Here is a pic I took of my cousin Skip and his wife Connie during a 1998 trip.

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The downtown Oklahoma City annual art's festival, now going through Sunday, started out as a great idea.  Years ago, when the City held the event in front of the courthouse, they reserved space for ticky-tacky artists and craftspeople that sold things like cedar bird houses, wind chimes and ornamental belt buckles.  It always seemed there were more people browsing this part of the show than the "fine" art booths across the street.

The ticky-tack portion of the old Art's Festival was a little like exploring a thrift store.  You never knew what treasure you might find.  And there was food to taste.  My favorite, and just about everyone else's, was the Indian Taco, a treat that was available no where else in the world.

Now, the Festival has moved down the street and the ticky-tacky artists and craftspeople are gone.  Only the "fine" art remains and it is pretty much the same, year-after-year.  Still, there is the food court which offers a little taste of just about every restaurant in OKC.  Everyone's favorite, though, remains the Indian Taco, still around after all these years.

Next weekend is the Edmond Art's Festival, just up the street.  Growing larger every year, this event still offers a little ticky-tack.  The best ticky-tack festival of all, however, is the Paseo Arts Festival held in May.  As for the festival in downtown OKC, I say bring back the ticky-tack.

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My daughter Kate turned 14 today and she, Marilyn and I celebrated at Junior’s.  Junior’s is a nightclub and restaurant in the basement of Oklahoma City’s Oil Center.  Two books written after the Penn Square Bank debacle of the 80s, Belly Up and Funny Money both immortalized Junior’s.

Junior Simon opened the restaurant in the 70s as an exclusive club for the City’s wealthy and newly-rich oil millionaires.  His menu consisted of steak, chicken or lobster.  His food was always expensive but he always divided the bill between food and drinks.  You guessed it.  Drinks always cost more than dinner.

Junior Simon was one of the best persons that I’ve ever met.  After the oil bust, I was left dead broke and still owing Junior more than $3000.

“Junior,” I told him.  “I’m broke and I don’t have a pot to pee in, but if you’ll bear with me, I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

“Eric, I know you will,” he said, giving my shoulder a fatherly pat.

Yes, I finally paid Junior back, a hundred bucks at a time.  Still, I knew that if I had never given him a penny, he would have forgiven me just as I’m sure that he did many of his customers not as fortunate as I.

I have enough stories about Junior’s and my adventures there over the years to fill a fairly thick book.  I knew, or know, all the players in Funny Money and Belly Up personally.  Hell! I was a player in the last oil boom and a victim in the last oil bust.  Yes, there are stories, untold stories, that are almost unbelievable, even to myself, even to myself and I lived them.

Well, tonight Kate, Marilyn and I revisited the scene of the crime and here are a few pics from the visit.

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What a difference a year makes.  This time last year, we were in the midst of a five year drought and had less than 4” of rain.  We had already had almost 13” this morning and it poured hard and heavy all day long.  Hey, I’m glad that I cut my grass this weekend.

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The recent shooting at Virginia Tech has prompted people’s thoughts to return to similar shootings around the country.  The Edmond Post Office Massacre, the shooting that prompted the phrase “going postal,” is one such event.  The shootings happened on August 20, 1986 and I wrote an article about it last anniversary.  Lately, I have recorded hundreds of hits from people searching the internet for the event.  Today, I received a comment from a woman actually present during the Edmond shooting and her account is very compelling.  It is already on the site as a comment, but I am republishing it today in its entirety because I feel people need to read this.  Even after 21 years, the event obviously remains an open wound with so many people.  It also prompts my question: Where were all the grief counselors in 1986?

Comment from Edmond Postal Worker

I survived the Edmond Post Office massacre. Patrick Sherrill was not ever married. The description I've read here is incorrect.
He was a relief carrier. He would carry different routes on different days, and was making delivery errors (easy enough if you're not that familiar with a route). He also delivered mail later than the customers were used to getting it. When people called to complain, they spoke to supervisors. These supervisors didn't like dealing with unhappy people. Patrick was counseled to do a better job, but the best relief carrier on the planet will make errors, and will deliver later than the regular carrier.
I was present on the afternoon of Aug. 19, 1986, when Patrick was reprimanded by two supervisors in a glassed-in office. The door was closed, but you could see that one supervisor in particular was yelling at Patrick.
When Patrick came out of the office, he did a German goose-step march to the breakroom where he used the pay phone. We learned later that he had called Veterans Affairs to ask for their help in getting an immediate transfer to a different post office. Nothing happens immediately with the postal service, and the next morning he began killing people. On the afternoon before the killings, he approached a female clerk who had been kind to him (while most people ignored him or hassled him) and asked her if she was coming to work the next day. She replied, "Of course." He told her she should stay home.
He began with one of the two supervisors who had spoken to him the previous day. The other supervisor had, for the first time ever, overslept. He was an hour late when the killings began. Patrick must have thought that the man wasn't coming in that day.
The second victim was Mike Rockne, grandson of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne.
14 died, 7 others wounded. Some of the wounded survived because they played dead. I heard screams, begging, and a lot of shots. The smell of burnt gunpowder in the building was horrible.
Everything took no more than 15-20 minutes.
I was crouched on the floor, in plain view, and knew he would kill me. I just hoped it would be fast, that it wouldn't hurt, and I wondered if I would even know when it happened. I was calm. There was no way out of the building, I thought, because someone had run to some exits and returned to tell me that Patrick had chained and locked them closed.
A co-worker took me by the arm and led me up front to the customer service counter. We went over the counter and out the front door. This turned out to be an exit that people had used prior to us; there was blood on the counter. As we went out the door, I saw the second supervisor driving up in his truck with a puzzled look on his face, as postal workers, ambulances, police, the S.W.A.T. team were at the sides of the building, and wounded were laid out on the grass.
My former husband heard the news on the radio that someone had been shot at the Edmond Post Office. He called the office. We know now that it was Patrick who answered. My husband asked if someone had been shot. Patrick replied, "Yes, and I'm not through." and hung up.
The killings began at about 6:58am. The next morning at 6am, we carriers (who were still alive) showed up and went back to work. The surviving clerks had been there since 1am. Crime scene cleanup people were still working. I found a dead co-worker's eyeglasses on the floor. We had bloody mail to deliver. Some of our canvas carts were bloodied, and for years afterwards we had to continue to use them. Nice, huh?
The Postmaster General of the United States at that time, Mr. Tisch, came to town and made a big deal about how we would receive anything we needed to carry on. As soon as he left town, management became even colder to us than they had been before.

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Tomorrow is the 12th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing, the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil until, 9–11.  I can hardly recall the events without crying.  The day it happened, I had a dentist’s appointment.  I was apparently in my car, on my way back home, when the actual attack occurred.  When I reached home, my wife Anne greeted me at the front door.

“Something terrible has happened,” she said.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” she said, beginning to cry.

Anne was the picture of stoicism.  She never cried.  I quizzed her.  “What happened?”

“I don’t know.  Something terrible.”

I turned on the TV to see the local Channel 9 helicopter reporting from near downtown Oklahoma City.  There was smoke coming from one of the buildings.  When the chopper flew to the other side of the building, my heart almost stopped beating.  The chopper pilot exclaimed, “Oh my God!”

The entire front of the building was gone, blown literally away.

“Oh my God!” I said as Anne and I both began to weep.

That was just the beginning.  Video of bloodied citizens began appearing on the screen as the scene began to unravel.  The entire downtown of Oklahoma City became an instant disaster scene.

Later that day, a friend picked me up in his car and drove us downtown.  Friends, I am a Vietnam vet and you can believe me when I tell you that I’ve seen it all.  Well, I thought I had.  I can only tell you that the devastation I saw reminded me of the worst bombed-out Vietnamese cities I had ever seen.

There were blocks and blocks of cranes on the street, the first inkling of the outpouring of solidarity among the locals, and soon the entire nation that had just begun.  It was my first experience with literally hundreds of newspeople, swarming the area like flies.

The days following the attack remain in my memory like fast-set concrete.  I will never forget the images of firemen, search dogs, a doctor amputating a woman’s leg, trapped beneath tons of concrete, with a pocket knife.  The babies in the Murrah Building day care center that didn’t survive.

There isn’t enough time, or room on this blog to describe the horror that occurred in Oklahoma City 12 years ago tomorrow.  Some of you know the horror – the 9–11 victims; hell, the Virginia Tech victims!

The City suffered an immense setback on April 19, 1995.  Education suffered, our economy suffered, out psyches suffered.

Anne, my wife, contracted cancer in 1997 and died in 1998.  Distraught, I drove downtown at midnight during the anniversary of 1998 and sprinkled some of her ashes on the killing field where the Murrah Building had once stood.

I can’t write anymore because I can no longer see the computer screen through my tears.

It's still raining in Oklahoma.  What a difference a year makes!  This time last year we had barely had 3" of rain.  This year, we've already had four times that amount.  Has it helped the drought in Oklahoma?  Yes, but it has done little to raise the underground aquifer level that has dropped 10' in a decade.  Unlike area lakes and streams, aquifers recharge slowly, and ever-increasing population exacerbates the situation.  God bless the Hokies!

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Three wild ducks have taken up residence across the street.  The female is pregnant and will soon lay eggs.  Maybe she already has.  Here is a pic taken today of the ducks and my grandson Braydon.

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This is easy.  Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo.  Read it and be prepared to be both revulsed and changed forever.

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I remember reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night in 1964 or 65. A voracious reader open to all the possibilities of life, I was both shocked and gladdened by Vonnegut’s writing style and the depth his prose conveyed. I had already read Ibsen and Hemingway, but soon found that Vonnegut took literature to a higher level. Vonnegut was the master of leading his reader down a path, an always entertaining path, until the reader inevitably exclaimed "Oh shit!" as the master’s words coalesced from a dim premise into a sparkling nugget of golden truth.

Yes, Kurt Vonnegut was a thoughtful person that worried about the consequences of everyday actions. He also worried about what is real and what is perceived, and reading a Vonnegut novel is often like experiencing a waking dream. This week we lost a true master. He will be missed.

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After thinking about the subject for a day or so, I’ve decided to weigh in on the Imus controversy. Here is my opinion. Freedom of speech is a right we all have as Americans. We should cherish this right. That said, we don’t have the right to blurt out anything that comes to mind. You can’t, for instance, call your wife a dirty c**t without incurring dire consequences. Your wife may love you dearly but such name calling will most certainly result in something very unpleasant, and probably divorce. No sane husband is going to ever make this remark. If he does, I guarantee it’ll never happen more than once.

Yes, we may have the right to say almost anything we want, but rational people know this right bears consequences, often dire. No one knows this self apparent fact better than long-time broadcaster Don Imus. Then why, you ask, did he do it? After thinking about his possible reasons for a day or so, I can come up with only one logical answer: he did it on purpose, knowing full well the impending consequences of his actions. In short, Imus committed employment suicide.

My conclusion begs many more unanswered questions: Why didn’t he simply tender his resignation? What prompted him to choose female African-American basketball players as his target of opportunity? Knowing the consequences of his actions, why did he bother apologizing? The spoken word is powerful. Imus has known this power for years, wielded it like a golden sword. This week, he fell on that sword and I would bet good money that even Don Imus doesn’t really know why he did it.  Eric Wilder

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I just dredged this short story from the dark bowels of my computer’s hard drive.  I wrote it 18 years ago after reading and seeing video accounts of the San Francisco earthquake that occurred October 17, 1989.  The earthquake registered 6.8 on the Richter Scale and happened during rush hour.  Bridges and freeways literally melted away in the wake of fast-moving traffic, many passengers rushing to see the third game of the World’s Series in Oakland between the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants (how unlikely is that?)  63 people ultimately died, 3,500 injured and 12,000 made homeless by the natural disaster.

Looking back, this whole event seems scripted for primetime TV, or even a big screen disaster flick.  How improbable the entire story?  Short stories are a greatly neglected art form.  They must quickly and deftly develop memorable characters and tell an engaging tale that plays on the reader’s psyche for days after reading it.  Like the very best of all fiction, the short story rises or falls because of CONFLICT and how this conflict causes the characters to change, or grow.

Nope, DSOTF is no Pulitzer candidate, but please read it in the context of the traumatic and highly unlikely event that actually occurred.  Eric Wilder

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DOWNTHROWN SIDE OF THE FAULT

by Eric Wilder 

After hurriedly straightening her desk, Tinley Chase adjusted her short skirt, licked her lipstick, then checked her boss's schedule one last time to make sure he had no more appointments. Finally satisfied she tapped on his door, flashing her sexiest smile when he glanced up from his desk.

"Mike, I'm done. Mind if I leave early?"

The gray-haired man with the boyish face grinned. "Hot date?"

"You might say that. Ted's taking me to the A's game tonight."

"And where's Myra?"

"L.A. all week."

"Cozy, he said, raising an eyebrow. "Take off. I'm going home soon myself."

"Thanks," she said, blowing him a kiss as she grabbed her purse and rushed down the hall to the ladies's room.

Alone at the mirror she brushed her straight black hair, admiring her delicate features while touching up her lipstick. Red lips contrasted perfectly with big green eyes and her Eurasian good-looks captured the best of both continents. After winking at her image in the mirror she rushed to the elevator, fishing for her car keys as her high-heels echoed against the marble floor.

Tinley retrieved her car and raced out of the parking garage, kicking off her shoes and undoing the collar of her starched white blouse. Gunning the black BMW down the narrow side road, she relaxed and shoved a Fleetwood Mac cassette into the tape player. As she listened to the mellow strains of Stevie Nicks, she thought about her impending date with Ted Whitman. They were meeting first at Shaughnessy's in Oakland then going to the game from there. She saw the event as symbolic -- Ted's way of finally legitimizing their relationship.

At the Bay Bridge toll booth, Tinley slowed to a stop and tossed the proper change into the basket, gunning the black Bimmer across the stretch of open water when the light turned green, then taking the Emeryville exit in hopes of making better time along the access road. Lost in thought she continued along the side road at high speed, unmindful of the cloudless sky or the old Datsun parked on the shoulder.

The image of the car with its front wheel removed touched her consciousness suddenly and she spun the steering wheel violently to avoid a collision. Her quick reaction averted a major impact, but she clipped the car's fender, knocking it off the jack and into the bar ditch. Her own car slid backwards into the shallow gully. When it crunched to an abrupt halt, she sat there, arms folded in anger. Almost immediately, someone tapped on her window.

"You all right?" Tinley didn't bother looking up or lowering the window, waiting instead for the man to open the front door. "Are you all right?" he asked again.

"Why the hell were you parked in the middle of the road?"

"I was on the shoulder," he said calmly. "Flat tire."

"You were blocking the road."

"Maybe we should call the cops and see what they say."

Tinley glared at her tall antagonist, bending her neck to see his face through the window. Under different circumstances she might have flirted with the handsome brown-eyed man but now she considered him only as an obstacle in her path. He waited patiently as she removed two business cards and a pen from her purse.

"My name and work number is on the card," she said. "Write yours on the back of one and we'll let our insurance companies settle this."

Putting one of the cards into his shirt pocket, he scribbled something on the other and returned it to her.

"My axle's broken," he said. "Mind giving me a lift to the nearest phone?"

"Call a cab," she said, still angry.

After restarting her engine, Tinley gunned the accelerator. The car refused to budge, its wheels spinning in soft earth. The man watched as she removed her foot from the throttle and slammed her hand against the dashboard in frustration.

Then he said, "I'll push you out of the ditch if you'll give me a ride."

Without answering, Tinley motioned to the rear of the car.

"When I signal, give it a little gas." He bent against the car and pushed. "Now."

Tinley eased down on the throttle. Slowly, the black car crept out of the ditch, not waiting for the stranger to get into the car. Instead, she gunned the engine and attempted to power away, but not before he grabbed the passenger door and jumped in, holding on as she sped away down the access road.

"What's the hurry?"

Tinley whirled in her seat, frowning. "I'm not talking to you."

Nodding, he glanced out the window, smiled and folded his arms as Tinley raced down the road until she reached an up-ramp to the Nimitz Freeway. She floored the throttle, blending, with a surge of power, smoothly into the steady flow of traffic.

"My name's Mark," he said, identifying himself.

Tinley reacted instantly, slamming the brake so violently it sent him crashing against the dash. Almost out of control, she quickly maneuvered the vehicle to a dead stop on the interstate's narrow shoulder as cars sped past, blaring their horns at her.

"I told you I didn't want to talk to you, now get out!" Mark stayed put as she screamed,"Didn't you hear what I said?"

"Forget it," he said. "Take me to the next off-ramp and I'll get out there."

"Get out right now! I mean it."

"At the next exit."

Tinley glared into his stubborn eyes and started the car, plowing back into traffic without looking or lifting her foot from the floorboard. As they continued southward on the lower section of the Nimitz Freeway, the weight of moving vehicles above them produced contrasting motion that surged like an electrical current through the speeding BMW. This, along with waves of reflected light and sound produced by the tunnel-like highway, further confused her anger-distorted perception, leaving her quite unprepared for the event that followed.

Abruptly, and without explanation, the sensation of floating on the lower level of a suspended concrete and steel highway dissolved away, leaving her feeling as if they were moving at high speed on top of a freight train traveling in the opposite direction. Tapping the brake, she allowed a car hanging in her blind spot to accelerate past. As it did, the road buckled in front of them, moving forward in a slow, deadly movement, like the segmented motion of a caterpillar's back.

Reacting to the stress, Tinley's brain produced a surge of adrenaline that caused her to suddenly feel like an unwilling participant in a Fellini nightmare. But it was worse then that. Just ahead, the car that had passed them disappeared through a gaping hole in the highway and giant portions of falling interstate began crashing around them.

Tinley's fingers froze on the wheel. Jamming the brakes against the floor, she closed her eyes and held on as the car spun wildly around, finally sliding backwards into the newly opened precipice. Before plunging to their death, a giant slab of highway crashing against the hood, crushing and pinning the BMW against mangled steel and broken cement, stopped them from doing so. So rapid and violent was the collision, it ripped the front seats loose from their bolts.

Tinley's consciousness disintegrated in the bone-jarring crush and cognizance faded into broken bits of garbled reality as the car hung suspended from the broken highway. She struggled, free-falling through space in a black void. Near panic and unable to scream, she clawed at slime-slick walls. A point of light near the bottom of the pit expanded as she plunged toward it but instead of falling into the pit of hell, she realized she was flying upwards, out of the void and into the blue of the sky.

Struggling to remember where she was, Tinley's right eye opened. Attempting to move, she realized she couldn't and found herself stretched fully along the floor of the car, its steel walls pressed tightly against her. Someone's hand touched her neck and she heard the last hazy word of a broken sentence.

"– are you alive?"

Tinley's body jerked reflexively, but she barely moved, wedged within the crushed vehicle as the hand continued to probe her neck and face.

"Stop it! Quit touching me."

"Sorry," the voice said. "I was trying to see if you were alive."

"Get away from me," she said, trying to wrench free.

"I can't. We're both stuck.

Reacting with a fit of temper, Tinley screamed and twisted violently, trying to loosen herself from the man's grasp and the car's steel embrace. Quickly overcome by her futile efforts, she tearfully realized he had spoken the truth. They were trapped inside the crushed vehicle.

Again the man put his hand on her shoulder. "It's all right. Someone will come for us."

"You bastard," she said, spitting the words. "If it weren't for you, I'd be in Oakland now."

"I'm sorry but the accident wasn't my fault."

Tinley jerked her shoulder, trying to free it from his grasp, cracking her forehead against the crushed roof in the process. Finally, she lay shaking on the floor of the car.

"What happened?" she asked. "Why did the road collapse?"

"An earthquake. A big one," he said. "You're probably better off here than in Oakland."

"You bastard!"

He put his hand back on her shoulder. "We're stuck in here so you may as well relax until someone rescues us."

"Get your hands off me," she said, voice low and filled with ire. "You caused this and I hate you."

"I didn't and there's nothing either of us can do about it now anyway."

"I don't care. Quit touching me."

Tinley felt him try to move. In a moment he said, "I'm doing my best but we're crammed in here like sardines."

His comment made Tinley laugh. Waiting until her last chuckle faded into a whimper, he said, "Not very funny, is it?"

"It's ridiculous. Really ridiculous."

"Do you think you broke anything?"

"Just my rear-end," she said.

They laughed again but his next question sobered them both. "Can you move at all?"

"My foot's caught beneath the brake pedal."

"The seat's broken. It moves when I wiggle my legs."

"So?"

"The impact crushed the rear window around the two front bucket seats. If I can work one of them loose, I can crawl out behind it and get help," he said.

"What time is it?"

"Why?"

"I'm supposed to meet someone at five," she said.

Once again, tears came to her eyes. Ripping fabric shredded the silence and rough cloth swabbed her forehead.

"What are you doing?" she asked, trying to pull away.

"You're bleeding."

Tinley suddenly felt faint. Glancing down at her blouse, she saw the growing red stain, conveying the sickening message that perhaps she'd gone through the windshield.

"I'm bleeding, and not just my head," she said.

"Where?"

"My chest and arms."

"I'm going to put my hand under your blouse," he said.

"The cuts are probably superficial, but we need to find out."

"No --"

Paying no attention to her weak protest, he gently loosened her blouse and ran his hand from her stomach to her neck.

"You're pretty cut-up," he said. "But I don't think it's serious. What about your legs?"

"They're okay. My foot hurts," Tinley answered.

"The nastiest cut is just below your breast. Can you hold the bandage against it until the bleeding stops?"

She nodded and grasped the wadded cloth, touching his hand. "My foot's numb," she said.

"I'll kick off my shoe and try to feel it with my toes."

Mark traced his socked foot down her leg, probing for her trapped appendage. As he strained to the task, he said, "We got off to a bad start back there. Think we can try again?"

"I'm Tinley," she said weakly.

"Mark," he said. "Your foot's bleeding, Tinley. You may have cut a vein. We need to do something. Maybe I can stop the bleeding if I use your blouse to press against your foot."

Mark pulled at her collar until it began to rip. Quickly, he tore away the back of her blouse and she felt the heat of his body against her own bare neck and shoulders. He worked the cloth down between them until he was able to grasp it with his toes. With a nurse's expert touch he pressed his own foot against her wound.

Finally he was still. "Who were you meeting in Oakland?"

"Ted, my boyfriend," she said.

"You're not married?"

"No," she said. "Why did you think that?"

"I don't know. I just thought --"

"Thought what?"

"That you're very young to own such an expensive car."

"You're a chauvinist," she snapped.

"Saying you look young isn't chauvinistic," he said.

"Ted gives me things. He's married. You disapprove?"

"What difference does it make?"

Before she could answer, the car lurched and slipped further off the ledge and the plane of the floor shifted from horizontal to near-vertical. Tinley's weight eased back against the shirtless Mark and for a nervous moment she thought they would drop from the hole in the highway to the ground below.

"I'm scared."

"So am I," he said.

They lay clutched together for what seemed an eternity without talking. Tinley, weakened from loss of blood, found it increasingly harder to move, even a little. Their shifting weight would cause the car to slip and each time it did she closed her eyes and whispered a prayer.

"When will they come for us?"

"I don't know," he said. "Must have been a giant quake. They'll get here when they can."

Tinley began to cry. "I don't want to die."

"We're not going to die," he said.

Another downward movement of the crushed car punctuated his words. "The car's hanging by a thread. You can feel it and so can I," she said.

Mark changed the subject. "Why do you date a married man?" Tinley hesitated before answering. "He's strong."

Mark massaged her neck. "Is that so important?"

"I don't know," she said, still crying.

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. When I was a little girl I promised myself I'd never love a man that couldn't take care of me. Dad stayed with the same company as a clerk for thirty years. He was Japanese. I went to an upper crust school with none of the amenities of my rich classmates, always sensing their racial slurs and innuendos. I swore I'd never love a weak man and I guess the lesson took."

Another rattling pitch rocked the vehicle, edging it closer to a vertical position, their every movement causing the crushed prison to inch closer to the precipice.

"I've almost worked the edge of the seat through the window," Mark said. "If I can push it loose, I can wriggle out and go for help." His words brought a stream of silent tears from Tinley and he said, "What's the matter?"

"You're leaving me to die."

"No," he said. "Just for help."

Tears rolled down her face and Mark put his arms around her, holding her until she dozed into fitful, swaying sleep. When she awoke, Mark was still holding her, massaging her neck. A cool breeze blew through the back window.

"You worked the seat loose," she said.

"Yes."

"Can you get out?"

"I haven't tried. I'm staying with you."

"No. Forget what I said. Go for help."

"I thought about it and I'm staying. Your foot's still bleeding. You could bleed to death if I leave."

"If you don't we'll both die anyway."

"I'm staying," he said.

Tinley shut her eyes, eased her hand down her side and unzipped her skirt. Slowly, she slipped the dress and hose down her legs, grabbed Mark's hand and guided it.

"Make love to me," she said.

Mark drew back his hand. "We are hanging here by a thread."

"Maybe it's better to die making love than live in constant fear of death," she said.

"I won’t do it."

"Why not?"

Because it's okay to die for love, but not from making love."

"Then you have to go now," Tinley said.

"Too late. The car's too close to the edge. If either of us move, I think it will fall. Please take this. I want you to have it."

Mark showed her a single rose, slightly crushed. "I brought it from my Mother’s funeral."

"They buried your mother today?"

"Yes."

"Oh God, Mark, I don't want either of us to die."

"We aren’t. My mother is with us, and your father. I can feel them. There's four of us here and despite your dad's other failings, he gave you a fighting spirit. They won't let us die."

She began crying softly, torn between contradictory emotions. Then, like a tinny voice coming from a cheap radio, a voice spoke from outside the car.

"Hello. Anyone in there?"

They both shouted, "Yes! Please help us."

Someone touched the car and shook it precariously.

"Dammit," he said. His voice melded into the darkness,

leaving them alone again.

Another hour passed before a mechanical metal-ripper tore at the car, causing it to sway like a pendulum. The Bimmer began to slip, minutely at first. Then, with a sudden metallic lurch, it plunged downward, into the abyss and Tinley's muted scream faded as she sank into black incognizance, weak from loss of blood.

. . .

When Tinley regained consciousness, she found herself in the back of an ambulance, a paramedic holding a damp wash cloth against her forehead.

"Where's Mark?"

"If you mean the young man that was with you, he's already at the hospital," the man said. "He asked me to give you this." He slipped a crushed rose into her hand. "He said not to worry. He'd find you soon as they release him.

"Is he hurt badly?"

"We had to cut him loose with a torch."

Tinley closed her eyes and her voice trailed away.  "I prayed we wouldn't fall." Her words brought an instant reaction to the man and she asked, "Why are you smiling?"

"I guess it's no joke to you but the car was only hanging about a foot off the ground," he explained.

Tinley's face flushed. Relaxing against the pillow, she smiled, feeling foolish, but suddenly very wise.

Growing up, we depended a lot on patent medicines.  One I remember was called 666.  I know, the name sounds awfully wicked, but people used the medicine despite the name.  I even remember taking a dose or two from my mother when I had a cough.  My Dad says his mother (Grandma Rood) gave it to him in massive quantities every spring for his persistent fever (malaria).  He said it was the only thing that did him any good, but to this day he won’t eat or drink anything bitter.  Here’s a pic I found on the web of a fan used in advertising.  The remedy, as I remember, came in a bottle with a prominent 666 on the label.  Go figure?

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I just looked out the window and saw the unusual sight of large flakes of snow falling on my freshly blooming purple irises.  Last week it was 84 degrees.  Tomorrow the temperature is supposedly dropping to 28 degrees.  What a year in weather we are already having!

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The mind is a powerful though delicate instrument that none of our prize winning scientists have yet mapped, or even begun to understand.  We are all aware that a tune, played perhaps during the correct phase of the moon, can cause the old gray matter to recall a dim memory.  Such is what just happened to me as I listened to George Harrison singing My Sweet Lord on a local golden oldies radio channel.  Seems I’ve told this story before.  Likely I have.  If you’ve heard it already, keep reading because no story worth repeating ever comes out the same twice.

It was summer in Vietnam.  Hell, as a line company grunt, it was always summer in Vietnam.  Monsoon season had ended and my company had gone three days without water.  I could think of nothing else.  For any of you out there that has gone three days without water, you know what I’m talking about.

On a prolonged hump through the jungle, the 110 degree heat seemed just a bit more pronounced.  That evening, we made camp on a hill.  Later, someone yelled that there was a creek at the base of the hill and anyone needing water should bring their canteens.  I grabbed my empty water containers and hurried after the file of soldiers hurrying down the hill.  Along the way, I rushed headlong into an extremely sharp branch of bamboo that poked me directly in the eye.  In my haste for water, I had forgotten my glasses.

That night was hell.  I felt like popping my eyeball out of its socket, it hurt so badly.  Next morning, the choppers picked us up and flew us out of the jungle to a nearby forward fire base.  Once there, I quickly made my way to the medics hootch.

“You have a hell of a tear,” the doctor said, packing my eye with heavy grease and putting a patch over it.  “You’re going to the rear for awhile.”

“You’re a coward-ass, pain faking son-of-a-bitch,” my platoon sergeant yelled at me as he and the rest of the company headed back toward the awaiting choppers.  My throbbing eye told me I wasn’t faking but it didn’t assuage the guilt caused by his voice, and the looks of my fellow ground pounders.

I spent two weeks at the rear fire base of Song Be, playing chess with the company clerk of Headquarters Company.  When the doctor let me go, I returned to my company.  A long month later, a clerk-typist position opened back in Song Be and my buddy, the company clerk, recommended me to fill it.

Everything went well for weeks until, one day, a shooting pain in my eye drove me to my knees.  This time, the doctor greased my eye, patched it and decided to refer me to the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon.

Next day, I landed at the airfield with orders in hand and a patch on my eye.  I soon met an airman that told me how to get to the hospital.  “First,” he said, “You should get a massage and a piece of ass at the best whore house in town.  Go right in that door and ask for girl #35.”

I followed his sage advice.  Miss 35 was as beautiful as he had billed her.  At the time, I was every bit of 23, but she seemed much younger than me.  Perhaps she was older than she looked because I felt like a 100.

Anyway, I finally made it to the infamous 3rd Field Hospital.  There was no eye ward, so they assigned me a bed in the hemorrhoid ward (no, I’m not making this up).  I had a tiny radio with a single ear plug.  Some pirate radio station was all I could get and they were playing George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord over and over again.

Next morning, I went for a shower.  There were no shower heads and only small metal bathtubs scattered on the floor’s broken tile.  “First day here?” a soldier asked when he saw my confusion.  “Fill the sitz bath with water hot as you can stand it, doctor it up with one of these bottles of Phisohex, and then soak until the water gets cold.”

Like a moron, I did as he directed.  When he realized that I didn’t have hemorrhoids, he almost busted a gut laughing.

Everyday for nine days I would visit the doctor in the eye ward.  One of the patients had only the whites of his eyes.  Some tropical disease he had contracted on R & R in Australia.  He looked like a creature from a horror movie.  My doc couldn’t find what kept slicing up my eyeball.  He tried everything, even scrapping it with a scalpel.  Finally, in desperation, he got after it with a Q-Tip, finally finding a sliver of bamboo that had worked its way to the back of my eye.

“Are you a line soldier?” he asked me.  “I can give you a pass for ten days so you won’t have to go straight back.”

“Thanks,” I said, “But I have a job in the rear now.”

That night, a band was playing in the rec room on the first floor.  The room was filled with triple and quadruple amputees, every one of whom looked younger than me.  Many were Vietnamese and I wondered about their futures.

Next morning, I took my little radio and checked out of hospital hell.  At least I was walking out the door on my own two feet.  The plug was in my ear and I listened for the last time to the velvet voice of George Harrison singing My Sweet Lord.

Nearly forty years has passed since that day.  I had almost forgotten it until tonight.  Why?  I have no scientific answer, except that the mind is a powerful and delicate instrument that none of us will ever understand.

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The town of Cushing, located in north central Oklahoma, bills itself as the Pipeline Crossroads of the World.   Visitors viewing the many tank farms located in the area will quickly realize the claim is true.  Serving as the major storage conduit for West Texas Sweet purchased through the New York Mercantile Exchange, its many giant oil tanks punctuate the area’s hilly terrain. 

The giant Cushing oil field, discovered in 1915 by legendary oil men C.B Shaffer and Tom Slick still ranks as one of the world’s largest, having produced nearly half a billion barrels.  A topographic check of the area reveals a broad closed structure, rising above central Oklahoma’s normal flatness.  Those familiar with Oklahoma’s Cimarron River know that it is anything but straight.  Near Cushing, it meanders like a coiling snake gone totally berserk.

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Here is a picture of a tranquil creek, filled with pads, that feeds into Jeems Bayou.

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Oklahoma City has many creeks but no natural lakes nearby.  City fathers dammed one of these streams to form Lake Hefner and to provide for a reliable water supply.  The lake is located at one of the area’s highest topographic spots.  Oklahoma City is naturally windy, and that includes Lake Hefner.  Because of this, the lake is known as perhaps the best inland sailing lake in the nation.  Problem is, a persistent drought has gripped the State for the last few years leaving Lake Hefner’s water level (and Oklahoma City’s water supply) at an all time low mark.

OKC has had two days of torrential rain (almost 8”) greatly increasing the lake’s water level.  Still, it is very low, as you can see in some of the pics I took today (03–31–07).

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What a difference a year makes.  Amid a five-year long drought, Oklahoma City reported just a tad more than 3" this time last year.  Yesterday, it rained 1.4" in the City.  Today, it rained at least that much and rain is in the forecast at least through the weekend.  It's damp, gloomy and muddy, but I say "bring on the rain."

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When I worked in New Orleans many years ago, I often walked down St. Charles to a little sandwich shop near Canal Street.  Their specialty was the Muffuletta, a sandwich conceived in a culture like no other on the earth’s face.  I found this article on the web.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did:

Muffuletta Sandwich with Olive Salad

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A few frontyard flowers, blooming like crazy.

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Oh, my aching arch!

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Name of the Game is Eric Wilder’s book of short stories.  Here is a review of the title story, Name of the Game:

Great story! Sexy, engaging, and an "Ah-ha" ending. I loved it. And I didn't see it coming. On reflection, it reminds me a little of "Body Heat" where William Hurt is in Miami preparing to do Catherine Turner's dirty work for her when he sees a clown driving down the street in a 1940's-ish convertible. Their eyes lock as the clown drives by, his face sad, portending the future. The same as your narrator's powder-blue Mercedes. And when it's over, the reader thinks back and his head nods slowly realizing what it all meant.  I'm afraid I have no technical criticism to offer. I thought your story was tight, focused and well written. I look forward to reading more of your work.  Thanks for a fun read.

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Spring is rampant in Oklahoma.  Even the blackjacks are blooming.  Blackjacks, I am told, never bloom if another freeze is imminent.  I hope not, because all my plants and flowers are now outside.  Go blackjacks!

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Lie quietly please

oh purple fragrant flower

your nectar is sweet

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Tomorrow is the vernal equinox.  Here is the complete definition provided by Wikepedia, the web's free encyclopedia:

An equinox in astronomy is the event when the Sun can be observed to be directly above the Earth's equator, occurring around March 20 and September 23 each year. More technically, the equinox happens when the Sun is at one of two opposite points on the celestial sphere where the celestial equator and ecliptic intersect. In a wider sense, the equinoxes are the two days each year when the center of the Sun spends an equal amount of time above and below the horizon at every location on Earth. The word equinox derives from the Latin words aequus (equal) and nox (night).

In practice, the day is longer than the night. Commonly the day is defined as the period that sunlight reaches the ground in the absence of local obstacles. The Sun is a disc and not a single point of light, so when the center of the Sun is below the horizon, the upper edge is visible. Furthermore, the atmosphere refracts light, so even when the upper limb of the Sun is below the horizon, its rays reach over the horizon to the ground. In sunrise/sunset tables, the assumed semidiameter is 16 minutes of arc (minutes refering to parts of a degree, not minutes of daylight) and the assumed refraction is 34 minutes of arc. On average, their combination means that when the upper limb of Sun is on the visible horizon its center is 50 minutes of arc below the geometric horizon, which is the intersection with the celestial sphere of a horizontal plane through the eye of the observer. These effects together make the day about 14 minutes longer than the night at the equator, and longer still at sites toward the poles. The real equality of day and night only happens at places far enough from the equator to have at least a seasonal difference in daylength of 7 minutes and occurs a few days towards the winter side of each equinox.

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CREATURE OF HABIT

Eric Wilder 

Donny Collins rolled in his sleeping bag, unmindful that the moon had just crested above the fir trees surrounding the tent where he slept. An insistent hand on his shoulder roused him. He scratched his head and rubbed his neck, stiff from lying on the hard ground.

"Listen, Donny. There's something out there."

Donny blinked, then gazed at the dim figure of his pal Jamie. When his eyes focused, he saw Jamie's freckled face barely visible in the dim light filtering through the tent.

"What?" he asked, voice still dull with sleep.

Jamie put his finger to his lips. "Shhhhh! There's something outside the tent."

Donny listened and heard muffled footsteps. "It must be the coons again," he said.

Jamie shook his head doubtfully. "It's too big for coons. I think it's a bear."

"If it is," Donny whispered, holding his nose, "he must have taken a dip in a sewer."

"Gross!" Jamie said, making a face. "Maybe we should wake your dad."

Donny shook his head. "If it's a bear, we're probably better off staying quiet until it goes away."

Realizing the merit in the suggestion, the two boys pulled their sleeping bags up around their ears. The commotion outside the tent soon ceased and they drifted back to sleep.

Next morning, a deep voice awakened them from their stupors. "Are you boys going to sleep all day? Breakfast is almost ready."

Donny Collins rolled over, opened his eyes and immediately smelled bacon and eggs cooking outside the tent.

He shook the sleeping bag beside him. "Wake up, Jamie." The bag moved and a head protruded, Jamie brushing red hair from his face. Slowly, he unzipped his bag and followed Donny, already outside the tent.

"Did you hear the bear last night, Dad?" Donny asked.

Sam Collins stared blankly at the boy. "Bear?"

Jamie stuck his head out of the tent and looked around the campsite. "There was a bear all right, Mr. Collins. Have you checked the food yet?"

"You bet," Sam Collins said with a grin. "I'm cooking it."

Donny glanced dubiously at Jamie. "You sure, Dad?"

Sam raised his eyebrows and cocked his head, the abruptness of the action almost causing him to lose his lure-decorated fishing hat. "Look for yourself. You boys must have had a bad dream or something."

Donny quickly glanced around the campsite. Jamie joined him and they combed the area for some sign of a nocturnal visitor.

"Anything missing?" Sam Collins asked.

"All but a half dozen pieces of my peppermint candy," the portly Jamie replied.

"You boys must have drunk some bad pop," Sam Collins said, laughing. "Lets eat or the fish will be in Canada before we reach the lake."

Forgetting the bear, the boys attacked the breakfast. When they finished, they hiked a forest trail to a clear mountain lake. Many trout later the boys had all but forgotten the episode with the bear.

"Gotta go to the bathroom," Jamie said, reeling in his line.

He leaned his rod against a tree and then disappeared into the forest. In a minute, Donny and his father heard a screech.

"Donny! Mr. Collins! Come quick!"

They found Jamie staring at something on the straw-matted ground. "What is it?" Donny asked.

Jamie shook his head, his freckled face even whiter than normal. Donny and Sam saw a giant footprint that, other than its size, looked vaguely human. They stood in a semi-circle, mesmerized by the mark in the dirt. Suddenly, a branch snapped; its sound echoed like the crack of a rifle. Jamie glanced nervously at Donny. Whatever had broken the branch was moving rapidly in their direction. Sam Collins pushed the boys behind him and picked up a fallen branch from the ground. When the noise maker sprang from the bushes the two boys jumped and Sam flinched, knocking his hat to the ground.

It was a little man wearing an Australian bush cap. Sam picked up his hat as Donny and Jamie grinned sheepishly. The stranger had a bushy, Teddy Roosevelt moustache. When he smiled the gap between his front teeth enhanced the similarity.

"I'm Horace Miser, professor of anthropology ," he explained in a clipped British accent. "Seems you've beaten me to the proverbial punch."

"I’m sorry, but I don’t have a clue what you are talking about," Sam answered.

The little man rubbed his chin, trying to ascertain if the big man with booming voice was pulling his leg. Finally, he said, "I saw you looking at the footprint. Surely, you know what it is?"

The two boys exchanged dumbfounded glances and Sam said, "I do? Maybe you should tell us."

Professor looked at his watch. "I wish I had time but I haven’t as yet established a base camp."

"We have a camp about a hundred yards from here. You are welcome to join us," Sam said.

Professor Miser thought about Sam’s offer for only a moment before accepting. "Very kind of you, sir. My knapsack is behind the tree."

"Let me help you," Sam said, following him behind the tree and retrieving the heavy pack before Miser had a chance to protest. "Follow me," he instructed.

That night, after dinner, they waited by the fire for the Professor to explain about the giant footprint. After a nip from a silver flask he produced from one of the buttoned pockets in his safari jacket, he finally began:

"I've traveled the world searching for the fabled link between ourselves and our ancestry," he began, smoothing his unruly moustache. "I first heard of the creature while exploring Nepal as an apprentice anthropologist. I'm obsessed with finding the elusive creature they called yeti. The creature is also called abominable snowman, stink-bear, and bigfoot." The old man's words trailed into the darkness.

Sam Collins cast a doubtful look. "Professor Miser, you're telling us some giant, mythical monster made the footprint?"

His father's words sent a chill down Donny Collin's spine. He glanced at Jamie, his freckles faded in muted moonlight. He looked frightened.

"Giant, yes -- monster, no -- mythical, never," the Professor replied, solemnly. "I've tracked one of the beasts right here," he said, pointing to the log on which he sat. "The far reaches of the Great North Woods."

Unable to contain themselves, Donny and Jamie told the professor, as Donny’s father stared at them incredulously, about the commotion they had heard the previous night. Donny, finally, gazed nervously into the darkness. "The footprint in the woods looked like a man's, only bigger."

"Primate, yes -- human, no," the Professor answered.

"Pardon me, Professor," Sam Collins interrupted. "How can non-intelligent creatures continue to elude capture -- assuming, of course, they do exist?"

"Chimps and apes are intelligent, but just not human and neither is this creature," Professor Miser explained. "We have the benefit of our humanity and, therefore, an advantage." "Then why haven't you captured one?" Donny asked.

"We will remedy that situation tonight, my boy," the Professor answered, frowning.

"You're going to catch one tonight?" Jamie asked.

"Not catch, my boy," Miser answered with a toothy grin. "Simply document. The bigfoot is a creature of habit. According to what your lads just told me, he visited your camp last night looking for food. He'll return again tonight. I have a wildlife camera system complete with flashes and trip wires. If my hypothesis is correct, tomorrow we'll have proof of the creature's existence."

Sam Collins looked concerned. "Isn't it risky drawing him into camp?"

"Nonsense," Miser answered. "There isn't a single documented case of a bigfoot attacking a human. They are, quite simply, a non-violent species."

Only half-convinced, Sam Collins and the boys helped Professor Miser rig the automatic camera using the remainder of the peppermint candy as bait. The flashes and trip wires installed, they retired to their tents for the night.

"Do you think Bigfoot will show?" Donny asked, resting his hands behind his head.

"I don't know," Jamie answered. "I just wish we didn't have to use the last of my candy as bait."

Donny grinned. "You can have all the candy you want when we go home. Poor Bigfoot may never have peppermint again."

"I didn't think about that," Jamie said.

Donny asked another question. "Jamie, do you think Bigfoot is human?"

Jamie frowned. "Who cares?"

"Why did he take the candy and not the bologna?"

"Maybe he's a vegetarian," Jamie suggested. "Go to sleep."

Donny fell asleep listening to a distant owl and the wind in the trees. Several hours later, the same insistent hand shook him awake again.

"Wake up Donny," Jamie whispered. "It's out there."

Donny opened his eyes and listened. He heard the gentle padding of something outside the tent, and then a crackling pop. A brilliant flash lit the camp and a giant shadow darkened the canvas. They heard a whimpering squeal as something very large moved away into the forest.

Donny and Jamie sat bolt upright in their sleeping bags. They found Sam and Professor Miser searching the perimeter of the camp. When the Professor returned he quickly checked three of the cameras.

"Blast!" He said loudly. "Nothing on these three. I presume, from his squeal of terror, the first flash must have frightened him away."

"He managed to find the rest of my peppermint," Jamie said.

"The squeal we heard wasn't from fright," Donny said.

The Professor, Jamie, and Donny's dad looked at the boy standing by the fourth camera -- an instant picture developing in his hand.

"Then what was it, my boy?" The Professor asked.

"He was laughing," Donny stated. "At us," he added.

The Professor frowned and took the picture, peering at it over the top of his glasses.

"What is it?" Jamie asked.

Sam Collins grinned and winked. "Looks like a big hairy rear-end to me. It seems your creature played a little joke on us."

Jamie bit his lip to stifle a giggle and Donny laughed out loud. The boys returned to their tent leaving the little Professor alone in the darkness with only his puzzled thoughts.

THE END

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The Vivian cemetery is on a hill, about a mile from the Texas border.  Here is a single pic.

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Yesterday was St. Patty’s Day and I joined into the festivities in Bricktown, downtown Oklahoma City.  Bricktown is the old industrial portion of OKC.  Restaurant and nightclub development in the district began more than a decade ago.  It now boasts a scenic canal and beautiful baseball park.

Two decades ago, downtown OKC had only two hotels and almost no nightlife.  Today, there are a half dozen hotels, including the recently restored, historic Skirvin Hotel.  Most of Oklahoma now has liquor by the drink (instead of liquor by the wink, but that’s another story), and many restaurants and nightclubs that stay open until the wee hours.

Here are a few pics that I took last night:

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I tore away from watching the NCAA tourney on TV and joined in the festivities in Bricktown, downtown Oklahoma City.  Thousands of people, loud music and green beer.  That’s what it’s all about.  Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

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Beware the ides of March.  An unnecessary  worry?  I think not.  Ask Duke, beaten in the first round of the NCAA Tournament by 11th seed Virginia Commonwealth.  Hey, it’s the ides of March.

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What an amazing story.  Walkabout, a Cherokee from Oklahoma, was a true hero.

Billy Walkabout, 57, highly decorated Vietnam veteran - Newsday.com

Located on Louisiana Highway 1, and only 10 miles from the Texas-Arkansas state lines, is Vivian.  Nestled in the piney woods and rolling hills of northwest Louisiana, the little town is the gateway to Caddo Lake, Jeems and Black Bayou where swollen cypress trunks and water moccassins abound.  The pace of the town is slow, like that of much of the south.  Here is a pic shot down the main street.

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I'm a basketball nut and I love March.  I always cheer for Oklahoma and Oklahoma State - when they're not playing each other - and Arkansas. OU and OSU fell by the wayside this year.  Neither made the Tourney.  Arkansas, a great team in a tough conference, struggled through much of the year but made a run in the Southeastern Conference Tournament.  They made it to the finals with last year's national champ Florida.  When Florida blew them out, I prepared myself for another year with no favorite for which to cheer.

My luck has changed.  Somehow, the NCAA selection committee chose them as a low seed.  They will play Southern Cal in the first round.  Am I happy?  You bet I am.  They are in the same bracket as Texas and if both teams win, I could be treated to a long-awaited repeat of one of many such meetings in the now defunct Southwest Conference.  What's old becomes new again.

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I spent a good part of yesterday in Seiling, a little town situated in the high plains of northwest Oklahoma.  Home of legendary weatherman Gary England, Seiling has seen its share of tornadoes and bad weather.  Here are a few of the pics I took, including one of a long stretch of flat road between Seiling and Watonga.

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Here is a picture of a drilling rig near dawn in Major County, Oklahoma – artistic filters applied, but quite extraordinary even without.

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