Oklahoma ghost stories

One of my favorite places in Oklahoma is the former State Capital Publishing Museum in Guthrie. 
Owned by the State Historical Society  and closed because of lack of repair money for six years now, my interest was reawakened when it made the news recently when my friend Richard Mize reported on a local group trying to raise money and save it.
We drove up to Guthrie today on the back roads, savoring the lush and peaceful countryside, before driving around town. 

Four years ago, from inside the historic Blue Belle Bar

Long ago, I took groups of university students there when it was open, because you could go in and the staff would use old printing equipment to set type and actual print handbills, the way it was done when Guthrie was Oklahoma Territory's actual capital.
So many stories and ghosts there, for the state, and for me, an old newspaperman who started in hot metal printing and is still in love with it.
To me, the condition of the building speaks as  a depressing metaphor for the condition of our state, dreams gone bust and broke except for funding high paid coaches and athletes. 
I remember the excitement of touring the place, of soaking up Oklahoma and publishing history, and haunted by its closing and the loss to generations to come. I hope Guthrie can make this happen.
Here are links to Richard's story, and the story of the building.
Group forms to save Museum
Group announcement
Museum Closing
Documentary

Paddling to happiness

"The Sound of Happiness," 5 by 7 watercolor, 300# d'Arches cold-pressed paper

"When have you been the  happiest?" is not an easy question to answer on your birthday or any other time. Too many years, miles, people and places. I can't paint weddings, or births of children, or...the list goes on.
But approaching each day without a plan for this month's daily watercolor challenge, to paint "Happy," one image came to mind.
Canoes. Canoeing. I was an amateur canoeist at best, and no longer have the red, 80-pound, 15'8" Old Town Discovery   from a few years ago, but thinking about it, lifted my imagination and memories.
It's difficult to be a canoeist in this country--we have almost no canoe water--clear, fresh flowing streams. Other than family trips decades ago to the Illinois River in eastern Oklahoma, my canoe trips were few, other than out to Lake Arcadia, and down two muddy rivers, the Cimarron from near Crescent to Guthrie, and from El Reno down the North Canadian to Lake Overholser.
But my time trying to learn, to be alone on the water early in the morning at first light, or being lost in nature's time down a river alone or with friends or loved ones, those are times of happiness.
I'm envious of those who are expert at canoeing and do so regularly. I know why. There is only your own effort, and no sound except the dip of the paddle and the slight gurgle of the wake.  Time to think, to solve the problem of the next stroke, to view the wildlife, to think. 
One image that stands out is at Arcadia Lake one morning, I was upwind and quietly floated within 100 feet of an osprey sitting in a tree with a fresh catch. Another time, a flight of Canada geese came in low over the brush and landed not far from me. Happiness.

Canoes transport history and craft and philosophy and romance and literature and cultures, one of the most ancient means of transportation in the world. You must read John McPhee's The Survival of the Bark Canoe, about a 150-mile trip in the Maine woods.

• "Everyone must believe in something.  I believe I'll go canoeing." --Thoreau
• "Refuse to accept the belief that your professional relevance, career success or financial security turns on the next update on the latest technology. Sometimes it's good to put the paddle down and just let the canoe glide."-- Simon Mainwaring
• "I thing it much better that, as we all go along together, that every man paddle his own canoe." --The "Indian" in Settlers of Canada, 1844, Captain Marryat.
• "There is magic in the feel of a paddle and the movement of a canoe, a magic compounded of distance, adventure, solitude, and peace. The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness and of a freedom almost forgotten. It is an antidote to insecurity, the open door to waterways of ages past and a way of life with profound and abiding satisfactions. When a man is part of his canoe, he is part of all that canoes have ever known." --Sigurd F. Olson
• "Canoe Trip," on selling my canoe--Canoe Trip

My canoe

My radio column "Coffee with Clark" on KCSC-FM about the geese, from almost 20 years ago:

I could hear them before I saw them. At first I wasn’t sure, but then the sound was unmistakable.

I’d just pulled my canoe out of the lake. The sky was gray with the first cool front of autumn, the sun hidden almost on the horizon. A slight breeze. Quiet.

Then they came in low over the still-green treetops, wings motionless, gliding down in formation toward the water behind the leader.

Maintaining perfect order, they swooped in low over the water, rose, banked, wings moving in unison, voices almost quiet. They skimmed the surface of the water, never missing a beat, not slowing down, until they banked again and had scouted the skeletal old trees full of egrets, the shoreline foliage, the beaver dam, the shallow, almost still water.

After the second pass over the landing area, they curled up in the air, breaking formation. Then they spread their wings wide, putting on their air brakes--you could hear the air and wind rushing against those gray feathers--and they dropped down to smooth landings. The first feet skidded into the water with orderly furrows, settled down into the warm water. The rest of the flock followed.

In a few minutes another flock followed, finding assurance in their companions’ presence. 

In less than five minutes the water was full of them, occasionally honking, settling into the shallows for evening feeding and roosting.

I stood there spellbound at the aerial grace, precision, and promise of Canada geese. These early birds are the first harbingers of fall, when leaves turn, the light changes, the breezes rattle brittle leaves and seeds.

Once they were all down, talking to each other, I pulled my canoe up. I wished I’d been on the water in the middle of them, but if I had, they wouldn’t have landed and I would have missed it all. Our lives are richer when we stay out of the way and let the geese have their way. Theirs is the promise of fall.

Landmark of the sad state of Oklahoma

Landmarks: the State Capital building from inside the Blue Belle Saloon

If there is a symbol of Oklahoma's sorry condition, it may be the historic old State Capital printing building in Guthrie.
This is personal to me for two reasons. I have many fond memories of the place, having taken University of Central Oklahoma journalism and photography students there when it was The State Capital Publishing Museum. And I'm a newspaper man.
It's full of antique hot metal publishing equipment, presses and more, dating from pre-statehood. It had operating Linotypes, job presses and more, which delighted my students as a peek into the early days of journalism in this state. 

My students in editing and advanced editing classes on field trips helped with printing and more, getting  hands-on education. You can literally smell history inside.

Then several years ago, the boiler in the building quit and the state and Historical Society couldn't afford to replace it. It's been closed since.
I read  a valuable article by Laura Eastes in this week's Oklahoma Gazette, "Historic Guthrie building's future is uncertain," about a possible developer wanting it, and the city wanting it to be restored as a museum.
That brought to mind a recent visit to Guthrie, an easy Saturday trip on the back roads, and we ate at the

It's a sad sign for our state

equally historic and reopened Blue Belle Saloon,  just across the street from the impressive old building. That's when I took these photos, waiting for a prompt to write about them. 
To me, the dangling sign on the front of the locked and decaying building says everything about the sad state of Oklahoma.

Back road journal, and a cat

The Rock A Way tavern north of Edmond.

The urge to get out of the city...it doesn't take long, driving north on what is called Sooner Road, into Logan county, toward Guthrie. You always meet people and places you didn't expect.
The first was the Rock A Way bar, tavern, and old rock building on the Seward Road, with a bunch of motorcycles parked outside. 
It's busy on Saturdays. Catty-cornered across the intersection is a place busy on Sundays, the Lakeview Baptist Church.
Drive down that road and you come to Liberty Lake, surrounded by homes. But firs,t you come to the end of the pavement and a red dirt road stretches in front of you. And where does it lead?
But the cat on his shoulder will stick in my mind, forever.
I stopped to get a bite to eat, before heading back  to Edmond. There beside the entrance to Loves stood a man, with a sign. He had a big pack on the ground, and a couple of jugs of water. Thin, hatless, white T-shirt.
I pulled around to see the sign.

"Home Destroyed in Storms"

And then I noticed the tawny cat draped around his shoulder. I was going to stop anyway, but the cat cinched it. I keep what I call a "hitchhiker kit" in the car, a plastic sack with Gatorade, water, peanut butter, crackers, Poptarts, a fruit cup. I do that because you see all kinds of people on the road, and many are hungry. I've also discovered that every time I find an occasion to give one of those kits away, it's when I need it the most. Here are previous articles about the Hitchhiker kit.
This was one of those times. Feeling listless, I'd started out on this little drive. When I gave the 30 or 40ish man the kit, I said "I don't know if you need it, but here's some food."
He said, "Thank you brother. Then I said, "Nice cat." He said, "Thank you, big brother." And waved as I drove off.
Some would argue with me on giving something like that, with a multitude of excuses, included being suckered. But I know this. If I was suckered, so what? I spent perhaps $6 on those contents. So far, I'd spent about $8.00 on gasoline, 79 cents on coffee and $4.00 on a sandwich, and drove off in my air conditioned car, while he stood at the side of the road. I'd rather be taken advantage of, than to be haunted by the fact I didn't help someone from being hungry. I don't feel listless, but thankful.
It was a beautiful cat.

Monday musings, Guthrie, America

Ever notice the benches in Guthrie?

One of my favorite places  in Oklahoma, loaded with the history of printing and newspapers, and more than just a little personal history too,

The mystery of the two cemeteries, solved

Henry W. Johnson fought for his country, serving in the Pioneer Infantry in WWI. I saw several of these terms, and started wondering about this cemetery at Seward Road and Broadway. I came home, and looked it up. Pioneer Infantry was segregated, all-black infantry. Then I looked up Seward, Oklahoma, which is where the road got its name. It was a small community near the railroad tracks a mile west of the cemetery. There's still a Baptist Church there. The clues added up. Did you guess?
It is a "colored" cemetery as it was first called, and Seward was their community, or as we would say today, Black or African-American. Henry Johnson wasn't permitted to be buried across the road with the other vets. First cue to me was the poorer conditions of the graves, and then I saw two newer graves, with photos of two black women attached.
Today, WWII and Vietnam veterans are buried there also, but now by choice, and probably pride.

These graves are decorated just like the others. Isn't it strange that we think we're too good to be buried next to someone else? Our skeletons are the same, and once the flesh is gone, you can't tell the difference. Just as you can't by looking at a tombstone. I will post other veterans' photos later, and you'll not be able to tell which cemetery they are in.
Only one question remained, rather than assume segregation. Was the other cemetery white? So I called the Pollard Funeral Home in Guthrie and got Charles Pollard, who has been burying people in the cemeteries for 35 years.
Yes, he told me, the other one was white. And the large number of veterans is a result of the Seward Cemetery being one of the few in the area until Guthrie added another one fairly recently. The farm boys and area residents who went off to war, found this a natural choice.
Then at the back of the poorer cemetery, I found this grave, the ultimate in mortality's lesson for us all.

Clues to the mystery of two cemeteries

You enter the Seward Memorial 1897  gate, and you see this. Being judgmental, I immediately assume it's just rednecks. Then I see a veteran's grave. What is the difference I ask, from the veterans across the intersection of Seward Road in southern Logan County? I don't get it. Except the graves are poorer. So I keep looking, occasional traffic driving by, wondering what I'm up to. The meadowlarks and mockingbirds sing here, just as they did across the road. Then something else catches my eye. Poorer doesn't explain it.

I don't think I've ever seen anything like this. I know I'm naive, but I don't get it. Do you?
Slowly it sinks in as I wander through this cemetery, not as well kept as the other across the road. Here's another clue. There is dignity here--not fancy marble gravestones, but people remembered, some with concrete blocks and wooden crosses. I keep wandering around, taking photos, and I come across more veteran's graves.

Here's another clue on this gravestone. A WWI vet, a member of the Pioneer Infantry. I don't know that term, do you? But not buried with brothers in arms across the road. Why? He is buried not far from a WWII vet, and from two obviously related vets, probably a grandfather and a grandson. Why here? I don't know, until I wander over into the remote parts of the cemetery, and see two fairly recent graves, with persons' photos on  them. Then, I ask, I wonder....? Do you get it yet?

And then, I see the signs at the other entrance to the cemetery.  The graves are still decorated, the veterans still served. What's the difference?

Scripture endures

Mystery of two cemeteries, part 1--Saturday sightings

I came across this tattered flag in a rural cemetery today, a cemetery filled with veteran's graves. It was one of those Saturdays to spend meandering through the country.
North of Edmond in Logan County I came to Seward Road, and there were two graveyards, one on the northeast corner "Seward Cemetery" and one on the southwest corner, "Seward Memorial 1897." They're old, and I stopped at the northeast one because I could see some old gravestones.

It wasn't until I visited the one catty-corner from it that I discovered a mystery, a mystery answered by calling a Guthrie funeral home, and doing a little research on the computer when I got home.

Can you guess? We've zoomed past Seward Road hundreds of times on I-35 a few miles east of here, never thinking about how the road got its name. Most folks who turn off it, go east to the Lazy-E Arena, I suspect. I had driven north on the backroads, eventually  ending up on what is Broadway, but north of Waterloo road. It was cloudy and a morose kind of day for me, and the cemeteries were just there waiting for me. Solving the mystery was the best reward, after wandering around, taking photos of veterans and other graves, wondering about the stories.
Before I tell you about the mystery, the other mystery was why there were so many veterans graves in the first one. It's out in the country, but there were more than 20 veterans graves there, starting with veterans of the Civil War and Mexican War.

The oldest veterans' grave I found belonged to this man, buried in 1898. Most of the graves of the Civil War veterans you have no idea when they lived or died, because they're identified just by their units. Twentieth Century graves identify people by what service they were in. Civil War graves list their states and units--and here were graves from Missouri, Kansas, Illinois and Indiana infantries. They're also distinctive, with their whitish gray marble and slightly rounded tops. I think it is remarkable that people still decorate these old graves. How American.
This cemetery also has newer graves, including veterans of WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam. Here's the most recent I found.

It's interesting to me that he lived and served about the same times as my uncle Mike who died in October.

One footnote before we return to the mystery. I found this grave, of someone who would be my age, but he  never made it. His name must be on the Vietnam Wall in Washington. Can you imagine the heartbreak of parents and loved ones? Why do I visit, why am I interested in cemeteries and veterans graves? I guess it is mortality, and history, but there's more. I hoped to find a Confederate's grave...they are scattered throughout Oklahoma, but I didn't here. Still, there are so many stories to tell.
Now, back to the mystery of the two cemeteries.  I'll post more veterans graves photos later.