Little Yente on the Prairie

Today is the Centennial of Oklahoma Statehood, something that I approach with mostly distant and slightly mixed feelings. Above is a shot of my paternal grandmother in the Oklahoma territory around 1901. And below is the source image of her with her parents and siblings, the Matzenbachers of Noble, Oklahoma, part of the contentious 1889 land run. They participated in this event, having made a journey mostly by train from the Lower East Side. Like most assimilated Jews of the Great Plains, they made a clean break with the past when they crossed Delancey Street and headed west. Looking into the eyes of the little girl that my mother would eventually call "the Little Yente on the Prairie," I can't help but wonder what secrets she suppressed and which ones she held on to until the grave.

Truly the Final Shots of the Plains

Okay, truly the final shots of my visit on the prairie. May Avenue -- named after the Mayefsky family that, like my own, are assimilated Jews who also changed their name to fit in -- south of NW 23rd is becoming increasingly Hispanic. I recall that in the late 1970s the May Theater went from being a second run, neighborhood playhouse to a mecca for foreign films. I saw Seven Beauties, Swept Away and other Lena Wertmuller films there.
Down the block was Buckstretcher and a Baptist Church.
Just a few blocks west of the now busy Bricktown, a ready-made city center like a Santana Row dropped from the heavens, are the ruins of the city's true downtown. All that really survives is the aforementioned Hightower Building and a few abandoned storefronts
It's a bit spooky to think that this the commercial core of a city of over a million people...
...and that this same part of town looked like this 70 years ago.
Having read Erudite Redneck's comments about Mulligan Flats, I thought was it was this neighborhood.
Though interesting, it's not the true place.
As this house shows, there's some pretty interesting architecture. But as another commentor correctly noted, the true Mulligan Flats is gone. I was talking to my sister this afternoon, and we recalled that as late as the 1970s Mulligan Flats did exist on the shores of the then North Canadian River, a surviving remnant of the Dust Bowl with shacks along the banks of the muddy red creek of a river. It has since been widened and redubbed the Oklahoma River with ritzy boat houses, regattas and upscale rowing teams.I do believe that Oklahoma City is the only place in the world with a neighborhood named after a person that inspired an Ethel Merman character (Sally Adams in Call Me Madam, modeled after Perle Skirvin Mesta.)

My Moment in the Maize Maze

This afternoon, my sister and I drove a couple of miles north of Lazy Acres and experienced the Maize Maze, an official Oklahoma Centennial event.
We took the short version of the maize maze, which had five "riddle stations" where you had to test your knowledge of a topic in order to be told whether to go left or right.
You had the option of picking six different topic tracks. We chose U.S. history. Did you know Wyoming was the first state to give women the right to vote? I knew that, but my sister insisted it was New York. Thus, we went right when we should have pursued my suggestion of going left.
The purpose of the maze was to promote agritourism, something that I would argue is a good reason to go to Oklahoma and closely tied to its roots (pardon the pun) and worth taking pride it. It was much more fun than SF's Pride event or Folsom Street fair. And, thankfully, there were no 68 year old guys parading around with their pierced scrotom. If they were there, things were appropriately tucked away in their overalls.
We begged off on the tractor ride, but we both took three shots on the corn cannon.