By foot.

By car.

By air.

People lost their lives in attempts to protect some semblance of what both sides considered to be right.

Currently, a highway separates what are considered the “Black and White sections of the city.” A reminder that some of the sentiments that were shared in 1921 are still bubbling under the skin of the city calmly waiting for agitation. One that it will not find easily.

Every morning the sun shone down on Tulsa and smiles filled our humble booth. Each day my co-workers and I took part in the city which we called home for 6 weeks. We attended concerts and dinners together, camped out with local citizens, spent Thanksgiving in their homes. Watched as they too witnessed the events of November 4, 2008.

As the saying goes, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Well, for 6 weeks Tulsa was Rome. And as we watched a town quietly and proudly rebuilding and redefining itself, we found ourselves being quietly rebuilt and redefined. In many ways it was a mirror for us all. And in it we saw ourselves growing closer.

So not only do I dedicate this blog entry to Tulsa (you hold a special place with me as a city), but also to Sara and Alex. It was a great place to get to know you both.

A very special thank you to Bernice who made our 6 week hotel stay feel as close to home as possible.

While there isn’t enough space on this blog to indulge in the many theoretical answers to this question, it does play a large part in how StoryCorps is perceived. Since 2003 we have worked diligently collecting oral history and the voices of the common person. But what defines a voice? If the participant cannot or chooses not to speak audibly can we still hear them?

It’s not a trick question. The answer is yes.

We recently had the unique pleasure of serving the deaf community in Tulsa, Oklahoma through The Total Source of Hearing Loss and Access. TSHA is an organization that provides services promoting independence to deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals. The interviews were the result of a well orchestrated collaboration with StoryCorps providing stories that varied between speaking and non-speaking, domestic and international participants.

Interpreter/hearing-impaired participant pairs were arranged to allow the interpreter to voice the entire conversation. Although some participants utilized the voices of the interpreter, others had lost their hearing during their teenage years and were comfortable voicing for themselves. The stories were those of struggle, triumph, love, and achievement. It was pretty exciting to get a new perspective.

It was a rewarding experience for everyone involved. One of the participants even decided to blog about hers.

I’m so grateful that communication isn’t limited by the voice, otherwise we would have missed out on an entire community of important stories.

We heard stories of pecan and peanut picking on hot Oklahoma summer days, heard “Amazing Grace” sung in Chickasaw, learned the history of the local baseball tournaments, heard stories of grandparents, great-grandparents and grandchildren. We listened to traditional stories of how the jack rabbit got its ears and family stories of missing the bus and being late to class. We even tried an Ada specialty from the Chickasaw owned candy factory – chocolate covered potato chips.

“When I was 4 years-old, my mother told me that I could be the first Black President of the United States. I should have told Barack that.”

Both of his parents were college graduates. A teacher by profession, his mother brought a then two-year-old John Hope Franklin to the one-room school where she taught in Rentiesville, Oklahoma. She sat him in the back of the room with only a pencil and paper as his babysitters. Day after day, his mother would educate the many grade students left in her care while John occupied himself with the utensils left responsible for his own care taking. One day his mother decided to take a look at John’s paper. Not only had that pencil and paper kept John quiet, it had served as a depository for what he was learning. At two, he was able to read write and do the homework his mother had been administering to the other children.

It’s interesting to notice when the path a person’s life will take is made apparent at such a young age.

We at MobileBooth West had the pleasure to receive a visit from famed historian John Hope Franklin and his son, John W. Franklin. Now 98 years-old John has taught and been awarded the world over. Both of these gentlemen have been integral to the collection and documentation of an unprecedented and varied amount of Black History including our own Griot Initiative. It has been our honor to work with them outside of the booth. And I was truly inspired by the bit of that amazing history they shared inside.

Here’s to many more stories.

Larry’s uncle, Dick Bardon, came from St. Louis to Tulsa in 1904 driving a covered wagon that he won with gambling money. When gambling became illegal, he opened the doors to a pawn shop. Bardon was well known for his philanthropy, handing an $80,000 check to the struggling Board of Education and saying, “I have no intention of living in a town that can’t pay its teachers.”

Larry took over the pawn shop in 1967, leaving the cash registers from his Uncle Dick’s ownership on display.

A typical day at Dick Bardon Pawn Shop began with phone calls from people who had been robbed. Larry had a clever way of determining whether goods had been stolen. He imitates his strategy: “Gollee, this is a nice camera. Show me how you work with this.” He would stall the thief. And then the policeman would arrive with the person who reported the robbery. Busted.

At Dick Bardon’s, popular pawned items included TVs, record players, sewing machines and power saws. There were also the more long-term artifacts. “One thing I shy away from are sliding trombones,” Larry says, “We had one for darned near 20 years.”

Many customers would also use the pawnshop as storage space for seasonal items: Lawnmowers and fans. Larry puts emphasis on one of Dick Bardon’s multiple mottos: “We’ll loan on anything of value.”

“The taxi drivers liked us,” Larry says, ” ‘Cause we had an alley entrance. The gambler took a taxi and pawned his diamond or hat or suit. Sometimes his shoes. He’d hire a taxi driver to take him down to Bardon’s while he gambled.”

In 1980, there was a hold-up at the pawnshop. Larry remembers when two men walked in with pistols. Larry and his two employees came out of the situation unharmed, but the hold-up continued to affect him. He was awake into the early morning sometimes, worrying about vandalism and the potential for robbery. Tulsa was changing. “Could I shoot somebody?” Larry remembers asking himself. “Under the right circumstances I could. Did I want to? No I did not want to.” Larry closed his doors in 1986.

There was an auction on the evening of October 15, 1986. Over 100 dedicated Dick Bardon Pawn Shop customers attended. Guns, jewelry and tools were up for grabs. The original aluminum pawn shop balls from Dick Bardon’s downtown Tulsa location were also on the block. A brochure from the auction reads: “Cash only. No checks accepted. Established customers excluded.”

“I could call almost every customer in the store by name. It was a wonderful business and it killed me to have to sell it. But then I got to really and truly spend the rest of my time being a cowboy,” Larry says. Therapy Hill, his 20-acre farm east of Tulsa, was Larry’s retreat.

Sara and I just missed the off-ramp. As we discuss how that could have happened and take an unexpected detour, I feel the excitement welling up inside. We start heading up an inclined expressway. At its precipice, we are greeted by the bright lights of our new destination. My cell phone rings. It’s Alex.

“Hello?”

“I love it! Tell Sara I love it!”

She hangs up.

We have landed in Tulsa, Oklahoma: the home of college football, and one of the largest collections of art deco architecture in the country. It’s late October and the weather is exquisite! We are given a grand welcome by the Tulsa Public Radio team and invited to see a performance by a fellow NPR mainstay, Garrison Keillor and his “A Prairie Home Companion.” He and his talented team of colleagues are performing in the Tulsa Performing Arts Center just steps away from where our booth will be parked for the next 6 weeks.

To a packed venue Garrison delivered a two hour history on what is termed the Buckle of the Bible Belt. Additionally, Tulsa is the birthplace of the Route 66 highway or the “Mother Road,” whose length spans from Chicago through to Los Angeles, California.

The history of this town is evident in its people and buildings. Tulsa was once the Oil Capital of the world and has no shortage of amazing dwelling spaces that were built during its hey-day. The highlights include Oral Roberts University, which has a seemingly endless supply of futuristic architecture. The Philbrook Museum, once an Oil Baron’s Estate, is now home to one of Tulsa’s most beautiful landmarks: an Italian villa complete with gardens that instantaneously transport you to a quaint European country home.

The end of the road for many on the Trail of Tears, Tulsa boasts a large number of Native American reservations and sacred lands just outside of its borders. Tulsa’s rich music history reveals itself in the city’s claim to being the home of Western Swing music. Virtually every bar or restaurant has a stage to showcase the multitude of local talent which include the GAP Band, Garth Brooks, and David Cook. Local residents even join the tradition as a stage was created for a “living room concert tour,” where we enjoyed a couple traveling the country and sharing their music in private homes across the country.

Tulsa features wonderful scenery, people, food and music. And we, like so many of the home grown citizens here, are “so OK.”