Those Who Live in Grass Houses

West Oklahoma

West Oklahoma

When I first came to the states, I lived for a while in Oklahoma. It was no more than a few months but, in that short time, I developed a deep love for the landscape of the west of the state. Out there, around Lawton, the great plains hold sway but there is a ridge that heads west from the town, proceeding all the way in ever lowering steps to the border with the Texas panhandle.

Apart from the hills gradually disappearing into the flatness as one travels west, the plains stretch in a huge vastness and expanse of bleached blue sky to the horizon. The towns are few along that road, little places that time forgot and left in the fifties. Houses lean away from the winds and storefronts are decorated with rusting and peeled advertisements for Coke and Burma-Shave, the dry dust is ever present and wooden boards skeletal in the heat.

Out on the open road, the harvested cotton fields spread their white and floating remnants over the fence to line the edges with litter like plastic bags. In places the tumbleweed collects against those same fences, trapped by the wind until it changes.

Over the border, the road becomes black and well tended, farms are neat and prosperous, and Oklahoma becomes a distant memory. Yet still it calls, with dreams of a simpler life and beliefs that never change. The plains always remind me of the endless distances of Africa and its good red earth spread like a tablecloth on its vast plateau. There was something about Oklahoma that unites with my memories of Africa and turns and twists with it in a dance of nostalgia.

The cultures were so similar in the fifties and sixties, as well as the land being alike. I remember so well the drive-in restaurants and theatres, things that made sense in lands with so much space and little rain. Gone now from both of them, but there is much else that remains.

Once again, I turn out to be a creature of too many homes and none that will really own me.


House Martell

Word count: 357
For The North Remembers, Western World Task 48
Prompt: Write about a State or Country you like. Highlights, culture, etc.