Cherokee
Choctaw
Chickasaw
Creek
That seemed right. Coming in to Tulsa from the North is not all that welcoming. It's a lot of construction and
junky strip malls. I did not call the boys' attention to the fact that we were there. As we neared my old neighborhood I was stunned. It was achingly sad, horribly depressed and ugly. It's worse, surely. Isn't it worse? It could not have been quite this bad when I lived there. I was often oblivious to such things, but I think I would have noticed this.
As we turned the corner into my neighborhood, the boys sat up a little straighter in their seats. My heart was in my throat. I knew how it looked to them and I wasn't sure this had been a good idea. Coming around the curve I could not look straight on, but turned my head slightly to the side as I said in a false normal voice, "That's it. The one on the left. Right there." And I am embarrassed to admit that I felt shame. I did not want them to see it, this childhood home they could not begin to imagine.
They were silent. Searching. They've been raised to be polite and even though they put that aside to discuss gas often and much, they could not find words to put to what they were seeing. The youngest finally said, "I think that looks like a nice place to grow up. I like the basketball goal." The middle added, "It doesn't look much like Kansas City."
"Parts of it do."
Then I drove them down the winding green and leafy streets that look like home. We ate at my favorite hamburger joint from growing up and when they declared it better than Mr. Blandings's favorite hamburger joint from growing up I did not defend his haunt; I let this stand as something good.
We stopped to get gas and the boys trolled the aisles for candy for the second leg of the trip. As I paid I looked down to see the headlines of the Tulsa World, "6,000 Cheer Palin, Beck," and tried to remember why I came.
As we turned onto Peoria, a street I'd traveled a million times, I remembered. Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole.