedom Rodeo & Old Cowhand 2818 Reunion, Freedom, (405) 62 1-3276 16-18 100,000 Bonanza Team Roping, Lazy 9-11 KOMA Balloon Fest '96, The Village, OKC, (405) 794-4000 E Arena, Guthrie, (405) 282-7433 17 Black Kettle Round-up Club Jr. Rodeo, 9-11 Medieval Renaissance Festival, Muskogee, (918) 687-3625 Cheyenne, (405) 497-3354 17 OK Paint Horse Club, State Fairgrounds, 10 Black-eyed Pea Festival, Hollis, (405) 688-9545 OKC, (405) 478- 1599 17,18 Start SW President's Cup 4 8 , Broad 10 Watermelon Festival, Rush Springs, (405) 476-3277 Acres Polo Club, Norman, (405) 364-7035 21-25 101Ranch Rodeo, Ponca City, (405) 15-17 Bluegrass Festival, Powderhorn Park, Langley, (918) 425-5887 765-4400 22-24 FFA Junior Rodeo, Hugo, (405) 326- 15-17 Hydro District Free Fair, Hydro, (405) 663-2354 6005 16-18 Illinois River Balloon Festival, 23,24 14th Rodeo, Shrock Park, Tuttle, Tahlequah, (918) 456-3742 (405) 381-2249 20-24 Ottawa County Free Fair, Miami, 23,24 American Legion Rodeo, Arnett, (918) 542-1688 (405) 939-2281 22-24 Old Timers Days, Choctaw Creek 23,24 IPRAIACRA Open Rodeo, Park, Choctaw, (405) 390-3303 Weatherford, (405) 772-7744 23,24 OK County Free Fair, State Fair- 23-25 Martha Josey Barrel Racing Clinic, ground~,OKC, (405) 948-6704 Lazy E Arena, Guthrie, (405) 282-7433 26-31 Ringwood Watermelon Fair, 24,25 President's Cup, Broad Acres Polo Ringwood, (405) 883-5907 Club, Norman, (405) 364-7035 28-31 Will Rogers Memorial Rodeo, Vinita, 29,31 Blaine County Fair, Watonga, (405) 623-5195 (918) 256-7811 30-Sept. 1 Hot Air Balloon Festival &Air 30-31 OK State Prison Rodeo, State
Show, Ponca City, (405) 762-5735 Penitentiary, McAlester, (918) 426-1173 31 Round-up Club Junior Rodeo, Talihina, 31 Art in the Park Festival, Chickasaw Nat'l Recreation Area, Sulphur, (405) (918) 567-2211 31, Sept. 1 Finals President's Cup SW 622-2824 Circuit, Broad Acres Polo Club, Norman, 31-Sept. 1 Ethnic Festival, Krebs, (918) (405) 364-7035 423-2842 31-Sept. 2 Arts Festival OK, OCCC, OKC, 31-Sept. 2 Booger Barter Team Roping, (405) 682-7557 Lazy E Arena, Guthrie, (405) 282-7433 31-Sept. 2 Hunt & Webster Fall Arts & 31-Sept. 2 Rodeo of Champions, Elk City, (405) 243-2424 Crafts Fair, Grove, (918) 786-9079 RODEO & HORSE EVENTS
FAIRS & FESTIVALS
Oklahoma
T o d a y
I Sand Snrinnc Main Street Present5 The 4th R n n l ~ ~ Il
-
1 Celebration 3 Oklahoma Uiildlife
September 21.1996
- -
Wildlife Exhibi and
Seminars, Native American
Dancers and Craftsmen,
Farmers Market, Amish
Baked Goods, Entertainment, Children's Games
and Prizes, Delightful
Foods, Wonderful Frienas,
and the Guarantee of 1
Precious Memories of a
Day the Entire Family
Enjoyed!
I
1
For more information call Sand Springs Main Street, Inc. (918) 245-8751 ext.210
1
For mae i n f o r m call the DrncanArts & HunanitiesCandl 4052524160
/ F O U R T H
A N N U A L .
1 Tom
Festival
I
~old
--
IB Continuous Showinq o f T o m Mix Films All D a v
PARADE FOUR-STATE MARCHING BAND
C O ~ O KANSAS
N
C]IT"YSII:ANDREWS
pIPEs&WRUMSARTS&CRAFISAUDUBOw
W I I l X I F E m A m
E X H I B WHITE
~
PELICAN m u R s Y o m
TRACTOR PULL CHILDREN'S ZONE
flwmmmIZIDIES-'mBYREQUESIT'
PATTI BETH ABBOTT & TERRYJORDAN
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FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
GRAND LAKE ASSOCIATION
6807 HWY 59 N./ GROVE, OK 74344 (918) 786-2289
Sock Hop
Car Show Car Rall
woute 66 Birthd
MichaelWallis (Author
RocKnDRoU
Dance fun
Saturday.
Clinton,
-
andDeliciow Food
For more information,
contact
The Tom Mix Museum
I
CALENDAR
SEPTEMBER
3-8 Garfield County Fair. Enid. (405) 237- 0238 4-6 Pawnee County Free Fair. Pawnee.
(918) 762-2108 4-7 Canadian County Fair. El Reno. (405) 262-0683 5-7 Bluegrass & Chili Festival. Downtown. Tulsa. (918) 583-2617 5-7 Major County Fair. F a i ~ e w(405)
.
227-2527 5-7 Murray County Free Fair. Sulphur. (405) 622-2824 5-7 Oktoberfest. Old Germany Restaurant. Choctaw. (405) 390-8647 5-8 Olanulgee County Free Fair. Okmulgee. (918) 756-1958 6. 7 Land of Country Antique & Crafts Festival. Ponca City. (405) 765-3746 6.7 Pumpkin Festival of the Arts. Anadarko. (405) 247-6651 6-8 Tom Mix Festival. Guthrie. (405) 282- 1947 6-9 Mayes County Fair. Pryor. (918) 825- 3241 7 17th Calf Fry Festival. Vinita. (918) 256- 7133 7 Downtown Street Fair. Cheyenne. (405) 497-3318 7 Wildlife Heritage Festival. Cheyenne. (405) 497-3354 7. 8 5th Plaza Arts Festival. Nichols Hills. OKC. (405) 848-4943 10-14 Kay County Fair. Blackwell. (405) 363-4195 12-14 Coweta Fall Festival. Coweta. (918) 486-2513 13-15 Rogers County Fair. Claremore. (918) 341-2736 13-29 90th State Fair of Oklahoma. State Fairgrounds. OKC. (405) 948-6700 14 Okrafest, Checotah. (918) 473-4178 14 23rd SW Festival of the Arts. Weatherford. (405) 772-7744 14.15 Osage County Free Fair. Pawhuska.
(918) 287-1208 17-19 Cherokee County Pair. Tahlequah. (918) 456-6163 19-21 Choctaw County Fair. Hugo. (405) 326-3359 19-22 The Greek Holiday. Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church. Tulsa. (918) BASEBALL
OKC 89EW
AUG 1EZS
"-18
AUG 23-25
AU6 26.27
AUG 2b29
NASHVfUE
NEW O W N S
IOWA
OMAHA TULSA DRlUERS AU6 12-16 SHREVEPORT
AUG 17-21 ARKANSAS AUG 27-31 JACKSON
Gibson. (918) 478-4780 21 Indian Summer Bird Fair. OK Avicultural Society. Tulsa. (918) 245- 1720 21 Outlaw Day Ambush. Marlow. (405) 658-2212 21 Wheat Country Festival. Billings. (405) 725-3210 21. 22 Designs of Autumn Fall Festival. Miami. (918) 542-4481 25-28 Pushmataha County Fair. Antlers. (405) 298-5563 26-013.6 Tulsa State Fair. Tulsa. (918) 744-1113 27. 28 Gene Autry Oklahoma Film &Music Festival. Gene Autry Oklahoma Mu- seum. Gene Autry. (405) 389-5335 27-29 Bluegrass Festival. Duncan. (405) 255-7042 27-29 Cookson Hills Bluegrass Festival. Cookson. (918) 457-4403 27-29 Fin & Feather Arts & Crafts Festival. Gore. (918) 487-5148 27-29 Int'l Festival. Lawton. (405) 581- 3470 28 Fall Fest. Comanche. (405) 439-5565 28 Harvest Moon StorytellingFestival. Murrell Home. Tahlequah. (918) 458- 1800 28 Indian Summer Arts Festival XVII. Chandler. (405) 258-3131 28 Oil Patch Festival &Jamboree Jog. Drumright. (918) 352-2204 28. 29 Pelican Festival. Grove. (918) 786- 2289 SPECIAL EVENTS
AUGUST
9.10. 17 Stars Over the Wichitas. Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. (405) 429- 3222 15-17 Western Heritage Days. Bristow. (918) 367-3629 16. 17 Rural Tourism Conference &Trade Show. Stillwater. (918) 287-2849 17 101 Roadside Dedication & Chuck Wagon Dinner. Ponca City. (405) 762- 5651 17 Toy &Doll Show & Sale. State Fair- grounds. OKC. (405) 789-2934 17. 18 Stigler Shoot Out. Lake John Wells. Stigler. (918) 967-8681 17. 18 Texoma Cat Fanciers CFA Cat Show. esbval of the
Great Plains Coliseum. Lawton. (405) Ek city. 252-4399 800) 280-0207 18-30 World Acrobatic Championships. !0-22 Osage Jaunty Fair. Clarence Page Airport. OKC. (405) 685- 9546 Pawhuska. (918) 20.
21 Ringling Brothers. Barnurn & Bailey !87-1208
Circus. Tulsa. (918) 584-2000 11 Fall Fest,
22-25 Pioneer Senior Olympics. Stillwater. Shawnee. (405)
(405) 747-8080 275-8412
z1 Fort Gibson 23-25 NAACP Softball Tournament. Hall of Fame Stadium. OKC. (405) 236-2227 ieritage
24 Sucker Day. Wetumka. (405) 452-3237 Pestival. Fort
L.
A u g u s t
.
September
1996
Adam's Mark Hotel ............................10 Allison Street Inn ...............................62 Arcadian Inn B & B ............................62 Art on Broadway ..................................
9
Bartlesville Indian Summer Fest .......10 B & B of Tahlequah ............................ 62 Candlewyck B & B Inn .................60. 62 Cherokee Nation Holiday ..................63 Clinton Route 66 Day ........................64 Cherokee Queen .................................
60 Dr.Jeffrey McCormick .......................
11
62 Dome House B & B ............................
Duncan Chamber .................................6 Duncan FallFest ..................................
63 For the Birds .......................................
60 Gallery Southwest ..............................
60 Grove Chamber ..................................60 Hendren-Perry Real Estate ................60 Heritage Manor B & B .......................62 Holmberg House B & B .....................62 Jarrett Farm Country Inn ..................58 Keepsake Candles ................................. 9 Lakeside Restaurant ...........................60 Li'l Red Barn .......................................
62 MarVal Resort .....................................62 Mayne Harber Inn .............................
62 Nelson's Homestay B & B ..................62 OG&E ....................................................
2
Oklahoma Dept of Commerce............3 Oklahoma Natural Gas ......................68 Oklahoma Today Trading Post ........ 7. 8 The Old Homestead ...........................60 Patricia Island Estates ........................60 Pelican Festival ...................................64 Pete's Place ........................................
58 Sand Springs Eagle Festival ............... 63 Seminole Children's Museum .............6 Snider's Camp ....................................
60 Sonic ....................................................67 Sunnylane United Methodist ............15 Tom Mix Day ......................................
64 Tulsa Creek Indian Trading Post .......15 Tulsa CVB ........................................4 Victorian Accents ...............................60 Watonga Cheese Festival....................64 Willow Springs Marina ......................62 OKLAHOMA
TODN THE MAGAZINE OF OKLAHOMA
To place an ad in Oklahoma Today call
(800) 777-1793 or (405) 521-2496 and ask
to speak to an advertising representative.
CALENDAR
1
1
Senior Games, Simmons Center, Duncan
(405) 252-4386 19-21 Pioneer Days, Skiatook, (918) 396- -.
Cookson, 3702 ;- Jubilee,
(918) 457-5700 19-25 OK Senior Olympics, Tulsa, (918) SEPT 7
TX CHRISTIAN
SEPT28 TULSA
31,Sept. 1 Labor Day 596-7866 Craft Show, Lake 20,21 39th Tulsa Regional Fly-In, Frank & Murray Resort,
Phillips Field, Bartlesville, (918) 622-8400 AUG 31 SW MISSOURI ST
Ardmore, (405) 223- 20-22 17th Biker Days in the Osage, SEPT 1 4 TULSA
6600 Pawhuska, (918) 287-3397 SEPT21 UTAH ST 20-22 Lake Eufala Bass Classic, Fountain- head Resort & Marina, Checotah, (800) T.U.
SEPTEMBER
321-5041 SEPT 2l IOWA
2 Labor Day 21 2nd Hook-N-Cookoff, Powderhorn Celebration, Park, Langley, (918) 782-3214 Henryetta, (918) 652-9136 21 22nd OK Beef CookOff, Clarion Hotel, 5-7 Western Days, Mustang, (405) 376- OKC, (405) 431-2382 2758 21 Art & Craft Show, Frederick, (405) 335- 6-8 Autumn Magic Celebration, Guthrie, 2881 (405) 282-1947 21,22 OK Scottish Games & Gathering, 7 Homish Auction, Ada, (405) 428-3300 Chandler Park, Tulsa, (918) 241-6399 13 Bolo Ball, Nat'l Cowboy Hall of Fame, 26-Oct. 3 Delta Queen Steamboat Cruise, OKC, (405) 478-2250 Port of Catoosa, Tulsa, (918) 494-9995 13,14 Teddy Bear Affair Show & Sale, The 27-Oct. 6 CityArts '96, Norman, (405) 360- Ramada Inn, Norman, (405) 329-0767 1162 13,14 World SemifinalsCoon Hunt, Ada, 28 Canna Festival, Carnegie, (405) 654- (405) 332-9267 2121 13-15 7th Swap Meet at Muscle Car Ranch, 28,29 Ardmore Art in the Park, Ardmore, Chickasha, (405) 222-4910 (405) 223-4844 13-15 Continental Antique Show, Myriad, 28-Oct. 16 Japanese EmbroiderersGuild, OKC, (405) 232-8871 Cleveland County Historical House, 13-15 Country Peddler Show, Expo Square, Norman, (405) 329-3861 Tulsa, (918) 744-1113 ....................
14 Amish Auction, Clarita, (405) 428-3403 14 Art in the Park, Cordell, (405) 832-3538 14 Cherokee Strip Bar-B-Que Champion- ship & Chili Cookoff, Marland Mansion, AUGUST
Ponca City, (405) 762-1121 1-Sept. 2 Tours of Pensacola Dam, Langley,
14 Cherokee Strip Celebration, Peny, (405) (918) 782-9594 336-4684 17 TIDA Races, Sooner IntlRaceway, 14 Cherokee Strip Days Celebration, Enid, Altus, (405) 482-2754 (405) 237-2494 24 5K Run & Citywide Garage Sale, 14 Founders Day, Collinsville, (918) 371- Coweta, (918) 486-2513 4703 31-Sept. 2 Labor Day Ride, Wild Horse 14 Old Timers Day, Harrah, (405) 454- Trail Camp, Honobia, (918) 755-4570 3597 ,
14 Route 66 Fall Celebration, Clinton, SEPTEMBER
(' +
(405) 323-2222 14 Tom Mix Day, Dewey, (918) 534-1555 7 Warrior's 12K Challenge Run & 14-16 Cowboy Rendezvous, Chuckwagon Women's Distance Festival, Lake Cookoff, & Stockmen's Ball, Museum of
Pawnee Bathhouse, Pawnee, (918) the Cherokee Strip, Enid, (405) 233-6300 762-2493 14-21 Frontier Days, 7,8 Lake Hefner STREAK, Stars & Stripes Tecumseh, (405) 598- Park, OKC, (405) 525-5762 8666 7,8,12,14,15,19,21,22,26,28,29, Oct. 3,5,6 18 Old Soldiers Bugling Elk Tour, Wichita Mountains AUG 16-18 BLUE RIBBOII
Reunion, Co. B 179th Wildlife Refuge, Lawton, (405) 429- AUG 23-25 BLUE Rl8BOl
& 279th, Pawnee, 3222 AUG 30.31 BLUE RlBBOll
(918) 762-2108 11-16 Cherokee Strip Trail Ride, Fort 18-21 61st Chelsea S~pply,(405) 697-3380 SEPT 1.2
BLUE RIBBON
SEPT 6-8
BLUE RIBBON
Jamboree, Chelsea, 13,14 Route 66: 70th Anniversary Car SEPT 12-15 BLUE RIBBON
(918) 789-2220 Cruise, Clinton to Shamrock, TX, SEPT 13-15 REMINGTON 19 Longhorn Auction, (405) 258-0008 SEPT19-22 BLUE RIBBON
Wichita Mountains 14 Stampede 5K RunMTalk, Simmons SEPT 20-22 REMINGTON
SEPT 25-29 REMINGTON
Wildlife Refuge, (405) Center, Duncan, (405) 252-4386 SEPT 26-29 BLUE RIBBON
429-3222 14 Tulsa Zoo Run, Tulsa, (918) 669-6601 19 SW Oklahoma
21 Sacred H
eLCenturyCycling Race1 FOOTBALL
6aT:iggL
I
7
28 Old Settler's Day, (918) 256-7133 IVinita,
30-Sept. 2 Cookson a*
RUNS, RIDES,& WALKS
,I
I
7.
,. O k l a h o m a
..
.
:,a4
,-.4;
Today
r,
-,
'
Tour, St. Gregory's College, Shawnee,
(405) 878-5293 28 Tour de Kicks on Route 66, Sapulpa, (918)224-5709 28,29 Rod Run, Hugo Lake, Hugo, (405) 326-5950 29 That Cotton Pickin' Run, Hollis, (405)
688-2419
a .J~,T,
'
..............
....
LIVING HISTORY
SEPTEMBER
27,28 Fort Reno Tombstone Tales, Fort Reno, El Reno, (405) 262-1188 27-29 1lth Old Time Threshing Bee, Major County Historical Society, Fairview, (405) 227-2265 28 An Overall Look at History in Okla-
homa, Chisholm Trail Museum, Kingfisher, (405) 375-5176 28 Historic Political Re-enactment, T.B. Ferguson Museum, Watonga, (405) 623- 5069 ....................
LECmTRES&WORKSHOPS
AUGUST
",,'
01 .
18 Old Master Drawings: The Uncommon, the Unexpected, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, (918) 748-5314 21 Writers Night with Mark Johnson, Hanvelden Mansion, Tulsa, (918) 584- 3333 24 Howard Koerth CeramicsWorkshop, OSU, Stillwater, (405) 744-6016
24 Youth Fishing Clinic, Pawnee Bill . * ! Ranch, Pawnee, (918) 762-2513 24,Sept. 14 Tatting Workshop, Chisholm
Trail MusedGovernor Seay Mansion,
Kingfisher, (405) 375-5176
-;,
a
.
%
SEPTEMBER
8 Artists' Round Table, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, (918) 748-5314 21 History of Stained Glass, Chisholm Trail MusedGovernor Seay Mansion, Kingfisher, (405) 375-5176 . . . . . . . . . . ,... . .' -.'., . . . . . . .
1
3,
r.
.L
1
Dates and times can change without notice;
please confirm before attending any event.
The calendar is a fiee service published on a
space-available basis. To be considered,
please mail a concise notice of the event (a
separate page for each event) that includes 7
date, time, place, address, and a contact
telephone number. Notices must arrive at
k-
Oklahoma Today three calendar months
prior to publication (i.e. Dec.-Jan.events are y.due Sept. 1). Send to: Entertainment
Calendar, Oklahoma Today, P.O. Box : ; >
53384, Oklahoma City, OK 73152 or fax:
(405) 522-4588. Questions? Call (405) 521-
2496; we cannot, however, take listings over I the telephone. 2:
-
doing windows around these parts since
1958. It seems like only yesterday that we started up our krst drive-in right here in Oklahoma.
And we've been serving the great people of Oklahoma ever since. In fact, you've helped make us
"America's Drive-In." So from the bottom of our Cherry Limeades, we'd just like to say, "Thanks!"
W e stood there and gazed at the misty wooded hills rising
silently above the water. Listened to the steady murmur of the
stream spilling over worn rocks. Felt the cool, clean morning air.
The moment was pure Oklahoma.
And nearby was a marvel even more true to Oklahoma. An
underground pipeline for Oklahoma Natural Gas. Unseen and
unheard as the water gently rippled to the river's edge, nature's
perfect energy source was being delivered to more than 700,000
Oklahoma households.
Only natural gas combines energy eficiency, low cost and
environmental friendliness in one fuel. Somehow, it's onlyfitting
that a fuel so kind to the earth should comefiom the earth. And
it's our good fortune that this abundantfuel is destined to play
a key role in the future growth of our state's economy.
Like the lakes, like the prairie, like the mountains, Oklahoma
Natural Gas is pure Oklahoma.
== OKLAHOMA
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