Only 24 Hours From Tulsa - The Red, The White and The Blue

[UKDEB]

Index to all instalments

Tuesday, 27th July

I get up at 7am to make trip notes as I’m starting to get a bit behind. Susan joins me at 7:45. Having showered and otherwise prepared ourselves for the day, we head for View Acre Baptist Church at Berryhill to allow Susan to vote in the primaries. [For those not familiar with the US electoral system, this is where individuals choose from the General Election candidates nominated by their preferred party.] Duty done, we swing by Sweetie Pie’s in Sand Springs to pick up the lens cap we inadvertently left there a couple of days ago, before moving on to Ollie’s Station at Red Fork, for breakfast.

Situated on Route 66 as it passes through Tulsa, and just a couple of miles from Susan’s house, Ollie’s is a railroad-themed mom and pop style café; one of many visited by John Lasseter and the Disney Pixar crew on their Michael Wallis led scouting junkets for Cars.

"Ten running trains, from G-scale to Z-scale, run the length of the dining room through scale model cities and towns. Our walls and shelves abound with railroad memorabilia. Ollie's is located in old downtown Redfork on a corner that's been here since 1894. Railroads, oil wells, and the famous Route 66 all merge at Redfork Corner to give young and old a touch of history and some of the best food in Oklahoma.”

Red Fork is also the site of Tulsa’s first oil well.

Following some brisk retail stops at Atwoods (a local firm of some 50 years with a typically fascinating history) and Wal-Mart, we make our way to Sonic Drive-In for drinks. [Now a national chain, Sonic has both its roots and its headquarters in Oklahoma. It still uses carhops.]

Following World War II, Troy N Smith Sr, Sonic's founder, returned to his hometown of Shawnee, Oklahoma where he became employed as a milkman before deciding to work delivering bread because it wasn’t as heavy. He soon purchased the little Cottage Café in Shawnee and, before long, opened a restaurant, Troy's Pan Full of Chicken, on the edge of Shawnee. In 1953, he added a small root-beer stand, the Top Hat Drive-In, to the property.

After realising that the stand was averaging $700 a week in the sale of root beer, hamburgers and hot dogs, Smith decided to focus on the more profitable drive-in and scrapped plans to expand the restaurant into a fancier steakhouse.

Originally, Top Hat customers would park their automobiles anywhere on the gravel parking lot and walk up to place their orders. However, on a trip to Louisiana, Smith saw a drive-in that used speakers for ordering. He reckoned that he could increase his sales if he could control the parking and have the customers order from speakers at their cars. Carhops would then deliver the food to the customers.

Smith borrowed several automobiles from a friend who owned a used car lot, to establish a layout for controlled parking. He also had some so-called "jukebox boys" come in and wire an intercom system in the parking lot. Sales tripled immediately and his little root-beer stand was a huge success.

Charles Woodrow Pappe, an entrepreneur, stopped — by chance — at the Shawnee drive-in and was very impressed. He got out of his car and began to take measurements of the stalls, trying to determine why they were not all the same size, assuming that it was an essential ingredient of the business plan. Smith came out and introduced himself and explained that the stalls were different sizes simply because different-sized automobiles had been used when he laid out everything. The two men hit it off and, in 1956, negotiated the first franchise location in Woodward, Oklahoma. By 1958, two more drive-ins were built in Enid and Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Upon learning that the Top Hat name was already trademarked, Smith and Pappe changed the name to Sonic. The new name worked with their existing slogan "Service with the Speed of Sound". After the name change, the first Sonic sign was installed at the former Top-Hat Drive-In located in Shawnee. Because the first Sonic sign was installed there, the Shawnee location has been considered to be the first Sonic Drive-In. The original sign can still be seen in Shawnee.

We order drinks — Limeade (made with fresh limes), Cherry Limeade (fresh limes and cherries) and a Tropical Fruit Smoothie (low-fat yoghurt and fresh fruit pieces including pineapole, mango and banana) — using the gift card which Sister Sally gave to Susan as an Easter gift (with the intention that we would make good use of it on our travels).

 

[UKDEB]

To save the chocolate element of our purchases from inevitable meltdown in the car, we head back home to drop them off. Once again, we’ve managed to get behind schedule so abandon our original plans to visit Utica Square for some upscale shopping and, instead, go straight to the Gilcrease Museum in the hills just northwest of Downtown Tulsa.

Thomas Gilcrease (1890–1962) was an American oilman, art collector and philanthropist. During his lifetime, he amassed the nation’s most comprehensive collection of art of the American West — more than 10,000 artworks, 250,000 Native American artifacts and 100,000 rare books and documents, including the only surviving certified copy of the Declaration of Independence. The museum was founded in 1949.

Born in Robiline, Louisiana, in 1890, Tom was the oldest of fourteen children born to William and Elizabeth Gilcrease, a couple of Scotch-Irish, French and Muscogee-Creek Indian ancestry. Soon after his arrival the Gilcrease family moved to the Creek Nation in Oklahoma Territory where Tom enjoyed a rural childhood and developed an insatiable curiosity about the natural world around him.

Thomas Gilcrease’s name was entered on the Creek tribal rolls when he was nine years old. Tribal membership made Gilcrease eligible for a 160 acre allotment of land, fortuitously located within the famed Glenn Pool oilfield, scene of the first major discovery of petroleum in Oklahoma in 1905. By 1917 more than thirty wells dotted Gilcrease’s property. He was a multi-millionaire before the age of 20.

The successful oilman embarked on a trip to Europe that would change his life forever. The journey exposed him to the wealth and grandeur of Old World culture, and it also whetted his appetite for collecting fine art. Knowing he could not compete with well- established collectors of European masters, Gilcrease embarked on a different, more personal course. He looked to his own heritage for inspiration and resolved to create a collection of fine objects that reflected the breadth of Native American history and culture.

The museum is in the grounds of Thomas Gilcrease's sandstone home and we first spend some time enjoying the beautiful gardens.

Inside the museum we take our time soaking up this incredible collection. There are some spectacular works of art and bronzes, as well as all kinds of artifacts — each of them utterly fascinating — but I’m particularly taken with the illustrated letters of Charles M Russell and of Olaf Seltzer, and the collections of Kachina dolls.

Illustrated letters by Charles M Russell

…and by Olaf Seltzer

Kachina dolls

Hopi artists carve the Kachina dolls either as representations of the Kachina spirits, to be honoured, or as gifts to the children. They are not toys, but rather are educational materials. An "original" Kachina doll is a work of art. The artist has to find the special suitable cottonwood, season it with special clay, use intricate techniques, apply suitable paints made of earth pigments and appropriate ornaments with skill and patience.

 

[UKDEB]

We have tickets for the Tulsa Drillers baseball game this evening. We’ve arranged to meet Sister Sally and family friend, Darla at El Guapo’s Mexican Cantina at 5pm for a pre-game dinner, so we reluctantly leave Gilcrease at 4pm to allow us time to pop home and feed the animals. El Guapo’s is charmingly kitsch with mismatched peeling wallpaper adorned with religious artifacts — statues and rosaries, icons and plaques — and with piñatas of every kind hanging from the ceiling. It prides itself on side-stepping the easier to find Tex Mex food to serve authentic Oaxacan style dishes. I choose the Enchiladas de Mole Poblano and a Lucky Day margarita; Matt the Tacos Al Pollo and a Negro Modelo beer; Susan the Chile Reilieno and a glass of Sangria. My notes don’t seem to extend to Sally’s and Darla’s choices. Sally very kindly picks up the check.

Darla is an avid baseball fan and she’s brought along some photographs of a Texas Rangers game she and Sally went to last year. She's left them in Sally’s car, so we make our way to where it's parked and, as we're there anyway, figure we may as well move it a little closer to the ballpark. In the event, we’re probably not any nearer and, as we walk the short distance to entrance, it starts to rain. By the time we arrive it’s become the mother of all downpours and we all get soaked to the skin. Within minutes it clears and, as we take our seats behind the visitors' dugout, it’s difficult to reconcile what we’ve just experienced with the altogether pleasant evening unfolding in front of us.

ONEOK Field is a brand new facility (this is its inaugural season) with many of the luxury amenities you might normally expect to find only at a major-league ballpark. Matt and I look around the well-stocked gift shop, buying t-shirts for both him and Grandson Lou.

As the game progresses, Darla, who’s seated next to Matt, explains the rules. Susan does the same for me. I was aware of its similarity to rounders, but hadn’t realised just how similar the two games are. Other than the tactics of the professional game, including signals between pitcher and catcher (which serve to drag it out considerably), they hardly vary.

Darla’s an absolute gem and, whereas I don’t have much opportunity to chat with her due to the seating arrangements, she and Matt really hit it off. [Matt’s made some... er... 'notes' about their conversations during the evening. In their entirety they are: chunky, whup-***, moustache. I reckon it’s best to ask nothing and move on… ]

The game is late starting due to the earlier rain, and the final two innings seem to take forever. The Drillers’ opponents this evening are North West Arkansas. The Drillers are 5-3 up early on, but there's no more action until NWA score a 3-run homer in the 8th to take the lead 6-5 — the Drillers have changed pitchers at the top of the 8th and he can’t throw a strike. They pull one back at the start of the 9th innings, then get two out. They win 7-6 in an eleventh hour thriller thanks to a base hit by the pinch hitter, with all the bases loaded.

Half-time race between the Quik Trip chef, hot dog and taco!

Hornsby, the Drillers mascot

On the way out, we take a couple of 'backwards glance' shots and a couple more of El Guapo as we pass by.

Back at our car, we bid goodnight to Sally and Darla, and we’re driving away a little before 11pm. Once home, although we’re all tired, we don’t rush to bed. Susan has the nightly routine of feeding the neighbour’s pets and walking Pluto, and we talk about varying tomorrow’s plans to allow for a more relaxing day. It’s 2am before we settle down.

A note about today's title

In planning this trip and discussing our wishes and priorities with Susan, the theme we kept coming back to was a desire to see the Real America. Reviewing my notes in the weeks after the trip, Susan made this observation:

Tuesday carried an ALL American and Only in America theme. We started by giving you a look at American democracy in action by taking me to my polling place to vote in the primary election for state offices; went to Gilcrease, the Museum of the Americas; met Darla (and I don't have to tell you what an American original she is); dined with Darla and Sally at El Guapo's Cantina; and then watched (and watched and watched) a game of the Great American Pastime, baseball. I was just looking at your notes to picture what was coming up next in the report and it all started flashing red, white, and blue.

 

[tony64]

Great report as usual Debs but can I have this in English.
Bases loaded I understand but what is a base hit and a pinch hitter?

They win 7-6 in an eleventh hour thriller thanks to a base hit by the pinch hitter, with all the bases loaded.

 

[Tammy Stringer]

Great to see another instalment Deb and what a lovely diverse day of activities you enjoyed.

Are you on a mission to complete this trippy before your next holiday?

Tam

 

[UKDEB]

Great report as usual Debs but can I have this in English.
Bases loaded I understand but what is a base hit and a pinch hitter?

A base hit is simply where the batter hits the ball and makes it to first base. A pinch hitter is a substitute batter. At least, that's what Matt told me!

 

[UKDEB]

Are you on a mission to complete this trippy before your next holiday?

Let me see, Tam - 6 weeks to go and I could probably just about do it if I didn't eat or sleep. Come to think of it, that might be the only chance I have of being anything other than a big fat blob when we go!

 

[SusanEllen]

Another beautifully done report, Debbie.

I must have picked up a psychic wave or something that this was on the way because last night I dreamed that you and Matt were here. We were getting ready to leave on another adventure. Then I woke to find that I could relive this wonderful day. What a gift your report is. Thank you. Hugs, Susan

 

[Chilly]

keep em comin Deb

 

[irongirlof12]

amazing photo's

 

[Pugsly]

What a perfect slice of Americana.

Well done, Deb.