Oklahoma Deco, and the Blair ** Project

The further we drive, the more apparent it becomes that landscape is etched into our bodies and souls. What else could explain JJ's connection to this barren land of short scrubby trees, flat horizons, and endless dust?! But she loves it, the way I love the gentle salt marshes of southern New England and the rocky shores of northern. She basks in the heat, I wilt. We're in her country now.

The picture above is the Blair, an apartment building where Judith's father's sister, Marie, and her husband Ray, lived; and where Judith and her cousin Rodger (both shown as specks here in front of the building) spent much beloved time. The Blair used to be surrounded by lots of other apartment buildings and stores and activity; now it is surrounded by parking lots (I'm trying not to sustain a despairing theme here, about the abandonment of america, but it ain't easy). Downtown Tulsa is a ghost town, its gorgeous Art Deco buildings, built during the oil boom of the 1920s, largely deserted now, especially on weekends. It reminds me of downtown Houston: all the life is in the suburbs and the malls to the south. To use these incredibly beautifully ornamented structures for modern business or life requires rewiring and retrofitting that apparently few are willing to take on. So here we are, in the city where Judith and Rodger ran wild as kids, eating free cake and sitting in at courthouse trials: and it is largely an empty parking lot.

Rodger went on to be a long term state representative, and speaker pro tem of the house here in Oklahoma; and then major of Tulsa, pop. app. 330,000. He speaks Portuguese and Spanish fluently and is, how we say in our country, an interesting character. He is off this Sunday morning for Germany, where he is teaching a class in human relations. Currently he heads a department at the University of Oklahoma he self titled as Democracy and Culture in Human Relations. A good reminder that we all need to create our own dream jobs!

We head down to Oklahoma City later today. I am curious about the heartland location where a federal building was bombed: it is so abstract to me, I am eager to place it. Eager, too, to visit Judith's father's grave. More family pictures to come --