OKIE IN EXILE: Slices of Time

I’ve lived in Pittsburg for 20 years now. During that time, I’ve made the trip from Pittsburg to Harden City, Okla., numerous times. The route is Pittsburg to Miami, Miami to Tulsa, Tulsa to Stroud, Stroud to Ada, and Ada to Harden City.

There have always been stretches of this road where the number and variety of churches have been of a remarkable density. This has not changed. What has changed is the number of casinos along the way.

This used to be zero. Nada. Nil. None. Now, along some stretches, they rival the churches in their density.  This is not the only change. The churches have begun to resemble the casinos.

They used to, for the most part, be simple, modest buildings, white with steeples. But now they echo the glitter of the casinos. There is a similar architecture and a similar marquee. Indeed, the church signs are so much like the signs on the casinos it makes me wonder if the same salesman is responsible for both.

Driving past, I wonder if this is just a means of the church taking the gospel to a changing world or if the world is making inroads into the church. There would’ve been a time when I’d’ve said one and now I’d say the other. What is the truth?

Over the same period of time other things have changed. In the beginning, when I made the trip, I was going home. Now it is the other way around. Home is not a place on the map; it is a place in the heart. It’s not that I don’t love Harden City any more. It’s more like when a man meets a girl and marries her. His mom will always be his mom, but his wife must always be number one. A man shall leave his mother and father and cleave unto his wife. It happens in a moment, but it happens over time too. Pittsburg has become my home, but Harden City is still special.

I went back to Harden City most recently because of the McLish School Reunion. The whole school gets together every two years, but this is only the second time I’ve been in the 29 (oh my goodness) years since I graduated. McLish school, as I knew it, was between Harden City and Fittstown, in the Fitts oil field.

As rock is formed, it is laid out in layers over time. The layers have different characteristics even though they were all laid down in the same place. Geologists can identify the different layers and have given them different names in different locations. As I understand it, McLish was the layer where the oil was discovered in the Fitts field.

The folks at the reunion were seated in chronological order from 1938 the new millennium. It was like we were arranged in layers. The folks seated on the west end of the big room in the Elk’s lodge were from the early days of the oil field when it was just coming into production, the ones in the middle were from the time when the field was at its peak, and the ones on the east came from a time when they were squeezing the oil out with saltwater injection.

These people are all salt of the earth. The men will shake your hand and the women will hug your neck. (I had forgotten that you can hug women you’re not kin to in Oklahoma!) The folks who graduated in the oughts are different from the ones who graduated in the 50s: same number of churches, more casinos. They are better at computers, VCRs, and they have more tattoos, but they will still laugh at the old stories. You can tell the difference between the layers, but it is all still one piece of rock.

It’s not my home any more. I’ve got a new one. But it gave me birth, and that’ll never change.

Bobby Winters is Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Professor of Mathematics, and Interim Chair of the Department of Chemistry. It’s complicated.