Oklahoma City: Past and Present

Heading east from Santa Fe the mountains turned into hills, which slowly gave way to flat desert horizons. Across the plains of the Texas panhandle and into Oklahoma we spotted dust devils and smoke from what might have been a huge brush fire. Miles and miles of open space along the eternal highway, rarely a farm or a windmill, an occasional town, and wire fence lining the road on both sides the entire way.

Jon noted that it was a blessing, perhaps, that our departure was delayed two days while we waited for our camera crew – otherwise we might have gotten caught in the tornados responsible for all the debris and bent, twisted signs and the dozens of uprooted and broken trees we saw along the several miles leading into Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma City sits like a huge centerpiece on a vast dinner table, surrounded by overpasses of tarnished silverware and scraps of civilization scattered like crumbs. The downtown area, once filled with warehouses, now hums with the vibrancy of the young, promising cultural and entertainment district known affectionately as Bricktown.

Outside the Chesapeake Arena hundreds of purple-robed graduates laughed and talked and snapped pictures. The brick walls of the raised railroad tracks running through town were decorated with colorful painted murals depicting the historical side of the state. More painted scenes brought life to the walls of the old warehouses lining the canal, a spruced-up waterway that lends a romantic face to this once-dusty town.

It was after midnight when we pulled up to the corner of North Robinson Avenue and NW 5th Street. In front of us was a huge gray wall with an open doorway. This was the entrance to the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum. There was no traffic disturbing the peace; no noise to distract us from the brooding, beautiful, surreal atmosphere.

We descended into the memorial grounds, walking past the pool of water and along a path, through the tree-lined garden where those chairs sat, over to the one remaining section of the Murrah Building’s eastern wall. Behind us, over the doorway we had walked through, was a 9:01, signifying the moment right before the blast. Across the Memorial grounds, on an opposite wall, shone a simple 9:03. In between we stood, emotionally suspended in place and time, feeling very much connected to a moment more than twenty years ago.

“What are we doing?” Jon said quietly as he looked around. “This journey, this trip…feels so insignificant compared to all the stuff that’s happened. And everything happening now even, in places like Joplin.”

Jon could find a wisp of solace in the words of the people we’d met so far, and all the people we were going to meet the rest of the way to New York. His work was not insignificant.

There just seems so much work to do.