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If you don’t read a thing of
this journal you must at least click on these beautiful pictures of the area
we drove through to get to Fairfax, Oklahoma.
http://www.pbase.com/ron9ron/flint_hills/
The ride is always smooth as
silk over these modern highways and a far cry from how the original folks
had to bump over them in their wagons and even the Model T’s were not the
most comfortable of transportation. A person would have to be totally
insensitive not to feel the vast, untamed beauty of the pastures stretching
out as far as the eye can see. If new cars in their speed hold true to the
road and give us only a tease of the view as we zip along this is okay. A
taste is better than none at all, we feel.
At the corner on the central
part of main street Fairfax is the ancient bank that could it speak might
tell stories so fantastic they would be hard to believe. This is where we
were meeting for the Fairfax Historical Society and their monthly meeting.
The oil wealth of another day seemed to be sealed in this place where
history was now standing still. How humble I felt and wished that I was
there for one of those to speak. How much more they could tell than I knew.
Nevertheless, I was prepared with artifacts of my own through the antique
photographs where my family posed in Sunday best clothing for some
photograph who came to Fairfax and Ralston, a town only minutes away.
How gracious and appreciative
were these seniors as I shared the antique photographs and spoke briefly of
one or the other. These gentle people were descendants of friends of my own
family and I felt at home. They, who were empathetic to my tired body after
a day of spring yard work, made me a companion of their, too. If they only
knew it was I who was hungry to hear the words my father spoke, names of
Native men and women, Tish a Walla, Tall Chief, Old man John Stink and so
many others.
From the time I had been
there before this handful of people had created a museum that could be
called unequal to any. No matter that it was small, the history it holds is
rare. Who else can tell the stories of beautiful Indian maidens who became
world known ballerinas as the Tall Chief girls did. I forgot my camera, but
promise to go back and do a visual recording. |
