The oil capital of the world

The title of this column is what Tulsa, Okla., used to be called. I don't know if it still is or not. My mom and dad moved there in the late 50s and, after a long deliberation with the rest of my extended family, it was decided that I would stay in Arkansas during the school year because no one wanted to take me out of a small school and put me in a large one.

Mom and dad would come home every Friday night and then drive back to Tulsa on Sunday afternoon and, in the summers, I would go stay with them. Because of that, Tulsa will always hold a special place in my heart. They lived on a street with lots of kids and all of us became friends quickly and easily. We would play baseball games in my backyard, flirt with the girls who lived behind us on the next street over, go to the bowling alley which was only two blocks away and bowl our hearts away at 35 cents a game.

At the time, Tulsa had a double A baseball team called the Oilers that was part of the St. Louis Cardinals farm system and my dad would take me to games regularly. The most exciting baseball player I ever saw was Julian Javier, the shortstop for the Oilers, and eventually the Cardinals. He made some of the most incredible plays I've ever seen made by a shortstop, not only then but ever since then. They would have all kinds of promotions to get people in the park and one night they were giving away 50,000 S&H green stamps (remember Green stamps?) to anyone who correctly predicted the total number of runs, hits, and errors by both teams. I and one other person were lucky enough to do that and we were presented with our prize a week later at home plate during the 7th inning break. For a little kid, that was one of the most exciting things that had ever happened to me.

There was a smell that hung in the air over Tulsa back then that was like nothing I had ever smelled before or since, due to all the oil refineries operating at capacity day and night over in West Tulsa. It was the smell of oil. A lot of people who lived in Tulsa said it was actually the smell of money. Many people didn't like it but, for some reason, I did. Even today, remnants of that smell still hang in the air on certain days and any time I'm in Tulsa and get a whiff, I become nostalgic for those several summers I spent there with my folks.

The big thing for kids back then was collecting baseball cards since there obviously was no Internet, no Wii's, PlayStations or X boxes, and no cell phones. My dad would always have a box of ball cards waiting on me when I arrived for the summer and he had made friends with the proprietor of a drug store close to our house who would tell my dad when a new shipment would come in so I could get first dibs at them. Some of the cards were extremely rare and those were coveted by everyone who knew what a baseball card was. Trading among friends was a regular activity because everyone wanted to put together the best set of cards they could possibly have. Sometimes we would divide the cards up into teams, lay them out on the floor in the positions each player actually played, take a knife and a marble, throw the marble in the air, hit it with the handle of the knife and if the marble hit a card, the player was out. If it didn't, we would argue and debate about what kind of hit it was. It was a pretty rudimentary game obviously and compares in no way to the games kids play today but we could play it for hours on end and love every minute of it.

Spending summers in Tulsa was adventure living, as Opie on the Andy Griffith show called it. It was the difference between the big city and the small town and I loved them both. I had friends and girlfriends in both places and it was almost like living in a parallel universe. I couldn't wait for school to be out so I could spend the summer in Tulsa but along about the first of August I was ready to go back to Arkansas to be with my family and friends there and do all the things you do when school is in session.

For many of us, there are certain songs that transport us back to a particular time and place and I heard one of those songs just the other day; "I Only Have Eyes For You" by the Flamingos. I was madly in love for a period of time with Linda Kaye Nally, a girl a year younger than me that lived next door to my parents in Tulsa and every time I hear that song, I can see her face and hear her voice just like she was actually standing next to me.

Sometimes it's fun to reminisce.