Oklahoma - Day 7 - Tulsa

Tulsa NE/Will Rogers Downs KOA, Claremore
Friday, 7 August 2020

It started raining yesterday afternoon about 4:30, then stopped, then started again early this morning.  The real problem was that for about 2 hours this morning we had very heavy thunder and lightning, which was scary for me as well as the dogs.  Some of it was pretty close to the campground.  But it had passed over by the time we were ready to leave.

This is the water hookup at last night's campground.  I'm putting in this photo because I'd never seen one like this and, though I tried hard, couldn't figure out how to get water out of it.

I finally asked another camper for help and, though his was a little different from mine, he figured out that I not only had to turn the top knob all the way open, but I also had to turn the little lever on the nozzle on.  Doing both those things got me water.  Who on earth would design something like this - and then leave idiot campers like me to figure it out for ourselves?

today's route

detail of downtown

The drive to Tulsa wasn't very long - only about an hour.  The map said we'd be going through the town of Gregory, but it was apparently too small to even rate a sign, because I never noticed it.

Coming into town I passed several billboards for a candidate named Bill Stephens: "Cowboy for Senate."  Wonder if that slogan will win for him.

I passed a business called "Toby Keith's I ♥ This Bar and Grill."

The City of Tulsa is "Up With Trees," they say.

I passed a sign saying, "I'm A CWY Voter."  I've done a quick search and still don't know what that means.

I passed the Cherokee Nation Welcome Center but couldn't get to it without a lot of trouble.  I wish I'd known about it, since all the state's welcome centers are closed due to the virus.

I heard a story about several travel destinations in England.  A survey not long ago in the town of Brighton found that a sizable percentage of residents listed their religion as "Jedi Knight."  That makes me interested in going for a visit.

I was surprised by how light the traffic was, for most of the day actually.  It didn't make sense because it was still a weekday, and traffic is often heavy on Fridays in most places.  It made driving much easier for me, both on the roadway and in town.  That was lucky because the directions I got from Google didn't go where they said I would, but I stumbled on the places I wanted anyway.

Center of the Universe
You didn't know it was here in Tulsa, did you?  Neither did I.

Center of the Universe

Artificial Cloud

I am without words to explain these 2 items, which are just yards from each other.  I'll let you read about them at this link.   https://wanderwisdom.com/Tulsa-Center-of-the-Universe  That link discusses both the "Center" and the "Cloud."

Of course I stood at the center of the circle and made some noises.  But I spoke softly so may not have gotten the effect they mention.  What I noticed was a peculiar sound-deadening feeling, as if I were in a soundproof booth. 

There was no one else around when I was there (odd on a Friday mid-morning) but I saw a couple who'd gone there ahead of me.  They took turns standing in the circle saying something while the other stood outside the planter area.  I wanted to ask what they noticed, because I had no one with me to test the theories on (except the dogs and I couldn't get an opinion out of them), but they left before I got there.  All I can say is it was an odd feeling there.  I don't know about the acoustic anomoly.

You can see in the background of the photo of the cloud this building below: the Tulsa Union Station.  It was built in Art Deco style in 1931 as a WPA project and was the first train station in the center of Tulsa.  It was abandoned in 1967 but has since been renovated and now houses the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame.  I'm glad it was rescued.  I think our lives need buildings that look like this.

When I left, I was still not finding the streets Google said I should, but I figured out on my own how to get where I wanted to go, which was Reconciliation Park.

The John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park
This park was created to memorialize the race riots, murders and devastation that happened here in the Greenwood neighborhood in 1921, where marauding White citizens spent 48 hours killing and looting and burning, leaving thousands of Black residents with nothing, if they even managed to avoid being killed. 

Almost worse than the original events was the complete erasure of them from history.  Black survivors were terrorized into silence; Whites joined a conspiracy to forget.  As a result, people who grew up in the neighborhood, who had grandparents that were survivors, first heard about it in college history classes.  Articles were excised from the local newspaper to avoid being microfilmed for posterity.  Victims were buried in mass unmarked graves.  Today, efforts to correct history have begun.   https://www.cbsnews.com/greenwood-massacre   https://www.washingtonpost.com/we-lived-like-we-were-wall-street

overview of the park

This Tower of Reconciliation is carved all the way around, with the earliest history of Blacks in America (including the slave ships) shown at the bottom.


These are the plaques found around the statue.

And finally, I found this tribute to the late Congressman John Lewis.

The note reads: In Memory of Congressman John Lewis
1940 - 2020

Back on the road
I'm very sorry I didn't know that only a few blocks from where I'd been in the Greenwood neighborhood was a mural in the street: Black Lives Matter.  It had been painted at the corner of Greenwood and Archer (which runs by the Center of the Universe).  I learned over the weekend that someone had poured paint all along the center of the mural, ruining all of it.  It was of course repainted, and the city is installing surveillance cameras to protect it from future vandalism.  But 99 years after the devastation inflicted by racists at this same intersection, and someone shows that change has not been as prevalent as one would have hoped.

I drove up to Claremore, about 30 miles northeast of Tulsa.

I wanted to stop at a grocery store in Claremore before going to the campground, so the directions had me coming in on Lynn Riggs Blvd., turning on Will Rogers Blvd., then going back to Patti Page Blvd., and continuing down that to the campground.  So of course I looked all these people up and yes, Lynn Riggs and Patti Page were born in Claremore.  Oddly, Wikipedia says Will Rogers was too, but the Will Rogers Museum, that was started with the blessing of his widow, says he was born a little farther north in Oologah.  Claremore was chosen as the site for that museum, which I suppose is why this town’s claiming him.

I’d never heard of Lynn Riggs, but it turns out I should have.  He’s best known for writing the play Green Grow The Lilacs, which got made into the musical Oklahoma! 

Of course I’d heard of Patti Page, having grown up with her music, but I couldn’t remember just exactly which songs were hers.  She had a long list of hits, but the ones most familiar to me are Tennessee Waltz (which she had the best known version of); Old Cape Cod; Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte; Mockin’ Bird Hill; (How Much Is That) Doggie In The Window; and my personal favorite Left Right Out Of Your Heart.  These were all so completely singable and memorable, and every child in the country probably knew the words to Doggie In The Window.  I can hear her singing all of them but hadn’t realized that was her voice I’m hearing.

And so to the campground.