Whenever there is a tornado outbreak in our state, many of our friends and relatives from around the country begin asking me on Facebook and on the phone, "How can you live there?" "Don't you think you need to move back here?" and to that I must say...
There are natural disasters almost everywhere you might live. California has earthquakes, Arizona and many states around it have wildfires, the East Coast and Gulf Coast have hurricanes, there are blizzards in the north and floods in the Midwest.
Being in the path of storms is the price we pay for living in the friendliest, most generous, kindest place in the world.Yes, we have disasters, but within minutes there are neighbors, and friends, and strangers who become friends lining up to help.They give money, the clothes off their backs, and their labor.They open up their homes.They pass out food.They travel across the state to go to the aid of hurting people.
We don't have to have a tornado or a building blown up by terrorists to bring out the love in our state.When you stand in line at the market, people chat.When you stop to admire someone's garden she is likely to invite you to the back yard to see more and you leave with some cuttings to plant in your own garden.The people on your street have a block party and everyone brings food and sits around talking and laughing. If you are out to dinner and there are storm warnings, you can call a neighbor who will brave the weather to go check on your dog.
There are churches practically on every corner here and the people who attend them live their faith. More than one church in our community offers free breakfast and lunch to kids all summer long because they know that when school is out many will be hungry without the free lunch program at their schools. Many churches partner with a school and weed their lawns, paint the playground equipment, monitor tests, donate school supplies, send encouraging notes and little treats to the teachers, and help out any way they can.
Oklahoma probably doesn't need me, but I need it. I need to feel that wind "come rushing down the plain" and mess my hair. I need to get my fingers in the red dirt that is impossible to wash out of a kid's clothes. I need to wake up the morning after a storm and see the sky, that unique Oklahoma blue, with white, big-bellied clouds that look like you could bounce on them.
I need to see the different cultures living together yet maintaining their own heritage. I need to hear the town names, like Gotebo and Bug Tussle and Hooker, and know that when I drive there, it could be that a dog will be taking its nap out on the highway because it sleeps there everyday and I can darn well drive around it! I need to know that when the school has a pet show in the parking lot someone is likely to trailer in a horse for her entry.
I need to know when the State Fair is in town and to hear the stories of friends from our church who go there to minister to the carnies, taking them blankets and bottles of shampoo. I need to hear the drawl of someone who asks me if I want to take the "buggy" he is finished with at the grocery store and tell me they are "fixin'" to move a "humongous" load of hay.
I have lived here more than forty years and raised my sons here. They don't remember anyplace else, although they were born in California. We left here once but Oklahoma red dirt is in our blood now, I guess, and we couldn't stand it. When we crossed the state line as we were moving back I let out the breath I must have been holding all along and knew I was home.
I wasn't born in Oklahoma, but I hope to stay here till God takes me to His heavenly home. Psalms 139:16 says "All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be," so no matter if there are tornadoes or illness or however God chooses to take me, I know I don't need to worry or be afraid. It is in His hands and His timing. I just want the trip to be from Oklahoma. It's pretty close to Heaven already.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
A Quick Run Into The Grocery Store
My husband is waiting in the car with the dog when I decide I need to run into the grocery store for just a minute. I know it won't be long because I'm only getting a few things at the deli. "I'll be back in five minutes, tops." I tell him.
So I go to the line with a checker and a bagger at Reasor's so that I won't screw up in the self-check line and it will be faster. There is only one lady in front of me and she is almost finished. The checker begins to check my three items when I notice there is still a ham in the bottom of the lady's cart. I let them know.They send it through.
That's when I notice that the checker has put my things in the other lady's bag and charged her for them. I let them know. The checker backs everything out and starts again, the first lady pays with a check and leaves, they start again checking my items.
"Ten seventy-six" the checker says. I hand her eleven dollars and a penny. She gives me back a dollar. I say, "No, I think I only get a quarter." She calls over a supervisor to open her drawer, takes back the dollar and gives me a quarter.
The bagger hands me my bags and says "Only two bags today." I think that is kind of strange for only three items, but hey, I need bags for the kitty litter. Then I realize one of the bags is warm. I look inside and there is a big chicken leg. I did not get a chicken leg. Neither my husband nor I like chicken legs. I look at my receipt and they have charged me $1.99 for the chicken leg. I mention this to the bagger.
"Oh, sorry. Just go over to the Service Desk and tell them what happened. They'll take care of you." I do, and they do, giving me back $2.16 which included tax, but the lady who planned on the hot chicken leg for her dinner is going to be pretty disappointed when she gets home.
Maybe I'll try that self-check thing again next time.
So I go to the line with a checker and a bagger at Reasor's so that I won't screw up in the self-check line and it will be faster. There is only one lady in front of me and she is almost finished. The checker begins to check my three items when I notice there is still a ham in the bottom of the lady's cart. I let them know.They send it through.
That's when I notice that the checker has put my things in the other lady's bag and charged her for them. I let them know. The checker backs everything out and starts again, the first lady pays with a check and leaves, they start again checking my items.
"Ten seventy-six" the checker says. I hand her eleven dollars and a penny. She gives me back a dollar. I say, "No, I think I only get a quarter." She calls over a supervisor to open her drawer, takes back the dollar and gives me a quarter.
The bagger hands me my bags and says "Only two bags today." I think that is kind of strange for only three items, but hey, I need bags for the kitty litter. Then I realize one of the bags is warm. I look inside and there is a big chicken leg. I did not get a chicken leg. Neither my husband nor I like chicken legs. I look at my receipt and they have charged me $1.99 for the chicken leg. I mention this to the bagger.
"Oh, sorry. Just go over to the Service Desk and tell them what happened. They'll take care of you." I do, and they do, giving me back $2.16 which included tax, but the lady who planned on the hot chicken leg for her dinner is going to be pretty disappointed when she gets home.
Maybe I'll try that self-check thing again next time.
Friday, April 19, 2013
April Memories.
Eighteen years ago today I heard a loud bang that shook the house (we lived 12 miles from downtown) but I told the dog who was looking at me quizzically, "It's just a sonic boom." Then I turned on the TV.
I can never forget the images of people, blood streaming down their faces, being helped out of that mangled mess of a building. Babies were being carried out in people's arms too, but it was too late for some. Almost all of the babies and children you saw on the news were from the YMCA day-care across the street. The babies inside the Murrah Building did not come out.
The memory that still breaks my heart...I can hardly bear to recall it...is the story of two boys who were latch-key kids. I think they were about ten and twelve, maybe younger. They went home to an empty apartment after school and waited for their single mom to come home. On that April 19, they waited through the afternoon, till dinner time, till bedtime, but she still she didn't come. They were scared, but not because they had heard of the bombing; they hadn't. They just wanted their mom because she was always there for them and this night she wasn't. And she was never there again.
But the other images I see in my mind are of nurses and doctors running toward the building, their white coats flying behind them, pushing gurneys down the street from the St. Anthony's Hospital a few blocks away. I remember hearing on TV that people were calling and asking what needs can we meet? Construction companies donated cranes, helicopters were sent from far away, one man fashioned leather booties for the feet of the dogs who were climbing over and through the rubble searching for bodies.
The lines of cars waiting to drop off any supplies they could think of stretched miles down the highway. One family came and waited for hours in line, because their little girl wanted to bring Band-Aids. Oklahoma City is a small enough city that everybody either knew someone in the bombing or knew somebody that knew someone.
Since then we've had many more terrorist acts; 9/11 and now the Boston Marathon bombing. I guess it will never go away this side of Jesus coming again, but here is what I take away from it all: Terrorists have a goal to kill and disrupt and wreak havoc and on one level they do that. But if their goal is to divide us and turn Americans against each other and to destroy us, and it is, they are stupid. They fail every time.
What they do does not destroy our country, it brings us together
I can never forget the images of people, blood streaming down their faces, being helped out of that mangled mess of a building. Babies were being carried out in people's arms too, but it was too late for some. Almost all of the babies and children you saw on the news were from the YMCA day-care across the street. The babies inside the Murrah Building did not come out.
The memory that still breaks my heart...I can hardly bear to recall it...is the story of two boys who were latch-key kids. I think they were about ten and twelve, maybe younger. They went home to an empty apartment after school and waited for their single mom to come home. On that April 19, they waited through the afternoon, till dinner time, till bedtime, but she still she didn't come. They were scared, but not because they had heard of the bombing; they hadn't. They just wanted their mom because she was always there for them and this night she wasn't. And she was never there again.
But the other images I see in my mind are of nurses and doctors running toward the building, their white coats flying behind them, pushing gurneys down the street from the St. Anthony's Hospital a few blocks away. I remember hearing on TV that people were calling and asking what needs can we meet? Construction companies donated cranes, helicopters were sent from far away, one man fashioned leather booties for the feet of the dogs who were climbing over and through the rubble searching for bodies.
The lines of cars waiting to drop off any supplies they could think of stretched miles down the highway. One family came and waited for hours in line, because their little girl wanted to bring Band-Aids. Oklahoma City is a small enough city that everybody either knew someone in the bombing or knew somebody that knew someone.
Since then we've had many more terrorist acts; 9/11 and now the Boston Marathon bombing. I guess it will never go away this side of Jesus coming again, but here is what I take away from it all: Terrorists have a goal to kill and disrupt and wreak havoc and on one level they do that. But if their goal is to divide us and turn Americans against each other and to destroy us, and it is, they are stupid. They fail every time.
What they do does not destroy our country, it brings us together
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Saving the Planet
We try to do our part to save the planet, so we just dropped off three bags of newspapers for recycling and now I have to start a new bag.
It doesn't take long to fill a bag. Years ago I got the newspaper every day. I always read the obituaries, of course, to make sure I'm not in there, and because people have led such interesting lives that nobody even finds out about till they're dead. And the Funnies. I guess most people call them the Comics. I think they are essential to a good education and since our grandkids in Edmond don't get the paper at their house, I mail them the Sunday Funnies every week.
Then I read the headlines to my husband, at least the interesting ones, and I cut out important articles for all the other members of my family because I am the Keeper of The News, the last one in our immediate family who actually reads black and white words from real paper you hold in your hands.
I used to get the paper delivered every day but since I feel the need to read the whole thing if it shows up in my yard, no matter how old, it sometimes became a problem, like when it built up to a pile the size of a bumpy beached whale when we went out of town or something, and my neighbor very sweetly brought the paper in with the mail she was getting for us. (You can't call and have it stopped because I saw on TV that sometimes burglers have a part-time job in the circulation department and then they know you are aren't home!) I kept trying to catch up, starting with the first day we were gone and then the next day, but there was another one out there each morning and it was like a bad dream where you are running in place but never getting anywhere. I thought I caught Dennis on the internet looking up how you can get someone on that "Hoarders, Buried Alive" show on TV, but, of course, he denied it. I mean, please! He could still walk down the hallway if he turned sideways.
So I took a deep breath, called the Circulation Department and asked to get just the Sunday paper. It is full of coupons as well as all the interesting ads...I always call and tell my daughter-in-law when something good is on sale...so I have to get the Sunday paper. But they had this "Week-end Special": if you took the Sunday paper, you got Saturday, which has the real estate ads. I'm not planning to move but I like to see what million dollar houses are really going for these days. And Friday's paper came along with it. It is full of all the entertainment places you might want to go on the week-end if you aren't busy reading the newspaper. And the package cost almost the same as just the Sunday. "Okay," I said. "I'll take the Week-end Special."
And then a few months later they added Thursdays. For free! You can't turn down free. But that is all! Of course, the neighborhood paper that they throw in your yard whether you ask for it or not comes on Wednesday mornings, and the food ads, which are almost like a small newspaper, come in the mail on Tuesdays. So now, Mondays are the only days we don't get some papers that are going to need to be recycled. I won't even start about the magazines we get.
I like to use paper grocery bags to store them because they are just the right size and they are recycleable too. You just dump the whole thing in the bin. They are a little hard to find anymore, though. I used to get them from Reasor's but they have changed over to plastic and the only place who still uses paper that I know of is Braum's, the ice cream place.
So, I guess I don't have a choice. If I want to be keep on saving the planet, I'm going to have to start eating more ice cream.
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