I spent my formative years in Oklahoma and then our family moved to Oregon, back to my parents birthplace, and I have lived here since. Oklahoma made a big impact on me, though, because of its hot summers and snowy winters. Recently I was reflecting upon both places and wrote these short pieces. I hope you enjoy them!
We came around a steep wooded hill and rolled to a stop. Stepping out of the car onto a sloped blacktop parking lot, the roar of the ocean assailed my ears with its rush of noise, while the wind whipped through my hair. The water lay flat and blue, reaching to the far horizon. It was the largest expanse of flat anything I had seen in a good long while, not since I had left the Oklahoma wheat fields several months back. Suddenly a wistfulness rose in my heart and a longing welled up within me for another glimpse of those golden waving plants, that sea of wheat, those flatlands, that vastness of land and sky.
But there was no going back. This place of steep hills, deep valleys and dark fir forests was now home. It would take some getting used to, but this new home did have its own gifts and mysteries. Time was on my side.
I grew up on the low rolling hills of Oklahoma, amidst scrub land and wildflowers, scissor tail fly catchers and other birds of the Plains. Used to the song of the cicada with its whirring wings, mobs of them flew through the air to attach themselves to tree branches every spring.
Tarantula migrations a few times a year, creepy as they were, was a sure sign of the seasons changing. Vivid sunsets. Clouds floating overhead that held shapes of elephants, a car or someone reading a book. Plentiful horned toads, garter snakes and crawling turtles one could keep for a pet and feed lettuce, at least for a few days, and then release back into the wild. Snow so deep in winter we would walk right outside and play in the yard for a few hours and then return back inside to warm up and dry off. The snow would stay for a week or a month, as long as the cold lasted.
Summer days that we would joke were hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, and on one very hot day, we tried it! But then discovered, the sidewalk wasn’t hot enough after all, so that was just a colloquialism. Fun memory though! Nearly every house in our suburb had central air conditioning to ward off the sweltering heat. It was great to be a kid there!