Tales From the Burning Prairie

I will walk into the night
the coldest, blackest night.
And whisper my secrets
only to myself.
See my secrets
hanging in the air, bare.
I will be exposed if only
someone learns to read my breath.

My mother sings opera. Not in an opera company, not even in the shower. No, Mom’s favorite venue is the car.
Mom is the world’s worst, all-time champion, backseat driver. I hate driving with her. She bounces and squirms in her seat like her pants have tacks in them; and frequently grabs the “Oh crap!” handle. She can’t stop yelling the obvious, some examples: “There’s a car in front of you.” “Oh, it’s turning!” “Watch it!” “Look out!”, and the like. This from the woman who…I’ll get into that later.
Now, I’ll admit that I didn’t start out my driving career very well. No one does. There were fender benders, tickets, one totaled car. And I have a scar under my lower lip from trying to eat my steering wheel. But it has been over 20 years now, and I like to think that I have vastly improved in that time.
Driving in Oklahoma can present some unique oppurtunities to hone one’s skill behind the wheel. I have driven on gravel, dirt, pavement and pasture; over rickety trestle bridges, narrow wood-plank bridges, dams and deadman’s curves; on two-lane country roads, six-lane expressways, clogged city streets and stretches of old Route 66. When we lived in Chicago, I learned to deal, successfully, with Great Big City driving. Heck, I even won a show-down with a Chicago city bus. Since I had the kids, I’ve even slowed down considerably.
While still pushing the speed limit (ok, higher), I think I’m a pretty reasonable driver. Not so, my mother, she’s scary. My sister won’t even let her drive her own car when they’re together. My favorite part is Mom’s Philosophy of Lights. Part One goes like this: slow down to a crawl when approaching a green light, because it may turn yellow. This first part makes absolutely no sense when taken with Part Two: put the pedal to the floor if the light turns yellow.
So, Mom’s backseat driving has a slightly hypocritical flavor to it. But this is nothing compared to what she does to my Dad. Poor, poor Daddy, he doesn’t deserve it. He always obeys all traffic laws and is always aware of what the guy in the next car over is doing. This, by the way, frequently inspires my Dad to use his harshest language, “What a jerk!” He’s a clean-living guy, my Daddy.
These admirable qualities have no effect on Mom’s behavior. Not only does she go through her customary gyrations, complete with stomping on her imaginary brake pedal, she adds a vocal component.
In an amazingly loud, soprano, vibrato voice she sings, “Bob!” That’s my Dad as if you hadn’t guessed. “Bob, you’re getting too close to that car!” “Bob, the car is turning!” She is a diva and this is her aria. It’s really quite astounding, not only the singing, but that my Daddy doesn’t veer into oncoming traffic when she does it.
The truly awful thing is-she’s starting to rub off on me! I really try not to backseat drive Hubby; I only do so when he really is fixin’ to hit someone. (He’s laughing as he reads this.) What I mean is, in certain times of stress, I go operatic.
One winter we had a bit of a mouse problem, they were everywhere and the cat just ignored them. We put out traps and the mice weren’t interested. One even got into the trash. I had put a bag out in the garage for Hubby to carry to the curb. When I went out later to start a wash, I heard a rustling behind me. After some looking about, I saw the trash bag moving! Even knowing about our infestation, I was sure there was a snake in the bag, I was betting cobra.
Hubby heard me all the way inside the house, over the washing machine and TV, when I launched into a chorus of “Oh my gosh, there’s something in the bag!”
My future plans don’t include joining the Met, but it seems like my family can look forward to many more years of “Opera Hubby”.

As I get older, I find myself less willing to let my friends go without a fight. Maybe I’ve mellowed as I stare 40 in the face. As a girl and very young woman, I had no trouble walking away from relationships. A careless word, an unkind deed, a slight (real or imagined), any offense of my “delicate” sensibilities and I would drop a friend like he or she were made of fire.
Just think back to when we were kids. It didn’t matter if it was across town or across the country, if you moved (or your best friend moved), you could count on that friendship being over. All vows to the contrary, the calls or letters would slowly taper off, the visits would get harder and harder to arrange, and the friendship would die of neglect. And even though they had been children sometime back in the dark ages, your parents just could not understand why you were so upset. “You’ll make all new friends!” Never quite comprehending that even if the mean kids at the new school decided to gather you into the fold, no one could ever fill that friend-shaped hole in your heart.
For me, that scenario played out when my parents moved us when I was nine. Where once I had been a happy, well-liked child, all of a sudden I was the new kid. Ouch. Memory and perception are funny things, but it sure seems like every time I opened my heart to new people it invariably got ripped out of my chest and handed to me. By high school, I had built up some pretty good defenses and could let friends walk away, or walk away myself, and not be too affected by it. Then, my freshman year of college, I made a friend, one that I refuse to let go. We have pissed each other off, done and said mean things to each other, yet we always work things out. Even a whole state away, I know I can call her and ask anything of her and I hope she knows the same of me. She taught me how to be a wife by teaching me how to be a friend.
This past Fall, something terrible happened, I received a notice of my High School Twenty Year Reunion. Yikes. That put me in mind of all the friends I had simply abandoned since then. I realized that we all let too many loved ones go too often and for too many reasons. I was never popular, so I set about finding my friends from back in the day, so I would have someone to sit with in a sea of virtual strangers. Selfish, maybe, but I have reconnected with several old friends. And I’ve filtered those pesky memories and perceptions through an older, hopefully wiser, me.
Friends, like oil, aren’t the unlimited resource I believed way back when, they won’t just drop into my lap anymore. I was inexcusably mean to a couple of very nice boys, and unaccountably nice to several rotten boys (you know who you are). Hopefully, when everything shakes out, on the whole, I was nicer than meaner. The town where I grew up, that I thought I hated, turned out to be a pretty nice place to grow up. And that Twentieth Reunion? It was nowhere near as painful as I had feared. Even though only one girl friend was there with me, two of my favorite boys showed up (thanks Brad and James).
I have spent some time since contacting old friends and renewing those relationships. So in answer to your question Jeremy, the how is unimportant, the why is all. And that why is this: all of you, my old friends, had a hand in shaping the person I am today and I wanted to say “Thank you.” If I was nicer than meaner to you, that is to my good fortune. And if I was meaner than nicer, let me say mea culpa, I plead youth and ignorance. My long-suffering husband and beautiful children have made me a wiser, less self-involved person and I’m a much better friend now.
Come visit me on the burning prairie and let me tell you a story.

CHAPTER 1 – WELL
I turned 15 the summer we moved to Post. That was also the summer that my older sister, Lou, threw herself down a well. Or tried to, anyway; she got stuck on the way down.
Lou was upset about moving. I’m not sure that she really meant to kill herself, if so, she failed miserably. But she did succeed in humiliating herself, completely. My sister, golden-haired beauty, cheerleader, straight-A student, homecoming queen, became the town joke.
In a fit of desperation or drama, Lou decided to drown herself in the historic Town Well in the middle of the historic Town Square. She neglected to compare the size of her big old butt with the width of the well and reached her point of no return with her head, shoulders and arms above the rim of the well.
The firefighters and the demolition crew were very professional and didn’t laugh at Lou, at least not to her face. They called our parents and we all arrived to find my perfect sister causing the biggest spectacle the town had ever seen. Everyone turned out and she became the event of the season.
My father immediately began discussing the financials with the mayor. My mother sat in the car with her face in her hands, not speaking, but occasionally making a sort of choking moaning sound. I, on the other hand, had one of the best times of my life. Unlike my mother, I realized that Lou’s unfortunate behavior reflected badly mostly on Lou.
I laughed so long and so hard that I had an asthma attack, had to take a hit off my inhaler, and sit on the ground with me head between my knees. One of firemen actually asked, “Miss, are you well?” which made me laugh even more.
The cause of my mirth was finally released from the grip of the old well. She was scraped down both sides from waist to knees. What we couldn’t see while Lou was in the well, was that she had worn a lovely, white eyelet dress for the occasion. I think the imagery of a desperate girl in a flowing, white dress plunging to her doom was too tempting for Lou to ignore. That girl should have been an actress.
While Lou suffered no permanent, physical damage, the same can’t be said for that poor old well. The town fathers had it patched back together, but it was never the same again. Nobody had remembered to number the rocks as they were removed. The workmen did the best they could by looking at old pictures, but when they were done, the well’s rim was higher on one side and the whole thing leaned slightly to the north.
The drive home was painful. Lou sat in the back, trying to ignore the points and stares, and “ouch”-ing at every bump in the road. In an unusual fit of sympathy for my sister, I just patted Lou’s hand and knee and kept my hundred jokes to myself. Dad didn’t say one word all the way home; he just drove, white-lipped and white-knuckled, head thrust slightly forward. Mom, however, couldn’t not talk.
“Lou, what were you thinking? I expect this kind of behavior from your sister, but not from you. Your father will probably have to pay a fortune to fix that moldy, old well. Oh, it’s a good thing we’re moving in week. If we weren’t, we’d have to anyway, because how could I ever show my face in town again. This just looks bad, what will the neighbors think or my bridge club, not to mention the church. My own daughter, trying to…oh, I just can’t say it; at least you had the decency not to succeed. Just think what that would’ve done to my good name.
“Now, honey, I know you’re upset about moving, but it’s not like you’d even be here. You’re going to college in the fall. Out of state, thank God, maybe you won’t know anyone and no one will ever find out about this. And you are not to tell anybody about this shameful episode. I will not have my good name and reputation sullied all over creation, do you understand me, young lady?”
Mom’s concern for her “good name” had been only momentarily sidetracked by a smidgen of concern for Lou, then right back to her public shame!
“You don’t see Ana (that’s me) making this kind of fuss over moving and she’s the one who has to go a new school.” (Wait for it.) “Well, it’s not as if she has any friends worth crying over, and God knows she hasn’t joined any of the activities you loved so much,” (She doesn’t disappoint.) “But she’s still handling this better than you.”
Well, Mom’s harangue continued through the drive, into the garage, into the house, up the stairs, and all the way to Lou’s room. I know how bad this sounds, but I was relieved that, for once, Mom’s Marathon Mental Mugging wasn’t aimed at me.
I was just getting comfortable, when my mother stuck her head in the door. She gave my room a withering glance, arched the Eyebrow of Doom my way, sniffed once and closed the door. The poor soul seemed disappointed that she couldn’t, somehow, find something to ding me over.
About five minutes later, there was a soft knock on my door. Before I could answer, it opened and Lou slipped in and limped her way to my desk chair.
“Ana, she just doesn’t understand, I just don’t want to move.” The girl had obviously mistaken me for an ally. “Even if it’s only holidays and breaks, this is home. You can’t understand, either, because you don’t have my friends or boyfriends. I know I’ll never have friends like these again,” she said to me.
“Look, Lou, maybe that’s a good thing. I’ve met your friends; they only care about keg parties at the Indian Cemetery and sleeping around. And I’ve seen your weekend hickey collections, which you try to hide on Sunday mornings. Besides, you won’t have anything in common with them when you do come home. They’ll still all be at the cemetery or in the back seat of some guy’s car,” I told her, but I don’t think she listened to me. She seemed to use that time to rehearse what she would say next.
And this is what she said next, “My life will never be the same. No one will ever understand me the way Kath and Susan do!” She continued, her hand over her heart, “No one else will ever….” I’d had enough.
“God, Lou, shut up! Enough drama for one day, don’t you think?” She looked surprised, but I pressed on, “Your life may change, but mine won’t. It always sucks.”
When she realized that I wasn’t going to let her practice her dramatic monologue, she stood, huffed and limped her way back out.
But I was wrong. My life was about to change. Since any change was good, it was about to get better.

I love the weather. Not just any weather, mind you, Oklahoma weather is the kind I love. There’s a chance we could have our first taste of storm season later this morning. I hope it’s not too bad; I can hope that the clouds will release gentle, soaking rains upon the land. We do so need a season off, a season when we can be thankful for what we get, and not shake our fists at the merciless sky. Season after season of drought and fire were followed by not one, but three, destructive winter storms. It was really surprising; our winters are usually so soft, our snows so gentlemanly. I have never seen snow and ice last so long-it generally makes a graceful exit after three days, leaving behind only brown grass and dirty lumps of snow that used to be snowmen.
This time, that mean north wind blew south across the Kansas plains into this hard land, a most unwelcome guest. This visitor brought shadows of memories. Memories of pioneers and Natives, alike, braving the snows and winds in their lodges and cabins, soddies and wagons. I imagined that the wind carried the cries and calls of those that couldn’t brave the weather. Then the snow fell, and all the voices were muffled in deep, white silence, gone properly to their graves.
Spring might bring resurrection, but she also brings the wilding; a whirling chaos follows in her wake. Lightening, thunder, rain so hard it hurts, hail like leftover snowballs hardened to stone all shake loose like dust from her skirts. Tornadoes rewrite the land, like an author starting over her story. Spring is nature so big and deified that we are forced to bow and cower before her in desperate supplication that she won’t take anything we love. Too often she does, and we hardy Oklahomans do as we have always done-endure.
The heat of summer is fuel to the soul. In August, you can wear it. The air is so heavy I can feel it on my skin like a damp, itchy woolen sweater. I don’t like to air condition my house too much, I like to retain a little of the character of the heat. When it’s too chilled inside, the heat is a remove away, the blazing sun no longer sitting down next to me. The fire that lives in the souls of those from here is stoked every summer; every day of 90 plus is a load of soul coal to light and warm us through the cold, dark night of winter. When I bask in Summer’s joyous fire like a salamander, I have its hot breath on my neck and its heavy arm on my shoulder all year. For every day when the heat threatens to suck all the air from my lungs, I am rewarded with a day’s memory of warmth. Summer here is a trial to be endured, and when we do endure, we become stronger. This is a hard land that has spawned a tough people. We the people are merged from cowboys and Indians, oilmen and farmers, white and red, black and brown, and shades in between, city slickers and rednecks, rich and poor, young and old, man and woman. We are tough because we have to be, because we are bred to be.
Fall is usually our reward for the harshness of Winter, the destruction of Spring, and the endurance test of Summer. Fall is mild; football weather with only the slightest promise of cold and the barest remnant of heat. Trees shake off their newly colorful apparel to carpet the quickly browning grass. May this Fall not be like the last: too warm, too dry, too windy. the many grass fires left the air heavy with ash. The smell of the burning prairie left the taste of charcoal at the back of my throat. But first, we must see what this Spring has in store for us-will she smile as she softly creeps in, or will she once again pound on the door in her fury and force her way in, only time will tell the tale. And, for tonight, my tale is told.

Welcome to Tales From the Burning Prairie, I am your storyteller, Burning Prairie. In this of-the-now form of communication, I wish to continue the old tradition of storytelling.
Oklahoma is rich with storytelling and storytellers. We are situated just so; kind of Southern, sort of Southwestern. Both regions are home to long, grand traditions of storytellers, tall-talers, fibbers, liars, raconteurs, tricksters, wits, gossips, preachers, teachers, and just plain talkers.
My personal history is much like my state’s history with its marriage of cultures: cowboy and Indian. My lineage includes cattlemen, pioneers, and dirt-poor country people all with tales to tell-of covered wagons, outlaws, and simple country life. I am also an Indian, a registered member of the Cherokee Nation. Cherokees have always valued their storytellers, because all history was oral history until Sequoyah invented our alphabet and brought us the “talking leaves”.
Storytelling is as old as homo sapiens. Cavemen would huddle around the fire and tell each other tales of good water, coming winter, and the mammoth that got away. But what they were really doing was telling themselves about themselves, defining who they were and who they would become.
There is nothing the human animal enjoys more than talking about him- or herself. We want to crouch around the campfire and hold forth on our favorite subject, ourselves. I want to talk about me; you want to talk about you, but we don’t want to sound too full of ourselves, so we tell stories. You can tell so much more about a person from his colorful, almost-certainly-not-entirely-true, stories, than you can from a dry recitation of facts.
Some time post-caveman, we invented books and began writing down our stories. By and by, along came radio. People would gather around the big radio in the parlor, the steady glow of the dial replacing the flickering light of the fire. We still sit around, warming ourselves in good company, but now the storytellers use TV and movies, and blogs.
So, gather ’round the fire, and let me tell you a story.