Tag Archives: Oklahoma

Arnn Pictures, 1973

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In June 1973, we had an unusually large number of relatives visit for an afternoon — 13 are in a picture I took, but I know that’s missing a few. I’m not sure how it was all arranged, only that hadn’t happened before, and it never did again. Mostly people came over in small groups.

One of the visitors was my uncle Kenneth Arnn, down from Oklahoma with my aunt Sue and cousin Ralph. I knew them better than any of the others, since we’d see them every year or every other year, and of course I still visit Sue and Ralph.

I took a picture of Ken standing near one of the kitchen doorways at my mother’s house.

KenJune1973He was impressed enough with the quality of the shot to ask for a copy sometime later. I look at it now and think, even my cheap Coolpix could take a better picture than that. But all I had then was a Kodak Instamatic 104, and I was 12, so I suppose that’s a pretty good image for all that. Also, if you took a shot from the same position now, most of the background would be the same, except for the arrangement of hats and the Magic 8 Ball.

Here’s the startling thing: in 1973, he was the same age as I am now. Chronologically, I understand. He was born in 1919. But it’s still hard to wrap my mind around that.

A few basic facts about Uncle Ken (unless I’m misremembering, which is entirely possible): he hailed from Childress, Texas; was a U.S. Army staff sergeant in the European theater in WWII — a cook in Patton’s army; did a stint as a teacher in Barrow, Alaska, in the 1950s with my aunt, whose older sister is my mother; and for most of his career he worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in South Dakota and later Oklahoma.

The last time I saw him was in Ardmore, Okla., in late 2001. He’d suffered a stroke by then, and so was frail, but still mentally lively, as always. We were on our way back home from Thanksgiving in Dallas, and I’m glad we stopped in (he got to meet Lilly, among other things). He died a few days before Christmas in 2002.

Here’s another picture I took during that visit in 1973: cousin Ralph, age 10, jumping off the swing set we had in the back yard at the time.

RalphJune1973Ralph’s a sales executive these days, a resident of San Antonio with a wife, grown stepdaughter and two teenaged daughters. I’ve always liked this kinetic picture of him.

Summer of 1969. Maybe.

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Terrific storm early Saturday afternoon. I watched most of it from the front entrance of a Schaumburg Park District facility, outside the building but under a sturdy overhang. We didn’t want to venture out into the parking lot for a while, so strong was the lightning and fierce the rain (though not much wind, oddly). One crack of lightning – right at the beginning of the rain, and unexpected – seemed like it was just across the street. I was looking directly at it. A woman crossing the parking lot was even more startled that I was, but it didn’t hit her.

About 45 years ago, my mother, my brothers and I went on a driving vacation around  the South. I was eight, and I’d been staying with my uncle and aunt in Ardmore, Okla. for a while previously (arriving there the day Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon), so the trip might have been late July, early August.

My mother and brothers came up to Ardmore, and from there we headed east through Arkansas and Tennessee, getting as far as Chattanooga. Then we returned to Texas by way of Georgia (briefly), Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. This must have taken about a week. I remember staying in a motel somewhere west of Memphis, and a five-story hotel in Chattanooga. We also stayed with relatives in Philadelphia, Mississippi. We must have stayed with my mother’s friend near Houston, too, but I don’t remember that, or any other place we might have stayed.

We went to Shiloh and Chickamauga, and the Hermitage in Nashville, and I don’t remember where else. We saw a lot of signs that said some variation of SEE ROCK CITY. According to this site, there are only about 100 of them left. Tennessee and some of the other states involved ought to pony up some funds to help preserve what’s left, since it’s a part of Southern heritage.

There seem to be only a handful of images from the trip. Jay took this one outside some eatery. I used to dislike the picture, but I like it now. Look carefully under the “O” and you can see a reflection of Jay taking the picture.

1969This is at a Texas welcome center. I’m on the left, my brother Jim on the right. Taken when we returned? That’s what I assume, since the only time we crossed a Texas border together was on the return. Before that I’d been in Oklahoma. Hard-to-see detail: on the other side of the highway is an ad for Esso, complete with a tiger.

TexasborderJay tells me the following two pictures are the Will Rogers Memorial Museum, which is just northeast of Tulsa. I’m not entirely sure we visited there in 1969, but it’s also entirely possible. I have no memory of the place.

aug1969.1An equestrian Will. Fitting for a man so adept at rope tricks, I suppose, though you’d think he’d be holding a lasso.

aug1969.2Here’s one I can’t pinpoint in time or space, and Jay can’t either.

aug1969.3I’m with Jim, in front of what seems to be a WWI-vintage cannon. It’s clearly summer. That’s about all I can tell. All the back says is Summer 1969, but even that’s suspect, since I wrote it sometime in the mid- or late ’70s. It’s easy to misremember.