MORE ON 216 HOME

As I took Blythe from room to room in Grandma's and Mimi's house of long ago, I told stories to her as they came to mind.  The kitchen was very small and cramped.  The old washing machine was here I said as I pointed to a space.   "Grandma was an excellent cook, but not a gourmet like your Father....nobody could make fried chicken like she could...I remember when I was a bout nine, they both came back to stay with us in Glendale for several months.  My Father took us to a place where we bought a live chicken.  When we got home, Grandma took the chicken into the back yard and wrung its head off.  It was so shocking to me....she grabbed it by his head and just swung him around until his head came off...there was this bony neck bone sticking out and the chicken ran around crazy like until it just fell over.  Then she plucked it and boiled it in water and pulled out the remaining feathers...it stunk so bad....then she cut it all up and took out all the guts....I could not understand how such a wonderful old lady could be so violent...But, the end result was fried chicken that beat Col Sanders who would follow with his KFC chain".  We strolled into the living room and I told more stories about the wonderful Summer of 1953....Finally, we went out to the front porch and sat down in the old swing which was still there.  The abandoned Skelly Gas Station was still there and, in a way, it looked pretty much the same except for the tall grass and weeds in the yards and the peeling paint on the once white houses.  "Only old people lived on this street..mostly ladies whose time was spent in tending their flower and vegetable gardens.  They worked from early morning until it got too hot...and they all disappeared to the inside of their homes.  I used to walk down the street when they were working and talk with them.  They seemed so glad that a boy would take interest in them.  They often invited me in and gave me ice tea or ice cream .  The insides of their homes were fascinating..lots of antique furniture and lovely old depression era glass ware.  Some of them had evaporative coolers in the windows where water dripped over a woven excelsior or what ever you call it and the waft of cool and musty air seemed to make me sleepy.  There was an air of sadness in those old homes.....the leftovers from life...all they had..memories...you could feel their weariness from a lifetime of hard work..and the atmosphere in the homes was like a great lying down to rest from the very long day...lifetime...that is why Tulsa fascinated me....the sunsets and the nighttime...you could sense how hard life was...many tired people...some young, some old..but it was like a weariness of life was coming out of the ground after a day of blistering Sun hammered it in.....Now, they are all gone and forgotten,, gone are their Iris flowers...the vegetable gardens....their Sun Bonnets were hung on some hook for the last time....Blythe, now I am glad that we made this last visit to my home...."      She did not respond, she had fallen asleep !!