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Our dear old retarded step-cousin
By briantologist | June 20, 2006
Leaving the city of one’s birth, youth, and young adulthood is bound to bring up some complex emotions. In my case those emotions are a mixture of nostalgia, relief, indifference, relief, and a sudden interest in the history of my hometown. Also there’s some relief in there.
For all its faults, and for all its relatively innocuous traits I came to view as faults over three decades, Tulsa does have quite a bit of fascinating history. You’ve got its legit claim to the title “Oil Capital of the World”; you’ve got one of the worst race riots in American history; and of course you’ve got Oral Effing Roberts and his gold lamae university. This morning fellow ex-Tulsan Sarah and I got to talking about the time Roger Wheeler, chairman and CEO of Telex, got shot in the face* (fatally, I should add) in the parking lot of Southern Hills Golf ‘n’ Country Club, apparently because he got too involved in Jai Alai. It was kinda crazy — the whole thing was unsolved for 20 years, and they didn’t file any charges until 2001, when the hit man gave up mob boss Whitey Bulger in a plea bargain.
Again, it’s all fascinating stuff, and might make a decent Lifetime Original Movie. But something about having it happen where you grew up (and probably about retaining a healthily adolescent disdain for one’s hometown) makes it somehow seem less important. I guess I’m always thinking Tulsa’s too retarded to have interesting things happening in it. It’d be like if some boring jerk you went to high school with made a mask out of a paper plate and then 60 Minutes decided to do a report on it. Meanwhile, a representative of the city of Chicago could show up at our apartment and regale me with the complete history of its Water and Sewer Department and I’d be lying enrapt on the living room floor, head propped on my elbows as Kindly Old Jimmy the Bureaucrat spun yarn after yarn about how laying underground sewer lines really held up buggy traffic downtown. I mean I pulled that example out of my ass just now, but now I’m actually sitting here wondering what kind of traffic problems it must’ve caused when they laid underground sewers here. Christ. Talk about a honeymoon phase. I believe it tends to peter out right about the time the cartilage-shatteringly cold winds come in off the lake and freeze my eyeballs shut for the first time. Can’t wait!
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* — That Golf Digest article came out right before the 2001 U.S. Open, which was held at Southern Hills in early June of that year. Guess what else happened in early June of 2001? I’ll give you a hint: It was a wedding, and E and I were both in it. Guess where all our out-of-town guests ended up sleeping? I’ll give you a hint: It’s large and flat, and at the bottom of most of the rooms in your house. Good times.
Topics: Thinkin'. | 22 Comments »
June 20th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
You didn’t tell them about Benny’s Got It!
I guess that’s not really a story that can be told.
June 20th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
My favorite drunk one up when weaving tales about hometowns is to proclaim the best part of Tulsa is that it produced The Gap Band.
June 20th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
While they didn’t actually happen in Tulsa, I’m freakishly fascinated by the Girl Scout murders.
I guess that’s not really a claim to fame.
June 20th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
you know you are right about those bone chilling winds – unbe-f-believable. Talk to the locals about what streets create the wind tunnel and avoid! and pamper ELB’s feet. and tickle Henry. and post much, much more often so that I may laugh and cackle alone in my own little corner!
June 20th, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Some of us loved sleeping on the floor. And laying on the floor all day, eating Brach’s candy and watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 while the thunderclouds rolled in, exicted that we could be in the first tornado of our lives. I’ve loved all of your floors, so far, and I look forward to the floor in Chicago!
June 20th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Our floor is yours, Monkey James, and always has been. Even if we get a bed for the guest bedroom, which is highly probable, you’ll still have the option of the floor. Always.
June 21st, 2006 at 6:24 am
Two years after we moved from Tulsa-esque Greensboro, NC to Chicago, I could still sit enraptured, listening to a lecture on civic services. That two years has brought me to a point where I probably wouldn’t believe a word the alderperson said, though.
Here are some Chicago history things that we greatly enjoy:
Chicago City of the Century DVDs, available at Netflix and your local video store. Get the bonus discs since they have an El tour on them!
A DVD tour of the Chicago River that we got for pledging to Chicago public TV, just so we could get the Chicago River Tour DVD.
The Devil in the White City – oh go ahead and read it. Everybody else here has, plus it’s good.
H.H. Holmes: America’s First Serial Killer – this is a TERRIBLE movie but don’t let that stop you. It’s about America’s first serial killer!!!
There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz – it’s about public housing and it’s v. good.
The Jungle, Sister Carrie, The Adventures of Augie March – even if you hated them in high school, they are a lot more fun to read now that you know exactly where Jurgis works or where Carrie meets Druet of where Augie sells newspapers for the first time.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:34 am
I grew up outside of Lake Eucha (pronounced oo-chie) near the Girl Scout Murders – though I was two years away from being conceived at the time.
Then we moved to T-town to the neighborhood (near Southern Hills incidentally) where the Bell murders happened — the wife who shot her husband in the face after she found out he cheated on her. Then she was acquitted. I guess wives don’t like it when their husbands buy apartments and cars for their lady friends. Talk about a LifeTime story. Oh, Tulsa, you crazy city.
June 21st, 2006 at 8:23 am
I still haven’t figured out the Mullendore murders. I might have a little researchin’ to do.
June 21st, 2006 at 9:50 am
will you miss Bama Pies?
June 21st, 2006 at 9:56 am
I will most definitely miss going to work next door to the pie factory every day. Though if I ever get a job here, maybe it’ll end up being next to some fun, exciting factory as well! Like the Puma Harness factory. Where they make harnesses for pumas. Fingers crossed.
June 21st, 2006 at 10:55 am
This is the first I have heard of the Mullendore case. Conspiracy theories abound.
June 21st, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Hey,
I enjoyed your post. I wanted to ask if you could post some pics of the new place – the outside looks so cool. And also, I found this the other night and I’ve been sending it to all the cat owners I know. The price is RI-DI-CU-LOUS, but man, that shit is awesome.
http://www.kattbank.com/
June 21st, 2006 at 1:08 pm
oh. . . or the chocolate factory in river north, the one that makes pollution delicious.
June 21st, 2006 at 2:07 pm
dude that Kattbank could SO be built. Thanks Kattbank for a great idea!
Hey briantologist, you could totally build that & sell it for cheap to us poor cat owners!
June 22nd, 2006 at 12:56 am
They had to dig underground sewers in Tulsee, too…
I’m just sayin’…
Also, the old man used to pack day-old Bama pies in my Dukes of Hazzard lunchbox. He’d stop at the plant on his way home from work at TU. Good luck finding them this far north.
And if you do find them this far north… let me know so’s I can have them shipped to northwest MO… or invite me to Chi-town. Damn I miss me some Bama pie.
June 22nd, 2006 at 4:27 am
Which early June 2001 day was your wedding day? The most amazing day of my life was an early June day in 2001.
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:47 am
Bloomsday, June 16! My drunkest day of June 2001.
June 22nd, 2006 at 6:25 pm
I actually have a history book on Chicago infrastructure. Streets, trains, rivers, and sewers mostly. I’ll go poke around in my library and see if I can dig up the title for you.
June 22nd, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Challenging Chicago: Coping with everyday life, 1837 – 1920 by Perry Duis
I guess from where the flap is tucked I only made it as far as the infrastructure chapters. Must have been scintillating. Perhaps I’ll pick it up again, I see women’s prisons and amusements and morals are ahead.
June 23rd, 2006 at 8:39 am
The Southern Hills murder story was interesting. I can’t believe I’d never heard of it.
June 23rd, 2006 at 8:56 am
Yeah, isn’t it? It makes me wonder what kind of other bizarro local history I have no idea about, and probably just assumed I already knew.