Entry
Eighty-Nine.
Thursday, 2009.03.19, 1:44 AM CST.
Lost
Tulsa is one of the greatest sites ever.
Hello,
everyone.
I'm
sitting here in my living room, watching the video for Elton John's
"Empty Garden" on YouTube. It's not one of his better-known
songs; it's a tribute song he recorded 1982, after the death of John
Lennon.
I
first saw this video around 1982-1983 on UHF channel 23, which eventually
would grow up to become Tulsa's Fox 23. Until I looked it up on
YouTube this morning, I
quite literally had not watched the video for over 20 years. The
song is still beautiful, and the video still makes me as teary-eyed
as it did back then, when I was not yet even a teen.
Life
is going okay. I'm gearing up for the big Depeche Mode party on
April 24th; I'll post more about it soon. Work is good, and my
son is getting smarter and smarter. (He actually said "Einstein"
a couple of days ago. Lanna and I were thrilled.)
I've
been busy with lots of stuff, some family-related, some not. I
even took a few moments recently to go out to the cemetary and visit
my mom's grave. My dad finally got her a gravestone a while back.
Along with all the standard descriptive information, there one special
message, in big bold letters, that she had requested while on her deathbed:
"So long." That's right. My mom actually wanted
the words "So long" on her headstone. It was her little
way of injecting some final joy and humour into something as dismal
as her own passing, right up to the end.
That's
not really what I want this entry to be about, though.
I
want to tell you about a website called Lost
Tulsa.
For
those of you who are not familiar, Lost Tulsa is quite possibly the
greatest online photographic resource dedicated to documenting the various
things Tulsa is losing and has lost: Businesses, landmarks, etc.
The webmaster, a gentleman named Tom, is very passionate about preserving
these precious memories - mostly photographic sets of his own, with
a few from outside contributors.
My
favourite features on the site include:
- The
first Christmas at Woodland Hills Mall.
- Eastland
Mall, both abandoned and after its "Eastgate" transformation.
- Bell's
Amusement park, both reopening after the microburst of 2006 and being
(senselessly) torn apart in 2007.
- The
Metro Diner, shortly before its (also senseless) destruction.
- Two
features on Peaches Records.
If none
of these items are familiar to you, then you have either lived in Tulsa
for a very short time, or you're just too young to care. When
I was much younger, I didn't realize how incredibly valuable and powerful
photographs like the ones on LostTulsa would be. These days, as
I get older and older, and closer and closer to my inevitable demise,
I find myself clamouring for memories like a guy in a puddle of quicksand,
desperately reaching out for nearby vegetation.
I hope
Lost Tulsa is never torn down like so many of its subjects. As
I told Tom in one of my comments in an Eastland photoset, his website
is extremely important. It is an archive of so many valuable places...
pictures of venues and special events that brought joy to thousands
of Tulsans as well as visitors, and will never be experienced again.
If you've
never been to Lost Tulsa, the link bears repeating. You may visit
the site here.
Thank you,
Badger |
