#755 Hadron Supercollider of Oklahoma

Forty years ago in June 1979 with a newly printed computer science degree in hand, I landed in Oklahoma.

It's odd to think about it now but Oklahoma had only been a state for seven decades at that time and it was a hadron supercollider of a place.

According to Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, its Chaotic Founding... its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis, “Oklahoma was a hadron supercollider of a place. People and creatures were thrown together from distant points and at unpredictable angles, again and again and again and again.  Despite its relative material poverty, its lack of obvious treasure, Oklahoma always had this unusual talent for improvised community.”

That improvised community is what I discovered upon my arrival in Bartlesville.  Many holding brand new bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees, all kinds of cool people came together from distant points in order to support the growing technical and research needs of Phillips Petroleum Company.

What an exciting time!  Somewhat like the folks that collided during the land rush of 1889, we software developers and such collided a century later in the 1980s and became involved members of the Phillips and Bartlesville community.  We started our careers; we played at something every night of the week; and we developed lifelong friendships. 

In addition to people collisions, the air was also known to collide with the ground.  Once during my seven years in Bartlesville, the town was hit by a tornado on Monday evening, March 15, 1982. (Beware the ides of March!)  The tornado was an F2 (strong) twister based on estimated wind speeds of 113 to 157 miles per hour but I escaped unharmed from the safe confines of my bathtub.

Tornado in 1982 worst in past 50 years

https://www.examiner-enterprise.com/article/20160403/NEWS/304039988

A family member of mine has also come to love Bartlesville for reasons completely different from my own.  The architectural gems by Bruce Goff went unnoticed by me all those years ago but these creative collisions of glass and stone now get lots of my attention.

Looking back on my first adult home, Bartlesville was the ideal spot to begin my post-college adulthood and that's because Bartlesville was a hadron supercollider of a place.

Yours in gratitude for the 46th state,
Mary

#459 Neighbors again

We've enjoyed fabulous neighbors through the years.  Now our worlds collide on Semester At Sea. 

Theresa and I started our computer programming careers on the same day - working for the Technical Services Division, Phillips Petroleum Company in Bartlesville, OK - and we lived a couple of blocks apart on Cherokee Avenue.   Little did we know that three decades later, Theresa, her husband Paul, and I would be sailing around the world together.  (See Theresa's blog.)

When the NCAA took us to Indianapolis, our next door neighbors welcomed us warmly to the Crossroads of America.  Dick and Dorane are Semester at Sea veterans and are the folks who first told us about the program back in 2003.

We are thrilled to be together again with all of our neighbors and officially celebrated our reunion with carne de sol and sardine pizza at Scarola's Restaurant in Manaus, Brazil.

 

And we continue to celebrate each day as we are all neighbors on the MV Explorer - fourth deck, port side.

Yours in loving the neighborhood,
Mary

#372 Carol and Spring

My dear friend Carol would have been 50 today.

Even though we lost her in 2000, I always remember her on the first day of spring - and every other day of the year.

I think about Carol

when I play the piano
when I listen to the music from the Phantom of the Opera
when I curl up under the music throw in front of the television
when I chat with Carol's mom
when I hear a good laugh

when I remember our first jobs at Phillips Petroleum Company and the annual Halloween parties

when I order a Coke with extra ice at Sonic

when I watch kites fly

when Spring comes

and when I think about the important things in my life.

Yours in remembering Carol,
Mary

#353 OKLAHOMA!

Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.

Right out of college, Phillips Petroleum offered to pay me a whopping $17,000 for a year's worth of computer programming. So, I jumped all over that and moved to Bartlesville, OK. It was the perfect place for me. To relive my Oklahoma years (the 1980s), I rounded up a passel of non-Okie friends on Saturday night and we headed over to the theater to see the Rodgers and Hammerstein account of Oklahoma life. Richard and Oscar got it exactly right - that's just how I remember life in Oklahoma.

To continue my walk down memory lane, I've been busy scanning photos. Here's a volleyball photo from 1980 - I'm the geeky one sitting on the court.

I've added some of these pictorial gems to our photos page. (Scroll down until you get to the really old ones.) If I knew you in Bville in the 1980s, then you might find yourself here. You'll for sure find plenty of heart and plenty of hope.

Yours in O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A OKLAHOMA!
Mary

#346 Halloween Review

Halloween has been a lot of fun through the years. 1980 in Bartlesville as a tea bag with my friend Bruce the pirate 1981

in Bartlesville as Joe Miner - the Missouri University of Science and Technology mascot

1994 in Overland Park as MisSpell along with MisConduct (Tonya Harding) and MisAdventure

2006 on board the MV Explorer as each other

No costumes for us in 2008 - your Halloween will be spooky enough without it!

Yours in sharing scary photos,
Mary