The Center Of The Universe

They say the universe is ever expanding, but the cultural center
of the universe is conveniently located closer than you might
think. withinpodcast.com


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The Center of the Universe


 


Welcome to the 101st episode of Within The Realm, I’m your host
Steve Garrett.


It’s a big proposition to get started on the next 100 stories
from Within The Realm. Some may wonder, how does a fella have so
many tales tucked away in his mind. Folks that know me well, know
that I have a million of ‘em and they wish I would hush, at least
for a little bit. Well, the good news is that today is not a day
I feel inclined to hush, so we’ll move forward with our story for
today after we hear from the good folks that help me bring you
our show. After that I have a story about the center of the
universe, it’s closer than you might think.


(music/Commercials/stinger)


Thanks for inviting me back to your podcast listening device. Be
sure to check out the show notes in the info on this episode for
news about the show & how to contact us. We would love to
hear from you.


This episode might reveal my roundabout way of dealing with a
story. I can’t seem to follow a straight line from one end of a
story to the next, but hopefully that makes them interesting. I
tell stories that come from the place where the Great Plains, the
Ozark Mountains and the Indian Territory collide. A lot of people
refer to it as “Fly Over Country” and for a lot of folks they do
exactly that, Fly over it on their way to more supposedly
interesting places.


One thing those people don’t know is the Center of the Universe
lies beneath them as they jet from coast to coast. The Center of
the Universe is in Tulsa, just off 1st and Boston. At this
location there is a small circle of concrete in a wide spot on a
walking path where a person can stand & hear their
conversational tone echoed back to them, but then step off of
that circle no echo is produced. Folks come from near & far
to hear for themselves & leave satisfied they have
experienced something weird.


There are those that try to explain away the phenomenon, saying
it has something to do with the curved concrete seating on either
side of the spot constructed several years ago that produces the
echo. They can try to explain it with Science, but those that
reside Within The Realm know it’s a mystery of the ever expanding
variety.


But the first to point out Oklahoma’s centralness to the Cosmos
was the great Oklahoma folksinger, songwriter, actor &
quantum philosopher Hoyt Axton. You may remember him as the Dad
in Gremlins or from his song Della & the Dealer from the 70s.
You DO remember him as the songwriter that gave us Never Been To
Spain, The Pusher & the one about the Bullfrog named
Jeremiah, Joy To The World.


Hoyt was often quoted as saying Oklahoma was the cultural center
of the universe. Now that always got a laugh from the folks on
either coast, thinking about this place as devoid of anything
good. After all the bright lights are in New York and LA.


On this one, I’m a disciple of the Bard from Duncan, if we push
the boundaries out to incorporate all of that place I call Within
The Realm, I think I can make a pretty strong argument that Fly
Over Country is, in fact, the cultural center of the universe.


This part of the world has been settled for some time, but really
didn’t fill up til late in the game. It was very much a part of
that frontier that Fredrick Jackson Turner based his thesis on,
the one Professor Greg Jackson reminded us in the last episode
went something like “the frontier made America or the Frontier
was the most American thing that America ever America’d.” I put
it another way, many of those folks were kicked out of every
other decent place in the world and came here.


This place was diverse, culturally speaking. Just taking that
Center of the Universe location in Tulsa as an example, within
just a few blocks of that site, you have the Muskogee Tribes
Council Oak, the place where the members of that band of Native
Americans met and conferred long before Oklahoma was a State.
Within Walking distance from there is the Greenwood District, the
Black Wall Street, where a vibrant African American community
thrived. And of course downtown Tulsa, owing its very existence
to those that came here to make a living from what came out of
the ground. Many communities in this vast part of the country had
similar communities.


Not everything was perfect, but strong communities existed in
this place. Out of those strong but separate cultures came the
Negro Baseball Leagues, Wild West Shows, Kansas City Jazz &
Western Swing. Those same communities produced Will Rogers, Walt
Disney, Woody Guthrie & Langston Hughes.


And as all that was brewing, Railroads funneled people through
Kansas City and Route 66, the Mother Road was built right through
the Ozarks, Indian Territory and the Great Plains in the 1920s.
This was the road that the “Okies” used in their escape to
California in the Great Depression. The term Okie, at least to
the Californians who saw them as undesireables in their fair
State, applied to all those that came through Oklahoma on their
exodus to the west, be they from Texas, Arkansas or Missouri. But
once it was all said and done 15% of the population of Oklahoma
had headed for the jobs in the fields and the cities they hoped
awaited them in the Golden State.


This was the first great export of the Within The Realm culture.
The Okies took with them their culture just as Will Rogers was
the number one box-office draw and Walt Disney and the slew of
Kansas City animators like Fritz Freeling and Ub Iwerks, were
revolutionizing animation. Count Basie was spreading the
popularity of the Kansas City style jazz & radio Station
KVOO, the Voice of Oklahoma, was broadcasting the music of Bob
Wills and the Texas Playboys across the west.


But even after the Depression & World War II, folks from this
part of the world made an impact everywhere. The folk music trend
of the 50s & 60s was greatly influenced by Woody Guthrie,
Oklahoman Jimmy Webb penned some of the greatest love songs of
the 60s, including Wichita Lineman & By The Time I Get to
Phoenix about a lovelorn Okie headed back to Oklahoma.


Newscaster Walter Cronkite, science fiction author Robert
Heinlein & radio commentator Paul Harvey spread their Fly
Over Country sentimentality to their audiences. S. E. Hinton, a
young writer from the middle of nowhere wrote “The Outsiders”
that influenced generations of young people.


Long before Garth Brooks was the biggest thing ever in Country
music, Ozarkian Porter Waggoner delivered Dolly Parton to the
World and Eric Clapton regularly scoured the Tulsa scene for
backing musicians. Leon Russell, the Master of Time and Space,
influenced passels of musicians including a young Reginald
Kenneth Dwight, who later became known as Elton John.


And we’re only scratching the surface of what this place has
offered to the rest of the world. I haven’t even mentioned Cherry
Mash, the ICEE or Kool-Aid.


So, for those of you who live Within The Realm, you know who you
are, there’s lots of history and background in this area. It’s
more than just trivia. It’s a part of the fabric of our country,
a country that has an outsized impact of the world. The influence
of the people of the place even stretches into the depths of
space. Remember it was a Kansas farm boy that discovered Pluto
& four men from our little region have walked on or orbited
the moon, Alan Bean, Edgar Mitchell, Tom Stafford & Ronald
Evans.


And then for you folks that have never known the pleasures of
living in this stretch of country, those of you who wonder what
in the world those folks you are flying over might be doing down
there. You might be surprised to know how much the music you
listen to, the literature you read and content you consume was
created right here...or even how the ability to fly over said
region was developed here. There’s always more to the story here
Within The Realm, the Cultural Center of the Universe. Plenty
more stories for another 100 or so episodes. (music)


Thanks for joining me today on this episode of Within The Realm.
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Within The Realm is written & produced by me, Steve Garrett.
Our theme music is provided by 5561/2,


Join us in another two weeks for a trek Within The Realm. And as
always, thanks for listening.