Harley Sportster in Maud, Oklahoma

 

"We were both seeking, our own hearts naked, longing to be seen, hoping to reach someone who could simultaneously soothe our bruises and stir us into passionate restlessness.  We are lovers after all, romantics, poets . . . painfully, beautifully, acutely alive and aware."            -Jenny




 

Oh how I feel numb and depleted, because I didn’t get to recharge my emotional and creative batteries in the solitude of my lake cabin sanctuary, as I had hoped.  Instead we spent a harrowing Friday and Saturday evading and otherwise worrying about the impending bad weather.  Now this talk would normally be an embellishment in other parts of the country, but in Oklahoma one takes the weather very seriously.     

It has been bizarre to say the least.  It’s the first time I’ve ever had to maneuver on the fly away from an approaching tornado.  Thank God we live in a small town and weren’t trapped in the traffic mayhem of a large urban area.  We usually watch the excellent (and highly entertaining) T.V. weather and storm chaser coverage as the storms approach the metro area from the west.  The storm chasers are regionally famous with hokum names like “Reed Timmer and his Dominator 4” – the dominator being an imposing, angular, stealthy, post-apocalyptic fortress of a vehicle, custom made to survive a direct tornado hit . . . but for the life of me looks like it weighs ten tons with the maneuverability and gas mileage of an M-1 Abrams Tank. 

By the time the storms lash the metro, we have about 45 minutes to head east to my parents’ house in the country where they’ve installed one of those grave-like tornado shelters underneath the garage floor.  It is literally so small, deep and claustrophobic (rather like a 6’ deep grave), I’d hesitate to get in there unless a very large tornado was on the doorstep. 

As we were driving east, tornado sirens wailing, we heard on the radio that a tornado had just formed over a small nearby town and was headed towards my parents’ house!  So I reversed course, weaving through the panicked drivers, and headed back westward in the driving hail and rain.  By chance I found a large dome community tornado shelter (which doubles as the school cafeteria) in the tiny river bottom farm town I once wrote about in my poem “NASA wanted to blow up the moon to impress the Russians.” 

But thankfully the tornados were small and sporadic, and all is well and good.  So yesterday on a perfect sunny spring day, to regain my bearings, I took a ride on my Harley Sportster through the countryside.  Along an old highway, I stumbled upon the tiny dying town of Maud, Oklahoma, which I think is a lovely name for a town.  Maud is the home of the one and only Wanda Jackson, queen of Rockabilly and former girlfriend of Elvis.  Or, one might say Elvis was the former boyfriend of Wanda Jackson.      

 

Wanda Jackson, “Fujiyama Mama”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztFHvNwRb6Q

But it quickly became evident that Maud was way past her prime.  As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen a town where every single storefront and building on Main Street was in an advanced stage of decay, as if in pre-ghost town status.  Whereas this is a sad thing for the community, it can be a delight for me with an eye for architectural abandonment, exposed stratigraphies, various crumbles and decays exposing little secrets, like a jail cell without its jail. 

Can you envision an emaciated, grasping hand reaching for bread and water through the little food slot in the rusting, padlocked steel door?  I can.  I will admit I could hardly bear to look inside, afraid of the ghosts I might encounter.  Oh what I would have done for a picture looking outward upon the freedom and brightness of the clear blue sky.   

 



Masonic Building, Maud, Oklahoma

 



 

 

Stratigraphy

 

 

 



Masonic Building, Maud, Oklahoma