Room to breathe--Sunday in Sayre

The Spirit of the West in Sayre

The minute I get out of the city limits going west, my tension eases, even though I'm on I-40.
Halfway to Amarillo, I always stop for a walk around at Sayre, Oklahoma, right before I get into Texas. But last Sunday, at a more leisurely place, I got off I-40 for a few minutes and drove up into downtown Sayre. My traveling tension evaporated.
There's room to breathe out here in Western Oklahoma. The skies are big, the horizons long, the people friendly. 
I know a few friends from this area, including Brad and Dayva Spitzer, owners of the award-winning  weekly newspaper Sayre Record and Beckham County Democrat, and former UCO student Cody Vignal and family.  I didn't stop to visit anyone, but thought about how peaceful the town is on a quiet Sunday afternoon.

I'd traveled through here on old US 66 on my way to my freshman year in college long ago. Then I saw the old Rock Island depot, thinking about how my Dad went through here in a box car on a freight train longer than that--headed for Mexico to celebrate his high school graduation. Coming back, he tried to jump another freight in Tucumcari and lost his right leg. But he would have seen this depot.
Today, it's the aptly named Short Grass Country museum.

City hall--a monument to civic pride

The streets are wide, like the land, and the Beckham County Courthouse is distinctive as the people--Westerners as the Spirit of the West buffalo suggests on the Courthouse lawn. 
It was also featured in the movie "Grapes of Wrath," but the town is healthier and greener than that now.
 And who can miss the elegant architecture of a former bank that is now city hall? It's a monument to civic pride. Check the equally classy chamber of commerce web site for more information.

This home brightens up a normally dry country

Some of those people make sure there's color in what is usually dry country by painting their houses bright colors. 
Room to breathe--Sunday in Sayre.

Where the streets are as wide as the land--room to breathe

Moving spirits on an Easter back porch

"The wind blows where it wants to. You hear its sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it is going. That's the way it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." --John 3:8 Back porch Sunday morning ritual: coffee, New York Times, shafts of sunlight, gathering clouds, buzz of insects, birdsong, rustling leaves--the sounds of silence. Time to think, to observe, to be alone, to enjoy fresh air and the outdoors. The workaday world and worries and wrongness  are far away. Then I'm disturbed by this large rushing sound, more than wind. A flock of more than 50 birds descends into the oak trees, the sound of their wings an unexpected joy. They spot the red berries on a bush, investigate, perch in the tree limbs. I freeze, barely moving, wondering. Something spooks them and they leave in a resounding and erratic rush of wings, only to return in a few seconds.  They're robin-sized, but I can see a dark streak around their eyes. I think they're Cedar Waxwings, but we've only had one or two occasionally at the house before. I edge indoors quietly to get my binoculars and bird book. For a couple of minutes they sit, like they're meditating, or somehow communicating, yet they're silent. Then they move, a few at a time, to the adjacent yard and another big tree. In five minutes, they're gone in another tumultuous rush of wings.  Why here? They view our red-berried bush in the back yard. Later in the day, the berries are gone, as they are. but I think they came for another reason. How will I remember this Easter morning? A huge rush of wing sounds from an unusual visitor, reminding me of creation's greatness, and life's wonder.